Chapter 33

The sun shone brilliantly on Hunter and Trina’s mid-September wedding day. Hunter stood beside Nate under the arbor that he’d built and the girls and Trina had threaded with ribbons and greens and flowers. The audience stretched before him—his parents and siblings, Trina’s older sisters, Stefan and his girlfriend, Jake and Mira and Sam, Alia with Nate’s adopted family Suzy, Jim, and Braden, and a few of his platoon-mates who were back stateside.

The DJ started the wedding march and Phoebe and Clara came down the aisle toward him.

“I know they’re too old, but I always wanted flower girls,” Trina had said, and so they were dressed in identical white dresses with pale blue sashes, and they scattered rose petals as they walked, looking a little pale and tremulous and deliberately not making eye contact with all the people on either side of them.

They didn’t look anything like sisters, Clara with her frothy cloud of bright red hair and Phoebe’s all satin blond, Clara’s face freckled and angular, Phoebe’s fair and heart-shaped just like Trina’s—but as they came close to him they snuck looks at each other and exchanged smiles that tipped up at opposite corners, and it struck him that they were sisters, in their hearts, and probably always had been.

But then he couldn’t watch them anymore because Trina had stepped around the side of the house and was coming toward him, and his breath stuck hard in his chest.

Her dress wasn’t anything fancy. He didn’t know all the official names for fabrics and cuts, but this one was made out of a light-looking fabric, silk, maybe, pure white. It had skinny little straps and an uneven, draped front, and a high waist that made her breasts look even bigger and softer and rounder and—

Wasn’t he supposed to be thinking loftier thoughts than this?

He couldn’t spend too much time staring at her breasts—he could indulge in that later anyway—because as soon as she was close enough for him to see her face, he couldn’t look anywhere else. She was wearing just a little bit of makeup and smiling a sweet, small, secret smile, and she glowed. And her eyes were on his and her smile grew for him and he thought his heart was absolutely going to burst.

I’ve never felt like this before, he wanted to say. I’ve never felt anything remotely like this, ever before.

He tried to tell her with his eyes, and maybe he succeeded, just a little, because as she got closer he could see that her eyes were full of tears, the way they’d been on the airplane when he’d told her how he felt. He’d always thought it was just crazy talk when people said they had eyes only for one another, but he swore to God it was like there was no one else in the backyard. And, in fact, everyone around them had fallen silent, probably because they all wanted to stare at her, too, at her beautiful hair piled up on her head and the diamonds sparkling in her earlobes and in the hollow of her throat.

She’d refused to stay in his house the night before—said that even though they’d been together already it wasn’t lucky—and had gone to stay at Bonnie’s, and he couldn’t believe how fast he’d gotten used to having her in his bed. It felt so big and cold and goddamn empty, and he’d lain sleepless for hours wanting to bury himself in her. He guessed a body could get damn used to frequent sex pretty quickly, and he didn’t know if it was how they’d always be, but for the last few months it had been twice a day at least—quick in the morning, with the door locked against intruders, and slow and languorous at night.

“Hi,” she said, arriving at his side.

It made him laugh. Everything was so formal and serious, and she was just her.

“Hey, you.”

The justice of the peace began to speak, but he didn’t hear it. He only saw the sparkle of her blue eyes and the way that smile softly curved her mouth. He saw her chest rise and fall. He didn’t hear another word until it was time for the vows.

Her eyes brimmed with tears, but her voice was steady. “I, Trina…take thee, Hunter…to be my husband…to have and to hold…from this day forward…for better, for worse…for richer, for poorer…in sickness and in health…to love and to cherish…till death do us part.”

He felt no qualms. No doubts. No sense of worry that he might not be enough for her or she for him.

Phoebe was crying. Clara unwrapped a handkerchief from somewhere inside her bouquet and handed it over.

And then it was his turn to say his.

“I, Hunter…take thee, Trina…to be my wife…to have and to hold…from this day forward…for better, for worse…for richer, for poorer…in sickness and in health…”

He hesitated.

It wasn’t enough. Not quite.

“In light and in darkness,” he said.

Someone in the audience gasped. Trina looked up at him, startled.

“In memory and in forgetting.”

“Hunter.”

“I just wanted you to know,” he whispered. “In case I get old and senile. My body doesn’t forget. My heart doesn’t forget.”

They were off script and she was off balance, a little wild-eyed, and he reached out to steady her. “To love and to cherish,” he said, smiling. “Till death do us part.”

“By the power vested in me by the state of Washington, I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the JP said. “You may kiss the bride.”

He did, brushing her tears away and whispering to her that it was okay, everything was okay, they were going to be just fine.