After Ever Happy (After 4) - Chapter 139

“Don’t you think a fifteen-hour drive is long enough to think about it?” I joke, pulling the chairs away from the door.

Then Tessa truly shocks me by cocking her head and saying, “Yeah, I guess so.”

Epilogue

HARDIN

The drive to Vegas was a daunting one. The first two hours were spent creating fantasy scenarios about the perfect Vegas wedding. Tessa played with the ends of her curled hair, glancing over at me with flushed cheeks and a happiness in her smile that I haven’t seen in so long.

“I wonder how easy it is, in reality, to be married in Vegas. Last minute. Ross and Rachel style,” she questioned, her face buried into her phone.

“You’re googling it. Aren’t you?” I asked her. I moved my hand to her lap and cracked the window of my rental car.

Somewhere outside Boise, Idaho, we stopped for food and more gas. Tessa was getting sleepy, her head leaning forward and her eyes soft and heavy. I pulled into the crowded truck stop and gently shook Tessa by her shoulder to wake her.

“Vegas already?” she joked, knowing we were barely halfway there.

We got out of the car, and I followed her to the bathroom. I always liked these types of gas stations; they were well-lit and had full parking lots. Less chance of being murdered and whatnot.

When I came out of the bathroom, Tessa was standing in one of the many snack aisles. Her arms were already full of junk: bags of crisps and chocolates and too many energy drinks for her small hands to hold.

I stood back for a moment, just staring at the woman in front of me. The woman that would be my wife in just a few hours. My wife. After all we have been through, after fighting back and forth over a marriage that, honestly, neither of us thought would actually happen, we were on our way to Vegas to make it legal in a small chapel. At twenty-three, I would become someone’s husband—Tessa’s husband—and I couldn’t imagine anything that could possibly make me happier.

Even being the bastard I was, I was getting a happy ending with her. She would be smiling at me, her eyes full of tears, and I would be making some stupid remark about an Elvis lookalike walking by during our wedding.

“Look at all this stuff, Hardin.” Tessa used her elbow to point at the enormous number of random snacks. She was dressed in those pants—yeah, you know the ones. Those yoga pants and an NYU zip-up sweatshirt were what she was wearing on the way to her wedding. She was planning on changing when we arrived at whatever hotel we were going to check into, though. She wouldn’t be wearing a wedding gown, the way I had always imagined in my head.

“You’re okay with not wearing a wedding dress?” I blurted out.

Her eyes went a little wide, and she smiled, shook her head, and said, “Where did that come from?”

“I was just wondering. I was thinking about how you won’t be able to have, like, the wedding that women are always obsessing over. You won’t have flowers or anything.”

She handed me a bag of some sort of orange-dyed corn puffs. An old man walked by us and smiled at her. His eyes met mine, and he quickly looked away.

“Flowers? Really?” she asked, rolling her eyes and walking past me, ignoring the way I rolled my eyes back at her. I followed her, nearly tripping over an unsteady child in light-up shoes wobbling by, holding the hand of his mother.

“What about Landon? Your mum and David? Don’t you want them to be there?” I asked.

She turned to face me, and I could see the thought occurring to her in a different way. During the drive, our minds were both so clouded by our excitement over our decision to be wed in Vegas that we forgot about reality.

“Oh,” she sighed, staring at me while I caught up to her.

We walked to the register, and I could tell what she was thinking: Landon and her mum have to be there when we get married. Have to. And Karen—Karen would be heartbroken if she didn’t witness Tessa becoming my wife.

We paid for our junk food and caffeine. Well, she fought me and paid for it. I let her.

“You still want to go? You know you can tell me, baby. We can wait,” I told her as I buckled my seat belt. She pulled open the bag of orange puffs and popped one into her mouth.

“Yeah. I do,” she insisted.

It didn’t feel right, though. I knew she wanted to marry me, and I knew that I wanted to spend my life with her, but I didn’t want it to start this way. I wanted our families to be there. I wanted my little brother and little Abby to be a part of it, walking down the aisle, throwing flowers and rice and doing whatever crap people make the youngest family members do during weddings. I saw the way her eyes lit up when she proudly told me how much she helped with the planning of Landon’s wedding.

I wanted everything to be perfect for my Tessa, so when she fell asleep thirty minutes later, I turned the car around and drove her back to Ken’s house. When she woke up, surprised but not cursing me out, she unbuckled her seat belt, climbed into my lap, and kissed me, warm tears running down her cheeks.

“God, I love you, Hardin,” she said into my neck. We stayed in the car for another hour. I held her on my lap, and when I told her I wanted Smith to throw rice at our wedding, she laughed, pointing out that he’d probably do it very precisely, grain by grain.

TWO YEARS LATER

TESSA

THE DAY I GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE, I was so proud of myself. I was so happy with every aspect of my life, except that I didn’t want to work in publishing anymore. Yes, Theresa Young, obsessive planner of every detail of her future, changed her mind midway through college.

It started when Landon’s bride didn’t want to pay for a wedding planner. She was adamant about not hiring one, even though she had no idea how to start planning her wedding. Landon helped her, though; he was the perfect fiancé, staying up late to look through magazines with us, missing class to taste ten different cakes two different times. I loved the feeling of being in charge of such an important day for so many people. It was my specialty: planning and doing something for others.