Page 312 of The Lies We Play

I let it come close.

“I am not signing as husband today. I know that. But I am standing here as the man who belongs to you both. The man who will carry what the paper can’t. The man who will stand beside you in the rooms where they can see me and wait in the rooms where they can’t until the day comes when we stop letting the world decide how much of our love is allowed to be visible.”

Halston’s hand tightens around mine.

Liv is sobbing now.

I look at Halston.

“I promise you, Hal, that I will never treat your fight like something you have to survive alone. I will not let your family convince you that love is another trap. I will remind you, as many times as it takes, that you are not the name they gave you or the damage they taught you to manage. You are mine. You are Liv’s. You are ours.”

Then I look at Liv.

“I vow to you, baby, that I will never ask you to make yourself easier to love. I will love the lists. The panic. The mouth. The mind that can turn a grocery run into an ethical debate. I will love you when you are brave and when you are tired of being brave. I will love every version of you that comes home to us.”

I look at both of them.

“And I vow to us that I will not confuse being unseen by the law with being unloved by you. I may not be on the license, but I am in this. I am in the first kiss, the third toothbrush, the trinity knot, the future we keep trying to make room for. I am in every version of forever that has your names on it.”

My breath catches.

I force the last part out.

“You are my always. Both of you. Not someday. Not when it’s safer. Not when people understand. Now. Here. I choose you now, and if the law only gives me a witness line, then I will make that line holy.”

Liv breaks.

Halston does too, though his is quiet.

His eyes close. His head dips once.

Judge Ruiz waits.

He waits long enough for the room to breathe again.

Then he reads the legal section.

The I dos.

Judge Ruiz pronounces them married.

Then he tells Halston he may kiss his wife.

Halston turns to Liv.

He kisses her once, carefully, his hand at the back of her head. Then he turns to me.

Before I can decide what my face is doing, he takes my jaw in his hand and kisses me, too.

Not long.

Just enough to tell the truth.

Chapter Forty-Two

Livia

Now . . .