“HEY, CHRIS. CAN YOU take this? It’s hot.”

Chris’s back was turned towards her as he chatted away with Walter from work. She bumped his back with her elbow. “Chris?”

He turned around, startled by her bump. He stared at what she held in each hand. His eyebrows rose and his mouth tugged upwards. “Julia. Did you bring that coffee… for me?”

Annoyed at his pause and the warmth of the cups were on the brink of singeing her palms, she nodded. “Take it.”

His gaze searched out hers. She growled the warning at him again.

“You don’t realize what you did?”

She reached around him and set the coffee on the guest table they shared with the rest of the people from work. She started to flop down but he grabbed her around the waist and stood her up as he simultaneously brought her closer. She let out a startled exclamation to find herself being hugged and feet slipped off the floor. Which he was perfectly strong enough to do, but didn’t often. “What?”

His mouth dipped down and touched hers in a brief, but potent kiss. Then he smirked as he repeated softly, his eyes glowing in feelings, “You brought me coffee… willingly.”

She blinked, eyebrows drawn down in puzzlement at why he was acting so weird and then… it all dawned. Coffee. That long ago proclamation of his about her bringing anyone coffee. She smirked. “So I did, Mr. Vaughn. Looks like I have.”

His forehead touched hers. She cupped his face in her hands. It made him so happy. She couldn’t resist the tender smile directed at her. “Okay, I brought you coffee. Yes, so I guess it means I’m committed.”

“Forever?”

She shook her head. “Well at least as long as this marriage lasts.”

He then dropped his gaze back to her as he whispered, “Do you think we can leave yet?”

“I wish, but… aren’t we kind of central to it all?”

Chris sighed. “I know.” Then he brushed his lips over hers again. “I just don’t care. And I don’t think either of them would care. If the mood so struck them, they’d leave our wedding.”

“That’s so true. It’s still so gross. So weird…”

“And so fits them. So yeah, we’re here while Lloyd and Vickie pledge their love together forever or at least until one of them cheats first.”

“Only we would end up being best man and maid of honor at our parents’ marriage to each other.” She giggled at his sour look, and then she started laughing harder. In ways she had been since they’d first discovered her mother and his father were sleeping together, and then low and behold, a few months later, they were in love and now here they all were.

At a damn wedding. Of Lloyd and Vickie Cartwright.

“You know in many ways, there was no other way this could go. These two had to do this. You saw them when they first met each other.”

“I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. But I warned you anything with Vickie involved—”

He flashed a grin. “You weren’t kidding. I had no idea. Well, at least she’s still alive and well to bother us like this.”

She pressed her lips together and waved her hand around. “Those two—who knows maybe they’ve finally found their match. Slut for slut. Or at the very least, they’ll drive each other crazy in trying to figure out if the other is cheating and how young the person the other is cheating with is. Just imagine, maybe all their dysfunction will cancel each other out.”

“He did nurse her through cancer. Maybe, maybe they’ll surprise us.” Chris added with a bit of hope. Then he shook his head. “Then again—”

“He did.” At the time Lloyd heard of her mother’s surgery, he’d come to the hospital out of respect for Julia and wanting to bond with Chris. He’d also gotten a view of Vickie again. And to their surprise when she went home, he often showed up with games to play, small bouquets of flowers or movies to watch until they were dating, each claiming to want more out of life than they’d ever indulged in before. And that included Chris and Julia, respectively.

Julia had humored them and eventually accepted it despite all the gross factors of Lloyd and her and then Chris and her. Julia had to accept that this is how anything to do with Vickie would go. Odd. Weird. Inappropriate. All of those things followed Vickie and she could let Vickie be all those things without it hurting her or believing it reflected on her.

And so, here they were at the marriage of Vickie and Lloyd. For now.

Thank goodness Lloyd had signed paperwork giving his son Chris complete control over the operations of CGC so Vickie could never get her hands on it and bankrupt him at any point. It had made Lloyd cry with joy the day he did so.

This was Vickie’s sixth marriage and yes, Julia knew how crazy that was. And odder still, Julia decided to believe this just might be her last. But for now, Vickie was alive and healthy and a smidgeon more considerate of Julia after all the years of no contact, and of course her journey through beating cancer. She seemed to learn a limited version of a lesson.

And Julia had learned that would be enough. Because she had her family. And Chris.

She and Chris celebrated their parents marrying each other and decided whatever antics or disasters followed this wedding, they’d not let it affect them or Tully or Tracy or the people who were their real support team.

Chris leaned forward then and touched his lips to hers and then trailed them to her ear where he said, “I know we shouldn’t leave, but I want to get out of here before your mother throws a bouquet at you in hopes you’ll get married next. I’m sorry, I don’t want any of her luck or advice touching our future.”

She bowed her head to hide the giggle. “Oh yes, please. Get me out of here.”

They held hands and snuck around the crowd, making little eye contact as they slunk out past her entire family from grandparents to cousins to all the kids.

Chris’s side only had Tully.

But now Chris had not only Tully, but the entire Moore-McKinley-Lindstrom clan to count as his. Finally away from witnessing the odd union of their parents, they laughed like little kids as they stole free of the banquet room they had thrown their wedding reception in. She’d rolled her eyes and sighed and begged Vickie to not have a wedding. Not again. Class it up this time. But Vickie was Vickie. And here they were.

And oddly, this time? She was okay with that.

They ran from there, laughing as they held hands and stopped, gasping for breath.

“So what do you think if we make this as odd as most of the tangled webbed marriages in your family and get engaged on our parents’ wedding day to each other?”

Her head shot up and all at once, Chris went down to one knee and there in the beautiful lit gardens of the hotel, Chris held out a box and ring. Her mouth dropped open as her eyes filled with tears and she shut her eyes as the feelings overwhelmed her. “I’m just not sure it could be any other way.” She opened her eyes grinning. “Of course, I will marry you. And for us? It’ll be the first, last and only marriage.”

“Could it be any other way?” His gaze sparked with warm feelings as he rose up to his feet. Their hands slipped together tightly after fitting the ring on her finger. They smiled at each other, with a deep, loving understanding that came from all the years that led them to this moment.

And from dealing with their crazy, wild, involved, nosy, big, complicated, messy, wonderful family.

Maybe there was no other force that could have drawn them so intimately and honestly together as the family they loved and would now forever share.

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