We were both twenty-two on the day we married. To say that I hadn’t planned to be married before turning thirty would be an understatement. I had bought Gemma two nice rings. I let her pick them out. They weren’t too expensive, because she wasn’t going to be wearing them very often—just for pictures and the meeting with the immigration officer. But the diamond was real. The platinum was real. The Visa bill was real.

Seeing my mom, Gemma’s parents, and Chloe and Ethan sitting together in the judge’s chambers at the Santa Barbara courthouse was making me feel surprisingly sentimental. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry…Just kidding. I didn’t cry. I figured I’d save that for my real wedding day. My father was not in attendance for this one. Officially, it was because he was at a conference in Prague. Obviously, it was because he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of me setting up shop in the U.S. instead of Canada. While he didn’t support it, he wasn’t a total dick about it either. I was happy that my Mom was there, and just hoped that on my real wedding day she would give me and my wife the same gifts she’d brought this time—a big box filled with bags of Old Dutch ketchup-flavored potato chips and Cadbury chocolate bars from Canada. Aside from the publicly-funded health care, relatively peaceful politics and colorful, aesthetically-pleasing currency, I missed these snacks the most as soon as I’d moved to the U.S. Having a big box of them made settling down with the old ball and chain totally worth it.

But I did have the strangest feeling, as the judge rambled on about love and marriage and commitment…I watched Gemma, as she listened to the judge politely. Her hair was so pretty with little sprigs of flowers stuck into a hairpin and she was wearing a white sundress and knee-high boots that gave her an extra few inches in height. I had this feeling—this is the person I should be marrying. Not now, for a green card. For real—someday.

What the fuck am I supposed to do about this?

When you’re a straight guy and you realize you’ve become best friends with an attractive woman, you start to live a good part of your life in denial. You get so used to convincing yourself that you aren’t attracted to her that you forget how attractive she is. You get used to ignoring that voice in your head that tells you the way you feel about her is the way you should be feeling about all those women you’re actually having sex with. But I’d been so busy with school and developing my app that there was no way I could have had a serious relationship with a girl, and once I was able to devote myself to my startup full-time it would be totally impossible. So I had no-strings sex when there was time for it, and the rest of the time I had Gemma.

I didn’t feel my heart stop or jump out of my chest when I saw her that morning, and my breath wasn’t taken away. It felt the same as when I always saw her. Warm. Comfortable. It felt like love.

But now I was getting this awful panicky sensation in my chest.

What if we’re making a huge mistake?

Or was this just cold feet? Everybody gets cold feet. But was this cold feet about getting married or was it cold feet about getting fake-married for a green card?

I needed a timeout. I needed to talk to the only person on earth that I could talk to about this.

The only person I could talk to about this glanced over at me and wrinkled her brow when she saw me staring at her. I probably looked like an idiot. Her eyes were a glassy sea green like the night we met, and for a second I felt totally naked again. Did she wolf down pot brownies in the car with Chloe and Ethan on the way up from LA? Or were those tears? She shook her head at me, almost imperceptibly. I knew this meant that she was annoyed with me for not being able to read her mind. Even though the fact that I knew this meant I can read her mind.

I think it’s safe to say that the only reason we were best friends is because she couldn’t read mine. I found comfort in this. Usually. Right then it felt like she knew everything. She couldn’t possibly be feeling the same way. Could she?

She looked away and didn’t make eye contact with me again until we said our vows to each other. We wrote our own vows. We dared each other to write the cheesiest vows we could. We hadn’t shared them with each other yet. It was supposed to be a surprise. It was like a fun game to us. I was so going to win this marriage ceremony.

I had memorized my vows, but saw her tuck a folded piece of paper into her bra strap earlier. Such half-assery. I wondered if she’d take the time to memorize her vows to Andrew.

And other things that I need to stop thinking about at our nuptials.

It was go-time.

We faced each other and held both of each other’s hands. It was corny, but what are you gonna do?

“Gem…”

She giggled, nervously. I laughed, then cleared my throat.

“I can’t believe you finally get to marry me today.”

I paused, for laughter—which I got from the judge, his assistant, and our friends and family, and only after she heard them laughing did my bride register that she should laugh too.

