Page 259 of ClickBack

“I’ll see you out there.”

“I’ll be looking.”

Zion walks slowly. I feel him concentrate on it, Rae on my other side with her arm through mine. I had worried about looking at the guests, about all those faces turned toward me at once. Then I see Jarrett, and I want Zion to hurry.

Javon says something beside him. Jarrett doesn’t answer. He is watching me come down the aisle, and when I reach him he takes my hand before the officiant can finish telling us where to stand.

Rae kisses me. Zion hugs my waist and shakes Jarrett’s hand as seriously as if they have just concluded a business arrangement. Jarrett pulls him closer and says something near his ear that makes him smile. Then they take their seats and it is us.

Jarrett has learned his vows. I can tell where he leaves the words he practiced because he looks down at our joined hands and starts again.

“I knew I wanted you around. It took me a little longer to understand how much of my day I was already saving for you.”

I laugh through the tears. He rubs my fingers, smiling back at me.

“I want to keep doing that. I want you to know you can bring me the hard part without worrying I’ll stop wanting the rest. I’m going to get things wrong. When I do, I promise you won’t have to come looking for me to get them right.”

My own vows are on a folded sheet of paper. I get through the first sentence before I have to stop. Jarrett waits, holding my hand, while Di passes a tissue forward without leaving her seat.

“I had a whole introduction,” I tell him.

“I want to hear it.”

“It was very good.”

“I believe you.”

I laugh and find my place.

“You make me laugh when I have every intention of being difficult. You listen even when you don’t like my answer. And you have let me love you enough to find out that you need things, too.”

He looks at me more closely.

“I promise to ask. To tell you the truth. To leave room for an answer I haven’t already decided you’ll give me. And to keep choosing the life we make together, even when we have no idea yet what we’re making.”

He kisses my hand. I finish reading, but I don’t look at the page again.

When we exchange rings, his fingers are steady. Mine are not. He helps me without making a joke, and I love him so much in that moment that I nearly miss the words I am supposed to repeat.

Then the officiant tells him he may kiss his bride, and my husband takes his time.

At dinner, Bellamy delivers the first envelope while I am speaking to Rae. I keep talking until my daughter looks past me and begins to smile.

I turn. Jarrett has the picture low against the tablecloth. He looks at it, then at me, then covers it with his hand as Cole leans toward him.

“What you got?” Cole asks.

“Something that belongs to me.”

“Then why you hiding it?”

Jarrett laughs and puts it inside his jacket. Under the table his hand finds my knee.

The inscription beneath that first picture reads, You have been very patient today.

He leans toward me. “You trying to change that?”

I take a sip of champagne.