#Heart (Hashtag #6) (19 page)

Romeo

We filled out the papers.

We signed our names.

And now here Rim and I stood in a tiny office in the back of the courthouse with Abe, the justice of the peace, Kathy, and her two friends, about to be married.

Ever since I met her, I’d been finding ways to get my name on her. After today, she’d wear it forever.

“Shall I begin?” Abe asked.

“Please,” Rimmel answered, her eyes never leaving mine.

She was standing right here before me, her head barely reaching my shoulder, my dark-blue sweatshirt hanging past her thighs, and the hem of her black yoga pants dragging the floor. Her hair was pulled up in a messy knot on her head, and the black-framed glasses she’d been wearing since the first moment I laid eyes on her were perched on her face.

She was exactly who I wanted and nothing less.

Her hands felt small and slightly cold in mine as I held them between us. Automatically, I folded mine around them, giving her the warmth my skin was offering.

“We are gathered here today,
in secret
…” Abe began, and I flashed him a smile. “To join this man and this woman in marriage.”

Rimmel smiled brightly, so bright I saw it in her eyes.

“No one in this room has any objections.” Abe went on. “So we can move right on.”

I barely heard what Abe was saying. I got lost so deep in her eyes. I don’t know how I ever got here, but my God, I was grateful.

“Do you Roman William Anderson take Rimmel Anne Hudson to be your lawfully wedded wife, for—”

“Hells yeah,” I said, cutting him off. I didn’t need to hear everything he was going to list. It didn’t matter. I’d agree to anything to make her mine.

One of the women standing as witness giggled, but I didn’t dare tear my eyes away from my love.

“Alrighty then,” Abe said and turned to Rimmel.

“Do you Rimmel Anne Hudson take Roman William Anderson to be your lawfully wedded husband—”

“Yes,” she said, just as impatient.

“Do you have rings?” Abe asked.

Shit! In my rush to make it official, I hadn’t even thought about rings.

“We don’t need them,” Rimmel said smoothly. “I don’t need anything but this.”

I love you,
I mouthed.

I love you,
she mouthed back.

“Okay, then. Repeat after me.” Abe looked at me.

I cleared my throat. “I got this.”

Abe gestured with his hand that I should continue.

Rimmel was watching me, eyes shimmering with unshed tears, and my chest expanded.

“A lot of people say you stole my heart. You managed somehow to get the heart of a player who would never settle down. But that’s not the truth. The truth is you never had to steal my heart, baby, because I gave it to you. I’d give you anything you ask for, but you ask for nothing. You, with your gentle touch and fierce love of animals. I promise to love you even when you drag home fifty cats and fifty dogs because you couldn’t bear to leave them at the shelter for one more day. I promise to love you even when your hair tries to eat my hand and when my car cries because you’re a terrible driver. I never knew I needed you, Rim, until I saw you that night, soaking wet from the rain, sitting on the floor of the shelter, with a one-eyed cat in your lap. But I do need you. I need you so fucking much. I don’t know how or why you let me in, but thank you. Thank you for making me the luckiest bastard on the face of this earth. I’ll never take you for granted. I’ll love you long after I’m gone. I vow to you here and now, in front of all these strangers…”

She laughed. Then she sniffled and a few tears slid behind her glasses.

“We’re a team now, and as long as I’m breathing, you’ll never be alone in life, not ever.”

Rimmel pulled her hands free of mine and reached for the hem of my shirt, bent, and used it to wipe the tears falling freely down her face.

“You have a shirt of your own,” I pointed out, a smile in my voice.

“I like yours better,” she said, her voice raspy with tears.

“Can’t say that I blame her,” Kathy said, and the two women standing beside her made sounds of agreement.

Abe cleared his throat and turned to Rimmel. “And now you may repeat after me.”

Rimmel straightened and shook her head. “I got this.”

“I thought you might,” he said and gestured for her to take the floor.

Rimmel

I was crying like a baby.

There was just no stopping the tears.

We might be standing in a tiny office with an audience of people we didn’t even know, but it didn’t matter.

This was perfect.

It was exactly what I needed. It was everything I wanted.

And Romeo, oh my word, Romeo. I think one of my ovaries burst when he said his vows. He knew exactly what to say and how to say it. There was no way on earth I would ever say anything so eloquent and soul-shattering.

But I could try.

