“Pudge?” Bea asks sharply. “You’ve talked to her?”
“She was still at the party,” Lacey says. “I remembered you saying she hates this stuff, so I played it for her.” Lacey takes a breath. She is enjoying having the group in the palm of her hand. “She was fuming. Said she was going to go do unmentionable stuff to his chakras. And then she had me email it to her.”
Gaz takes the phone. “Let me hear this,” he says, walking off past Bernard, who is now fully snoozing, his mouth wide open.
“I mean, I don’t know if this fixes anything. His piece can still run,” Lacey says. “But at least we have counter-proof that he’s a disgusting scumbag, and it’s entirely possible Pudge beat him home and put his laptop in the dishwasher. I may have undone the effects of all that time she spent in the ashram, but…”
She trails off. There is a moment of silence in the candlelit Chapel Royal while everyone processes this. Nick and I exchange dumbfounded looks. Then I wrap my sister in my arms.
“Even if it doesn’t work,” I whisper, “you are my hero. Thank you, Lacey.”
Lacey squeezes me back. Over her shoulder, I see Nick watching us. He looks pensive, and I know he’s thinking about his brother, standing alone across the aisle.
Gaz wanders back over to us. “It might not stand up in court, but it’s jolly gripping,” he says. “If it ever needs to fall into Xandra Deane’s hands, a transcript wouldn’t make you two look tremendous, but it would make him look like a sociopath. Hearing it might be enough to shut him up, at least temporarily.”
“Well done, Lacey,” Freddie says admiringly. “And to think, I almost had to rope you into eloping with me to create a diversion.”
Lacey looks alarmed.
“Don’t worry, I never would’ve pimped you out,” I tell her.
“Thank God,” Lacey says. “I think one Porter is all that family can handle.”
We hug again, bringing in Mom and a bleary Aunt Kitty, as Freddie walks over to Nick and extends his hand.
“Thank you for letting me be here,” I hear him say. “I meant what I said tonight. I respect you, and I love you, and—”
Nick cuts him off by grabbing his proffered hand, which turns into one of those guy embraces where they first slap each other on the back, and then give in to it.
Cilla clears her throat. “So, are we actually going to have a wedding, or do you lot just plan to spend all night slobbering all over each other?” But her tone is kind.
She leans over and pokes Cousin Bernard, who jolts awake.
“Did I miss my cue?” He peers at Nick as he clambers to his feet. “Don’t I know you?”
“No,” Cilla says, steering him to the altar.
Watching her wrangle everyone into their places, I pull Lacey to the side.
“Walk me up the aisle. Please,” I say. “You should be up there with me tomorrow, too, but since it’s too late for that, maybe this is our second chance to do it right.” I pause. “Or…our first chance, technically. You get the gist.”
Lacey beams and blots at her eyes. “I do,” she says meaningfully, through a sniffle. Then she processes my jeans and striped shirt and bursts out laughing. “Only you would change out of a designer gown and into jeans for your own wedding.”
I look down at myself and laugh, too.
“I can be a duchess tomorrow,” I tell her. “Right now I just want to be me.”
Lacey and my mother and I loop arms, me in my jeans, my mother in her pajamas, my sister still in her ball gown—and, I like to think, my father watching closely from somewhere blissful, in his Cubs cap. Together we walk the comparatively compact thirty feet to my groom, still in half of his tux, the hair on his head agitated from a night of tugging at it. We look at each other with enormous smiles, tears rolling freely down our cheeks, the two of us doing all the sloppy emoting that we cannot tomorrow even if I am allowed up that aisle.
My mother takes Nick’s hand and places it on top of ours.
“We’re not giving her away, sweetie,” Mom tells him lovingly. “We’re bringing you in. Welcome to our family.”
Nick’s lip quivers. They release us and step back, sniffling, as Bernard clears his throat.
“Dearly beloved,” he begins, hiccupping again and swaying slightly. “In the presence of God, and those other chaps in his gang, we have come together to witness the marriage of…” He peeks down at the cheat sheet Cilla wisely provided and then looks back up at us and blanches. “My liege,” he sputters, bumbling into a kneel.
“Discretion, Bernard,” Cilla prods, tapping her nose.
“Of course, but I’m just so honored to…oh, hellcrackers, I should probably start again,” he says, returning to his feet. “Don’t suppose anyone has any coffee? No? Right.” He smacks himself on both cheeks, like an angry man applying aftershave, then takes a meditative breath. “Get cracking, Bernard, bring your A-game.”
Nick nudges me with a grin. “Well, there goes that nice, normal wedding.”
I smile back through tear-filled eyes. “That’s okay. Normal has never been our strong suit, right?”
“Dearly beloved,” Bernard begins anew, with fresh command. “In the presence of God, the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit, we have come together today to witness the wedding of Nicholas and Rebecca, to pray for God’s blessing on them, to share their joy and to celebrate their love…”
His words melt into me as Nick and I look into each other’s joyful faces. I don’t know if we will wake up tomorrow to blistering scandal or blessed silence. I don’t know if we will live blissfully, or go blind from looking for trouble in our periphery every day until we are old. And yet, as the vicar performs the familiar ceremony, I do not float above myself. There is no fear of what lies in wait for us, no nostalgia for where I’ve been or who I was, no temptation to stop and say good-bye to a version of myself I’m leaving behind. I am fully in the moment when Nick and I say the words that have united millions of couples across hundreds of years, because they are the culmination of eight years of friendship and longing and love that began on a rainy Oxford night and survived in the face of every other element. So it no longer matters whether we’re allowed to make these vows again, in front of the Queen or the country or the world. Here, in this hallowed place, I have made them to the only person who counts, and he to me. The kiss that blesses these promises forges the only certainty I need: that even if we are never a duke and a duchess, we will forever be Nick and Bex. An unbreakable we, at last.
The End
Acknowledgments