“You’re so lucky you get to continue living and putting up with me for the rest of your life, because no matter what people say about how I’m a genius, that I’m gonna change the world with the technology that I develop because I’m such a genius…”

Another pause for laughter. Because I’m hilarious. Gemma just stared up at me and blinked. It was almost as if she knew I was doing the false arrogance thing to try to hide how much I genuinely loved her. Maybe.

“The truth is, my world changed as soon as I met you, and the smartest thing I’ve ever done was show up today to marry you.”

“Awwws” from the moms and Chloe. A snort-laugh from Ethan. Still nothin’ from Gemma. I thought I could hear her humming. She had sort of a dazed look in her eyes. I would have sworn she was stoned. If she were, I wasn’t sure if it would invalidate the marriage. I squeezed her hands. Her eyes widened and she loosened her shoulders, gave me a little nod. All good.

“The truth is…I will do everything I can to show up every single day to be your husband. What does that mean, you might ask? I’ll tell you what it means…It means that when we go out to eat, I promise to always get a large order of fries, even though I myself eat sensible and healthy amounts of bad carbs, and I will pretend not to care or judge you when you steal two-thirds of them.”

She heard our friends and parents laugh, so she giggled too. It was like she’d suddenly stopped understanding English. What was wrong with her? Was she having second thoughts?

“It means that I will always tell you when your shoelaces are untied—and I have no idea why a grown woman always has shoelaces that are untied—but I will always tell you to tie your shoelaces because I don’t want you to trip and fall. It means that I will do whatever I can to keep you from tripping and falling. Because, despite how many times I’ve felt like I’ve been tripping over myself just to be with you, you’re the only person I’ve ever met who somehow manages to keep me on my toes and make me feel balanced at the same time.”

I took a deep breath, because this next part was where I’d really lay on the cheese, although it pained me that she didn’t seem to be appreciating just how full of fromage these vows had been so far.

“Ever since you started cheering me on, I’ve had better times in the LA Marathon because I could look forward to seeing you there on the sidelines, even though I’d slow down to say ‘hi’ to you. The goal was no longer reaching the finish line so I could prove something to myself—the goal became reaching the finish line so I could hang out with you again. But you don’t belong on the sidelines. You should be alongside me at all times, if not literally, metaphorically.

I promise to cheer you on, as you make your way through life with me. We both know how busy I can get for work, but just know that I’m always here for you no matter what.

What showing up for you every day as your husband means is: You’re my best friend, I love and adore you, and I’d do anything for you, if you ever need me…But somehow you never seem to need me. You are always fine. You let me be me, even when it drives you nuts, and I secretly watch in awe as you grow into this woman who can make me laugh, take my breath away, and cut me down with one twitch of your eyebrow…Like that, just now…”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the judge’s assistant wiping away a tear.

I am crushing this cheese-fest.

“So thanks for marrying me, Grandma Kelly. Despite acting like such an old lady most of the time, you make me feel so young, and I look forward to a long happy life with you…” Shit, I’m not sure how to end this. “Amen?” I muttered.

This time, Gemma laughed.

We both kept laughing, but our moms were crying even though they knew this was just a marriage of convenience. Such a strange term. Was it convenient? It was pleasant. Anything involving Gemma was pleasant, for the most part. Was she making it more convenient for me to become an American citizen? Absolutely. Was this going to make it easier for us to live together and be friends while she had an out-of-town boyfriend and I had my various inconsequential whatevers?...I’d have to revisit that after the judge said: “You may now kiss the bride.”

She had refused to practice kissing me for this, despite the fact that it was something the immigration officer would surely look at carefully if it ever came to that. I wasn’t nervous about kissing her or anything, I just hoped she wasn’t.

And now it was her turn to say her vows. The judge had to say her name twice to get her attention, because she kept looking back at Chloe and giggling. She settled down and pulled out the folded piece of paper from her bra strap. She unfolded it as she cleared her throat, then turned the paper around and held it up to me so I could read the note.

Suck it, Walker, I memorized my vows too!

That cracked me up.

