“Take your time,” Lindy says, all while looking as though she’s about to bolt.
Just in case, I grab her hand. It’s a little clammy. Bringing it up to my lips, I press a kiss to her knuckles. She blinks at me with those wide green eyes, and I can see her trying to retreat past the wall she’s built.
Not on my watch, darlin’. Not on my watch.
I pull Mama’s ring out of my pocket. “I’m supposed to give this to you later, but I feel like now’s a good time.”
Lindy’s lips part as she stares down at the simple gold band and the single, albeit large, square diamond. She touches it with a single finger, the way you might poke a critter you find, unsure if it’s alive or dead.
“It won’t bite.”
She glares at me. “Pat—I didn’t think we were doing all this.”
“This was my mom’s ring,” I tell her.
“Oh,” she breathes.
I can feel her starting to tense, starting to pull back. Any second now, she’ll say it’s too much or I just can’t or it wouldn’t be right. And I just won’t have it. Without giving her time to form an argument, I turn over the hand I’m holding and slide the ring in place, praying it fits.
It does. Like it was made for Lindy.
“It’s beautiful,” Lindy says. “Thank you.”
“You’re beautiful.”
Suddenly, I am missing my mom. I always do. Missing her is a constant ache, like the faint stiffness in my bad ankle. But there are times even now when her absence is a runaway train, hurtling over my tracks. I wish she were here. I hate how many things she’s missing. I know she’d want to be here. And this ring makes it so in a tiny way, she is here.
I feel like I’m about to burst with happiness and simultaneously melt into a puddle of tears.
Lindy looks alarmed. “Are you okay?”
I wipe my eyes with the sleeve of my suit. “Just thinking about my mom.”
Her expression softens, and I almost fall down dead when Lindy takes my hand and squeezes. “I miss mine too,” she confesses. “I couldn’t invite her today because the doctors thought she might get upset and confused.”
Her words catch on what sounds suspiciously like a sob, and without stopping to question it, I pull my seventy-two-hour fiancée into my arms. Lindy trembles against me.
She clings to me, and I lean in, speaking softly, my lips brushing her hair. “Do you want to call this thing off?” Please say no. “Do you want to pick up your mama? Or move the ceremony to her facility?” Complicated, but doable.
I try not to hold my breath, waiting for a response. Lindy sniffs. “I’m okay,” she says, voice strong but quiet. “We’re here, so we should do it.”
I chuckle. “I didn’t realize you were such a romantic.”
“It’s a well-kept secret. Don’t tell, okay?”
“Never.”
Judge Judie chooses that moment to rap her gavel on the bench, and Lindy and I jump apart. “Are we all ready to get started?” Judge Judie asks, looking down at us.
I give Lindy my most charming, hard-to-resist smile. “Last chance to run.”
Lindy’s eyes narrow. “Is that a challenge, Patty?”
“Nah. I just need to stretch if I’m going to have to chase you.”
“We’re ready,” Lindy says to the judge. She gives Jo a quick wave. I grab Lindy’s hand again. I take it as a good sign when she doesn’t resist.
It’s the most basic of basic ceremonies, like an off-brand wedding ordered from a sketchy site online. I try not to be disappointed we’re not even reciting vows—I didn’t even know it was possible to get married without them.
It feels disappointingly empty when Judge Judie says a few quick words and then asks for the certificate and our witnesses. The romantic part of me wants to wail. I ache for the pomp and circumstance, the drama and the magic. A wedding, in my mind, should be a capital-E Event. Not some kind of drive-thru, fast food thing like this.
But then Lindy looks up at me with a goofy smile that actually looks sincere. Romance, flowers, string quartets—who needs all that when I have her?
Tank joins me, beaming and clapping me on the back. A sniffling Val, wiping her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief, joins Lindy. I’ve signed a lot of legal contracts in my day, but I’ve never teared up while doing so before.
Tank leans in as I finish scrawling my name across the line. “There’s no crying in baseball, son,” he whispers, just loud enough for Lindy to hear.
She bites back a laugh and eyes Tank, then me. “So, this movie quoting thing—it’s genetic?”
“Afraid so,” Tank says. “Welcome to the family, Lindy.”
She startles at his words, like she is just now realizing exactly what she’s gotten into. Yep—you put your name on the line and now you get all the Grahams. For better or for worse.
Judge Judie adds her signature to the bottom of the license, and in the most anticlimactic ceremony in the history of the world, Lindy and I are married.
“Give this to the clerk on your way out,” the judge says, handing the license back. Lindy hands it to Val, and before any of us can move, Judge Judie bangs her gavel again. I swear I see a tiny smirk before she steels her expression. “And now, you may kiss the bride.”
Lindy’s head snaps up, and her cheeks flush pink. “Wait—what?”
Maybe Chevy was right about a few people in Sheet Cake being on my side, because Lindy told me several times a kiss was not required.
Lindy leans closer to the bench as our guests begin murmuring. “I thought we agreed we would just sign papers. Not do all the, um, you know. Other wedding stuff,” Lindy hisses.
Judge Judie raises her brows so high her forehead lifts her white tuft of hair too. “Are you trying to tell me you’re not planning to kiss your husband?” She gestures toward me with the gavel. Her eyes narrow. “Are you making a mockery of marriage vows in my courtroom? Are you telling me this isn’t a real marriage, but some kind of sham designed to—”