Page 55 of Cruel Kiss

15

CALI

The City Clerk's office isn't what I pictured.

I don't know what I pictured, actually. A courtroom, maybe. Something with wood paneling and a stern man in a robe. Instead, it's a boring conference room with beige walls and fake flowers in a plastic vase on a metal desk, and a line of couples out in the hallway waiting their turn, some of them dressed up, some of them in jeans.

I wore the green dress, the one from that first date at the restaurant in the West Village. I told myself it was because it's the nicest thing I own that isn't a gown, and a gown would be ridiculous for a courthouse. Not because Ronan told me once, back then, that I looked dangerous in it. Certainly not that.

Ronan's in a dark suit. No tie. He looks too good to be real, probably because he is.

Hayden stands beside me in a button-up shirt I made him tuck in. He's got his serious face on. When I explained to the kids what was happening, he asked a lot of questions—is this real, is it forever, does this mean Ronan is our dad now—and I answeredthe ones I could and dodged the ones I couldn't. He's decided his job is to be the witness. He keeps announcing that job title to anyone who will listen.I'm the witness!

Isabella is holding Doctor Fuzz's shoebox. The caterpillar became a chrysalis two days ago. She won't let it out of her sight, so it came to the wedding. She's got it clutched to her chest like a bouquet, and since I'm the one who doesn't have flowers, she's the more prepared of the two of us.

"Are you nervous, Mommy?" she asks.

"A little."

"Don't be. Mr. Ronan's not scary."

I look up. Ronan's heard it. His jaw twitches, and he crouches down to her level right there in the beige room.

"That's right," he says. "And even if I were, I'd never be scary to you. Or to your mom."

"I know." She says it like he's dumb for even suggesting otherwise. "Doctor Fuzz knows, too."

The clerk calls our names.Meadows.Akov.

We file in and stand where we're supposed to stand. Shoulders squared, just like he coached me. Hayden takes his post at the end, while Isabella sits in a plastic chair and holds the box in her lap.

The officiant is a tired woman with reading glasses on a chain. She must've done this ten thousand times, and that's just today. She runs through the mumbo-jumbo exactly like Ronan said she would, though I don't hear most of it because of the sudden-onset, emotionally-induced tinnitus in my ears.

This is paper. This is a fire drill. This is business.

Then it's the part where we speak.

"Do you have your own vows," the woman asks, "or would you like to repeat after me?"

I open my mouth to say repeat after me. That's the plan. That's what's safe.

But Ronan says, "I have something."

I whip my head around. That was not the plan. We didn't rehearsethat.We rehearsed standing and looking and the kiss, God help me, but we never once talked about him saying his own?—

He takes my hands. Both of them. Palms up first, offering, then closing around mine when I put them there on numb autopilot.

He looks at me. Not at the room. Atme.

"I'm not a good man," he says. "You know that. You've got the receipts."

The tired officiant blinks. This is not the courthouse standard, to say the least.

"I've spent my whole life taking things," Ronan goes on. "Deciding what people got to have. I did it to you, and I was wrong every single time. I know that now, even if I figured it out too late." His thumb brushes once across my knuckle. "But I'm not taking this. You're giving it. That's the only reason I get to stand here at all."

I can't breathe. This is not a fire drill. This is just a fire, period.

"I'll spend whatever I've got left keeping you safe," he swears. "You and Hayden and Isabella. Whether you want me to or not." His voice drops so low I feel it more than hear it. "This isn't a lie. It's the truth, said out loud, in front of one officiant, two children, and a caterpillar in a shoebox.”