Dylan picks him up and moves him between us. “You were thinking?” Dylan asks while we both pat Bacon.

I sigh. “I was just going to say that we’ve spent more of our relationship apart than we have together.”

“You just worked that out now, Hudson?”

I look up at him. “Babe, we’ve never really discussed you re-enlisting so…”

“There’s really nothing to discuss, Ry,” he says. “Not for a while, anyway. My job’s going okay. My family’s here, so are my friends and my fiancée. Until I’m ready to give that up again, I’m staying put.”

“But you might one day?”

He stares blankly at me. He won’t promise me a thing.

I drop my gaze. “Well, now that we’re getting married that means we can live on base, right? At least when you’re not deployed, it won’t be so bad.”

“You’ve thought about it a bit, huh?”

“I have to, Dylan. If we have kids—”

“Oh, we’re having kids, Hudson.” He smiles wide, showing his perfect teeth. “Lots of them.”

“You know, once we’re officially married, you’ll have to stop calling me Hudson.”

“Nah. You’ll always be Hudson to me,” he says, leaning forward and kissing me once. “Forever the girl next door.”

My phone rings and Sydney’s face appears on the screen. I reject the call and throw my phone across the room.

Dylan quirks an eye brow and without taking his eyes off me, says, “Bacon. Bed.”

Bacon jumps off our bed and moves to his in the kitchen. “What’s going on? You guys fighting?”

“No. She probably wants to talk bridesmaid dresses. The girls can’t agree between lavender, mauve and lilac.”

Another blank stare.

“Purple.”

He nods. “Right.”

From across the room, my phone rings again. He waits until it stops before opening his mouth. Then his phone rings. Sighing, he reaches into his pocket and glances at it quickly. “It’s your mom.”

I roll my eyes. “She probably wants to discuss the venue.”

“You want to take it?”

“Fuck no.”

He chuckles as he throws his phone near mine. “So you’re not enjoying the planning?”

I shake my head, resting my head on his chest. “It’s so strange babe. It’s not like I haven’t thought about my wedding before. Every girl does, right? But it’s been two months and I just don’t think I care about any of it.”

He starts stroking my hair. “You don’t care about getting married?”

“No. It’s the opposite. I just want to marry you, Dylan. I don’t care about the dresses or the venues or the music. I feel like it’s two separate things, you know? A marriage and wedding. The marriage is for us and the wedding is for everyone else.”

His hands freeze mid movement. “So let’s do that then.”

“Do what?”

“Give them the wedding they want, and we’ll have the marriage we want.”

I sit up and look down at him. “How?”

Dylan

We choose a date two weeks away. Some may think it’s fast. But Riley and I—we’re not really ones for waiting. Besides, when you think about it, we kind of did things backwards, right? We had sex, fell deep, got the house, got the dog, had a pause, then got engaged.

When I say it like that, our journey seems easy. It was far from easy. But that makes it all the sweeter that we ended up here—holding hands under a gazebo in a park Holly had chosen.

We keep it casual—invite only our close friends and tell them to wear whatever they want.

Sydney, Mikayla, Amanda, Lucy and Heidi show up in five different shades of purple, and the guys wear orange mankinis—something Holly isn’t too pleased about but we did say to wear whatever they wanted. Besides, I’m not stupid. Retaliation had to occur, and what better day than the day of my wedding.

“Should I be nervous?” I ask Cameron, standing to my side between Logan and Jake.

“You’re not nervous?”

“I’m more nervous about not being nervous.”

“Why am I at the end of the line?” Eric whines. “I’m your damn brother!”

I smirk. “Because I’m a…”

“Don’t!”

I lower my voice. “…Devil Baby.”

“I fucking hate you!”

Riley walks down the aisle to a song all too familiar; track nine of the High School Musical soundtrack; “We’re All in This Together.”

If Holly was a cartoon character, she’d have smoke coming out of her ears. Dad wears a tux as he walks Riley down the petal scattered grass toward me. She stops in front of me, two dead flowers in an empty bottle of Boons Farm wine in her hand. She’s barefoot, wearing a plain white summer dress. The very first dress I ever saw her in.

“You look beautiful,” I tell her.

She smiles and curtsies and then runs her hand along my crisp white dress shirt. “And you’re more handsome than I remember you.”

“You saw me a half hour ago.”

She smiles wider.

The “celebrant” says, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

Holly squeals, “That’s not—”

“I do,” Riley and I say at the same time. We kiss without being told to and then duck the glitter thrown at us.

“Best wedding ever!” Lucy shouts, and we all cheer.

So… maybe it wasn’t the wedding everyone wanted because Holly gives Riley and I an earful as soon as it’s over. Riley and I take it like champs, holding hands, heads bowed, trying not to laugh.

Holly huffs. “At least behave at the reception,” she says, then turns swiftly away from us and into the arms of Dr. Matthews. They’d been dating a while now. Apparently, it’s pretty serious considering Logan told us he walked into the house unannounced one morning and witnessed way more than he needed to. According to the sounds Logan heard and the moans of “Oh, Doctor. Just like that!” Dr. Matthews is a goddamn boss.

Who’d have thought?

In my truck, Riley cackles the entire way to the reception lunch, one hand on my leg, the other on her stomach. “Mankinis!” she shouts.

“Retaliation.” I shrug.

“Did you care?”

“Why would I?”

After twenty minutes of driving around, per Holly’s request, Riley navigates me to the address Holly had given us for the reception. We start getting confused when we hit an industrial area with nothing around but warehouses and factories.

“That’s it,” she says, glancing up from her phone and toward the large concrete building. The sign out front says “Banks Wedding” so I switch off the truck.

“What is this?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Mayhem?”

“From your mom?” I say incredulously.

“Yeah. You’re right.”

I face her. “You ready, Hudson?”

“Let’s do this.”

Apart from the seating areas and the table containing the buffet of catered food, the place is empty. Floor to ceiling concrete. More glitter gets thrown when we walk in, followed by a pie at my face—one that Riley licks off.