“I’ve spent a lot of time reading in my life. You know I like my books. I always read nonfiction. I never had time for fairy tales. But what no one ever knew was sometimes I would sit in the back of a library, in a place where no one would ever see, and I’d read a love story. They were always so epic and so maddeningly impossible, but it didn’t stop a little piece inside of me from wishing for something like that of my own. And then I met you. You were impossible, rude, and way out of my league. You drew attention wherever you went, and I’d spent most my life trying to hide. But there was no hiding from you. I don’t need to read love stories ever again, and not because they’re impossible, but because our love story is the greatest one I’ll ever know. Even when you try to boss me around and insult my driving, my love for you will always win. I promise to love you even when the reporters follow our every move and your mother drives me crazy. I promise to love every quarter of you I unearth, and I vow that nothing and no one could ever make me doubt the man you are. Thank you for turning my life upside down, for not running when I tried to push you away. I swear I’ll never take you for granted, and I’ll give you every piece of me that exists. You’ll never be alone, and you’ll always know you’re loved as long as I walk this earth.”

My voice fell away, and there was a long stretch of silence in the space all around us.

I’d never seen Romeo cry, not ever. But in this moment, I watched the way his eyes glittered and knew the reason they glistened so intensely was because unshed tears were in his gaze.

He tore his eyes from mine only for a second to glance at Abe. “Wrap it up, my man,” he said.

I giggled.

He said a few more things I never heard and then, “With the full authority and power vested in me by the state of Maryland, I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

I jumped up and down a little, unable to contain my happiness.

“Mr. Anderson, you can kiss your bride.”

“About time,” he drawled.

But he didn’t plant one on me right away, not like I thought he would. Instead, he slowly slid the glasses up onto my head, taking away the small barrier between us.

The butterflies were still fluttering furiously in my stomach, so much so that my entire middle vibrated and my fingers shook.

Romeo stepped up, so close that our feet bumped together, and his face turned down, his blue, blue eyes swept over my face. He cupped my jaw in both his palms, spreading his fingers wide. Even without my glasses, he stood so close I could see him clearly.

His gaze divided itself between my lips and my eyes as he literally stripped me bare just with his stare.

“Romeo,” I whispered, reaching up to grab his wrists. I was desperate for our first kiss, desperate to seal in all the beautiful words we’d just exchanged.

“You’re perfect,” he murmured, then brought his lips to mine.

I sighed on contact. Everything inside me fell silent, the butterflies stopped fluttering, my fingers stopped shaking, and for one suspended moment in time, my heart stopped beating.

His lips were soft and smooth. They nibbled at my mouth gently as his thumb stroked the underside of my jaw. His tongue slipped out and met mine; they slowly moved together, stroking and caressing until the familiar pool of moisture met the fabric of my panties.

He started to pull back, but I tightened my hold on his wrists and leaned up for one last taste before letting him go.

We stood there smiling stupidly at each other until Abe cleared his throat and we remembered we weren’t alone.

After that, everything moved fast but in a blur, like a dream.

A dream I never wanted to wake from.

An official marriage license was presented to us. Kathy and her friends cried. Romeo signed a lot of stuff for Abe, and then all four of them promised to never tell anyone about our secret wedding.

When we stepped outside, it was completely dark. The night was cold, but I didn’t feel it. I was so drunk on Romeo that I could likely get hit by a bus and I wouldn’t even feel it.

We were holding hands, but he let go and moved in front of me.

Crouching low, he offered his back.

I laughed and jumped on, looping my arms around his neck.

“There’s no threshold to carry you over right now, and I sure as hell am not doing it when we get home. Ivy would call us out in seconds,” he said. “Besides, since this entire wedding was untraditional and spur of the moment, then this moment should be, too.”

He gave me a piggyback ride to the Hellcat, and I pressed warm, moist kisses to the back of his neck the entire ride.

“Mrs. Anderson,” he said when he set me on my feet.

“Mr. Anderson,” I echoed.

“How do you feel about consummating our marriage in the back of a Hellcat?”

“I feel like it would be the perfect end to this perfect night.”

He pulled me close, and I dipped my head back to stare up at him.

“Oh, baby,” he drawled. “This isn’t the end. This is only the beginning.”

Best. Beginning. Ever.

Romeo

Married to the girl of my dreams?

Having her ride me in a Hellcat?

Knowing this was just the beginning of our life together?

Hells yeah.