She folded the paper back up, tucked it back into her bra strap, and held my hands again. Girl knew how to work her moment in the spotlight. I was impressed.

“Theodore…”

Chloe and Ethan snort-laughed, and I had a big stupid grin on my face that already made my cheeks sore. Usually she only called me Theodore when she was ready to dropkick me. It was funny to hear her say it in this context.

“I know we said we’d try to top each other with cheesy vows, but we aren’t even legally married yet and I’m already breaking a promise to you.”

“That’s it!” I said, yanking my hands from hers in mock fury. “I’m out!”

“Not so fast,” she admonished, grabbing my hands again. “What I’m saying is: I didn’t even have to try to be cheesy. Every single thought I have about you is cheesy. I could never be as articulate and poetic as you, of course, but so few people on this earth are…”

Ahhh, sarcasm. That’s my girl.

“Before I met you, it didn’t really occur to me that I could become best friends with a guy.”

I widened my eyes slightly, because we probably shouldn’t have been emphasizing the best friend relationship here, I didn’t think.

“Before I became best friends with you, it didn’t occur to me that I could fall madly in love with a friend.”

I heard our moms sigh. Gemma’s eyes were tearing up, I could see that she had a lump in her throat, and I couldn’t even breathe.

She swallowed and smiled, giving me a tiny look that told me that I should calm the fuck down. She did use a hypothetical. She didn’t say that she fell in love with me. She said she didn’t realize she could. Big difference. Got it.

“With you, it seems, everything is possible.”

She waited for me to inhale before continuing.

“Before I moved in with you, every time I made myself a cup of tea, it would be cold by the time I got around to drinking it, because I’d always go off and do a million things while it was steeping. As you’ve often pointed out, I’m not very good at doing nothing. But if you’re around when I make tea, you always remind me to stop what I’m doing and just ‘sit and enjoy drinking the fucking tea!’ Oops! Oh no!” She looked over at the judge and his assistant, wide-eyed. “I’m so sorry!”

“Quite alright, please continue,” the judge said, smiling.

Our loved ones were covering their mouths, they were laughing so hard.

I sort of felt like covering her mouth with my mouth because she was so freaking cute—but that would have to wait.

“Umm…Whenever you’re about to tell me something that might disappoint me—like when you decided we should ban bread from the house—you send me a text of a sleeping baby animal to cushion the blow. And it works. Even though the no-bread rule was stupid and only lasted three days and we’re never doing that again.”

“Yes we are,” I mouthed to her.

She ignored me.

“And you inspire me.  You really do. As a runner, even though your toenails occasionally fall off, which is gross. You inspire me as a student, and you inspire me as a future entrepreneur, even though you can be so damn grouchy when you've been up all night developing your app and even though you wear noise reducing headphones to listen to your weird coding music, I can hear you typing and bouncing your knee up and down and spinning around in your chair--but it doesn't even bother me that much.

Because you inspire me, because you're always striving for things.  Better running times, better test scores than anyone else ever, to make a better fitness app than any of the ones out there now.  But you're not one of those annoying sociopathic perfectionists who has to get everything just right.  If you were, you'd be impossible to live with.  But you're just always trying to make things better, and you've inspired me to be more ambitious, and made me feel like I deserve to be successful. 

You always push me to do more and be more, like when we’re running and I literally want to die and kill you at the same time, and then you somehow make me angry while I’m laughing so hard that we make it back home and I feel amazing. Or when I was going to apply for that assistant set decorator position at the Playhouse for the summer, but you encouraged me to apply for the set decorator position instead. And I got the job, and I was shocked, but you weren’t. You knew I would.

And you make me see things in a different way. I mean, before I met you it didn’t even occur to me to figure out the science behind every single Avenger’s superhuman ability. I didn’t even know how important it was to use HDMI cables for better picture and sound quality on my TV or to have an external hard drive for my computer to back everything up. Since I met you, everything looks and sounds better. And I always know that you’ll be there to back me up.”

I gave her a look, because holy shit that was the cheesiest thing anyone has ever said in the history of people saying things. She tried so hard not to laugh, but as soon as she cracked a smile, it’s like her brain had broken. She laughed so hard. She was shaking and tearing up and snorting.

