I asked just as she was about to listen to me recite mine.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Winking at her, I started.
“I choose you. I choose you through good times and bad. I choose you through the pressures of the present and the uncertainties of the future. I promise to give you the best of myself. I promise to always choose you first. I promise to always cheer you on during a CrossFit competition, and never no-rep you. Within reason, anyway. You can’t be cheating blatantly and expect me to give you that,” I teased.
She threw her head back and laughed.
And, while she was laughing, I said, “I promise to always be there for you if you need me. I promise to always come home to you every night. I promise that, when you are no longer of this Earth, there will never be anyone else…”
“Croft,” she whispered.
“Because you’re it for me, Carmichael. You’re my sun and my moon. The stars in my sky. The freakin’ weights to my barbell. I choose you to be my wife.”
At that, she started to cry, wiping away the tears as she laughed so hard.
Once she’d gained control of herself again, she looked into my eyes.
“Croft,” she whispered. “I take you to be my husband. From this day forward, I will forever be there every morning when you wake up. I will never go to bed without you. There will never be another for me, and I’ll have and hold you from this day forward.” She licked her lips. “I promise to never hit you too hard when you’re snoring at night. I promise to never purposefully tempt you with bad food, and always attend every single CrossFit competition you make it into.” She wiped at her eyes that were still leaking tears. “I promise to always listen to you when I want to, and always support you through your grumpy moods after a bad day at the office. I promise that from this day forward, we will always be swole mates.”
“And by the power vested in me.” The preacher was laughing, too. “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss…”
I was kissing her before the words even left her mouth.
• • •
“Oh, man,” Flint said as he saw the wedding cake topper. “That’s so fuckin’ funny.”
It was.
I hadn’t been aware that our wedding cake topper was a groom power snatching his bride.
“Where did y’all even find this?” I grinned down at my wife, squeezing her hip lightly as I asked.
“There’s a couple in Tennessee that makes CrossFit inspired wedding materials. There are these wedding toppers, and some really cool tabletop accessories. I only got the wedding topper, though. I figured having our wedding and reception in a CrossFit gym was enough.”
I dropped a kiss on her head and then pulled her in the direction of my parents.
“Come on,” I urged. “Let’s go talk to my parents. Get our photos done. Then we can go get changed.”
And that was exactly what we did.
Her into her booty shorts, and me into a pair of knit shorts and no top.
And in the end, we all ended up doing lifts, eating pizza, drinking beer, and having a grand ol’ time.
Best wedding day ever.
EPILOGUE
Nice girls put out.
-Text from Croft to Carmichael
CARMICHAEL
I woke up to someone kneading my stomach.
I blinked my eyes open, thinking that it was Croft, but came up empty when he started snoring softly.
I looked down at our son, Gavin, and blinked.
“What are you doing?” I asked as his pudgy little hands continued to knead my stomach.
The snoring abruptly stopped as Croft woke.
“This feels like that bread dough that I helped you make yesterday,” Gavin said, burying his face in my flab. “I want to make bread. Can we do that again today, Mommy?”
The awful man beside me started to laugh.
I looked over at him to see him burying his face into the pillow under his head.
“This isn’t funny,” I hissed at him.
He pulled the blanket down, allowing me to see one laughter-filled eye.
“I don’t know why you would say that,” he countered. “Because from my end, it’s absolutely hilarious.”
“That’s because a ten-pound bowling ball didn’t rip its way out of your vagina after stretching the hell out of your stomach for nine months,” I countered. “You still have nice, perfect abs. What do I have, Croft?”
He moved until his face was close to mine.
“My heart.”
I sighed.
How could I be mad at him for saying sweet stuff like that all the time?
I slowly got up, stretching my