Epilogue – Amelia
8 Weeks Later
I burst into Brent’s dressing room, holding my white dress up so I won’t trip over it. “Brent!”
He turns from where he’s fixing his tie in the mirror. “Hey! The groom’s not supposed to see the bride before the wedding! It’s tradition!”
“Oh yeah? And what about us is traditional, really?” I laugh, and he joins in.
“True. What is it?” he asks, taking my hand.
“Oh, just some news to make this day even better.” I say, “I just saw Rosa, and she told me Jason and Violet got fired from the firm!”
“What? Really?!” Brent smiles. “That’s great, but…how? Did you kill someone? Blackmail someone? Because if you had some big secret plan and didn’t include me, I’m going to be upset.”
“It wasn’t me at all!” I laugh. “Remember Cindy, the new receptionist I told you about?”
Brent nods. “I met her. She’s really sweet.”
“Yeah, unless you try to sleep with her in the copy room.”
“What?!”
“Yeah…turns out I wasn’t the only one that Jason tried to double-dip on. He came on to Cindy…aggressively, and she hit him so hard with a ream of paper that he has two black eyes. Styles heard about it, and fired him on the spot!”
“And Violet?”
“Oh! She got so mad when she heard what happened, she went after Jason in the hallway. Full on Thunderdome-style throwdown, apparently. Didn’t end well for either of them.”
Brent grins, then kisses me. “If that isn’t the nicest cherry on top of the day, I don’t know what will be.”
I press myself against him. “We still have some time before the ceremony. I can think of something…”
Brent wraps his arms around my waist. “You really think we have time?” I answer him with another deep kiss.
BAM. The dressing room door bursts open, revealing Rosa in her bridesmaid’s dress. “There you are! Quit riding your fiancée long enough to make it official, would you?! Everyone’s waiting!” With that, she’s off down the hallway.
“Well, I guess that’s it then.” I sigh. “Rosa’s word is law.”
“Hang on,” Brent says. “Is that how it’s going to be once we’re married, too?”
I just look at him, the love of my life, and laugh.
A little while later, I’m walking down the aisle of the winery at Crystal Plaza. I can’t believe that Brent and I are getting married at the place we jokingly visited together. But it all seems very fitting.
Rosa’s up there, and the foster child that she and Sam brought in is standing beside her as our flower girl. She’s five years old and simply adorable. And Rosa is happy to be her foster mom. It turns out she knows how to be responsible, when it counts. Maybe I was just afraid to let my carefree friend turn into the mother she wanted to become. Before taking my vows with Brent, I vow silently to never doubt Rosa again and always cheer her on.
Nikki’s up front too, dressed in a pantsuit and vest as the Best Woman. And there’s Brent, beaming a happy smile at me. For a long time now, we’d been pretending we were actually going to get married, but here we are actually doing it.
When it comes time to say our vows, all I can do is look into his handsome eyes and feel so happy that he’s mine. He’s helped me work through a lot of things, and accepted me as I am. I hope I’ve done the same for him.
We talk about this in our vows, and smile at each other the whole way through. And then at the end, Brent says this:
“I promise to always sample wedding cake with you.”
Then he winks and whispers into my ear, “And off of you.”
The minister pronounces us husband and wife, Rosa and Nikki and all our guests cheer, and just like that, we’re real married, after pretending to be engaged for so long. I’m so glad it’s official. I can’t wait for my husband to fulfill his promise of licking icing off me. And for everything else the future has in store for us.
The end.
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