My Big Fat Fake Honeymoon - Lauren Landish Page 0,134
him. He might even know who Ross is from his early tabloid-cover days.
“Thousand bucks sound fair? For the ceremony and the tattoos?” Dad offers first.
I think Reno’s eyes are going to bug out of his head, but he blinks and rearranges his face into something closer to his usual scowl. “Yeah, I guess I could stay open a little late tonight for that. You ready now?”
We organize ourselves—Violet with Carly on her hip, Courtney, and Mom on my left, and Ross, Kaede, and Dad on Lorenzo’s right—and then we nod to Reno.
“’Kay, we’re gathered here tonight to witness these people joining together in marriage . . .”
I can’t stop the smile from getting bigger and bigger as joy fills my entire being. I’m nearly bouncing with happiness at this weirdly wonderful wedding. One I never thought I’d have, with a man I never thought I’d find.
Reno does the typical ‘do you take this man’ and ‘do you take this woman’, and Lorenzo and I both say, “I do.”
“Y’all got other stuff you wanna tell each other? Promises and vows or some shit?”
Reno is the epitome of formal, I think happily as Mom swallows loudly enough that I can hear her.
I meet Lorenzo’s eyes which are dark and crinkled at the corners from his own smile. He dips his chin, letting me go first.
I’m glad because I have a suspicion I’m going to be reduced to ugly tears when he does his. His poetry is better than mine but no more heartfelt.
“Lorenzo, I think somehow, I knew. From the first second I laid my eyes on you, I knew there was something about you. I thought you were a bad boy with a rolling pin, and that was enough to reel me in. But every moment since, you’ve shown me you’re more than that. You risked everything to help me, gave your all to woo me, and you showed me the man you are inside. The person not everyone gets to see. But I see the love in your heart, the strength in your soul, and I pledge myself to giving you every bit of love, honor, respect, and love that I can, from now until death and beyond.”
Lorenzo’s throat works, and he looks up to the sky to blink back his tears before starting his own off the cuff vows. “Mia rosa, mia amore. It seems right that we met at a wedding and now are here ourselves. Our story is a tale to tell our children in the future, a lesson in trusting fate to have plans bigger and better than anything you can dream of yourself. I pledge to always give you more smiles than tears, more happiness than sadness, and to be your partner through whatever life, or your brilliant mind, throws our way. I wish to spend the entirety of my days with you, side by side, building our forever.”
Yep, destroyed with messy tears. Ever prepared as a mom, Violet reaches in her diaper bag and hands me a burp rag. Unused, at least.
“That was real pretty,” Reno says, a little choked up himself. “Seal that shit with a kiss, lovebirds.”
I’m glad I get that much warning because Lorenzo sweeps me back, kissing me with a depth and intensity that are definitely not what you’d expect for a formal wedding kiss but are perfect in the middle of a tattoo parlor. I kiss him back just as intensely, only stopping when Mom whispers to Courtney, “She might beat you on giving me a grandbaby, Court.”
I laugh loudly, my smile huge. “Ten minutes ago, you were all ‘absolutely not, Abigail Marie’, and now you’re all ‘give me grandkids’, Mom?”
She has the heart to look chastised, but then she shrugs. “Woman’s prerogative to change her mind.”
I might’ve gotten my kick-ass business sense from Dad, but I got my crazy from Mom. She just hides hers a lot better than I do.
“Who’s going first for the tat?” Reno asks with a loud clap of his big hands.
Lorenzo sits down in the chair first, and I sit on the far side, away from Reno’s work station. Reno makes quick, careful work of inking black bands of varying widths around Lorenzo’s finger. And then it’s my turn. I choose a thin, dainty band with a bow that looks like a string tied around my finger. I will never forget this moment right here.
We take a few pictures with our phones, promising Mom that we’ll have a proper photographer at the reception.