I looked over at the judge, glanced down at my watch.

She got control of herself and finally said: “So thanks for marrying me today. You make me happier than sleeping baby animals and I hope to break bread with you at our table every day for the rest of our lives…Amen.”

The judge said his thing about the power vested in himself, and informed me that I may now kiss the bride.

I made a split-second decision. Maybe it wasn’t a decision made in my brain, but it was a decision nonetheless. This may be the only time I kiss Gemma Kelly. I’m going to make it count. I don’t care who’s watching. This is my bride, dammit. Who knows when I’ll get married again.

The first time, I cupped her pretty face in my hands and leaned down to kiss her, slowly and softly. I watched her eyelids flutter before closing. Once I’d started to pull away, I realized she’d risen to her tiptoes, so I went in for a second kiss, this time a quicker one, with slightly parted lips. When that didn’t quite feel like the end of it, I whispered “Love you, Gem,” my mouth only a few millimeters from hers, and she either lost her balance or launched herself up to meet me. She grabbed me by my shirt and pulled me down for a long hard kiss that had our parents and friends laughing and clapping, but it nearly brought me to my knees. Now she was taking my breath away. Now my heart was leaping out of my chest. I let one hand go to her waist and one to the back of her neck and I kissed her back.

Two can play at that game.

She gasped, opened her eyes. Before tearing herself away, she whispered: “You better love me, Walker, I just married your ass.”

And if I’d let myself believe for one second that this was a real kiss, she had cleared things up for me now.

She patted me on the butt, turned to face our friends and parents, the cameras, her arm raised in victory. “Wooohoooo! This butt legally belongs to me now!”

“Congratulations,” laughed the judge. “Be good to each other.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Be good to me.” But she couldn’t even look at me when she said it. I could see her trying to steady herself. I saw that flush in her cheeks.

I pulled her in for a hug, before people started coming over to talk to us.

“Love you,” I whispered down at her.

“Love you,” she whispered into my chest.

“Good job on those vows. You almost had me convinced.”

“Well, you know. I’ll say and do whatever I can to stay out of jail. Yours were good too. I guess we both won.”

“You didn’t pay attention to a word I said, did you?”

She pushed me away. “You don’t know me.”

“Yeah. I do.”

“That was a pretty convincing wedding kiss, though, right?” she mumbled, frowning at me.

“Yeah, I think we nailed it. Good job, buddy.”

“I just hope Andrew never sees that video.”

“Why would he? He’s not coming to visit, is he?”

“No.”

He never came to visit. It was my favorite thing about him.

I had splurged on a big suite at the San Ysidro Ranch in nearby Montecito, so it would look like a genuine honeymoon in our many photos for documentation of legitimacy when the time came for our interview with the immigration officer.

I already knew that after dinner we’d all hang out in the suite until Gemma “Grandma” Kelly started to get sleepy at ten o’clock. Neither of us would use the hot tub on the private deck, and we’d both fall asleep on the sofa watching Bob’s Burgers after she Facetimed with her out-of-town boyfriend, instead of going to town on each other for hours or days in the amazing king-size bed.

I knew we would never discuss the vows or the wedding kiss again. I would stop feeling the ghost of her lips on mine—eventually. I would stop thinking about it—eventually. I would try not to wonder if she ever thought about it.

Aside from the six other people who knew that this was a green card marriage, the world would continue to view us as best friends who lived together, and I would continue to have discreet, meaningless sex with hot women who didn’t distract me from my ambitions.

She’d be the only woman I wanted to talk to, the only one I’d miss when I’m working up in the Bay Area, the one I’d trust to look after the house when I’m gone, the one I’d look forward to coming home to.

And only every so often I’d think about how what I really wanted to do was go back to the night we met, when she was pressed up against that open door, and kiss her.

Because that’s just how it goes when you’re best friends with a girl. A girl who has a boyfriend in Ohio. A girl who offered to marry you so you could get a green card, so you could become the person you’ve always wanted to be. Because it never occurred to either of you that the person you wanted to be was the love of her life.

That door had closed.

And it would be fine. It was always fine.

How could it not be?

It was us.