Page 309 of The Lies We Play

Then at me.

His face is composed, but his eyes are not. His eyes are saying everything his mouth has not been allowed to say in public, everything he has had to place behind strategy, trusts, threat assessments, and a marriage license with too little space for the truth.

“When I was young,” Halston says, “I believed love was another form of leverage. Something people used to bind you to their plans. Something they gave with terms attached.”

His thumb moves over Liv’s knuckles.

“Then I met you.”

Liv’s eyes fill before he gets past the first sentence meant only for her.

“You walked into my life with too many opinions, too little sleep, and a heart that tried to make itself useful before it ever asked to be held. You made rooms warmer by arguing with them. You made me laugh when I didn't want to be reachable. You made me want a life that was not built around surviving my family.”

His voice shifts.

Not breaking.

Close.

“You looked at me and didn't see a last name first. You saw the man under it, even when I did everything I could to make him difficult to find.”

Liv’s mouth trembles.

Halston turns his head, just enough to include me fully.

“And Creed.”

My name in his voice almost ruins me.

“You taught me that strength can be generous. That a man can protect without owning. That loyalty doesn’t have to be loud to be absolute. You loved me before I knew how to let myself be loved by a man without looking for the cost. You loved her before I even understood I wanted to stand beside you both.”

He swallows.

I see the moment he decides not to hide.

“I am marrying Liv today because the law requires two signatures. But I am making vows to both of you because my life requires three hearts. I will not let a clerk, a form, a family, or the narrow imagination of this world make any of us less than what we are.”

Liv makes a small sound.

“I vow to choose you when it is easy. I vow to choose you when it costs us. I vow to build a place where you can stop performing bravery just to be loved.”

Then he looks at me.

“I vow to never let you stand outside this. Not in my heart. Not in our home. Not in any future I am strong enough to build.”

The room blurs for a second.

Halston says, “I can’t promise they will not come for us. I can’t promise the life I bring you will always be simple. I can promise this: if I have breath, if I have a name, if I have power, if I have nothing but my hands, I will use all of it to keep us together.”

He looks at both of us.

“I love you. Both of you. Not equally, because love is not math. Completely. Differently. With everything I was before you, everything I am because of you, and everything I will become with you.”

Liv is crying now.

I am not doing much better.

Liv lifts her free hand and wipes under one eye, which only makes another tear fall. She gives Halston a look like she might scold him for emotional misconduct if she could get oxygen into her body.