Second Epilogue
Becca
One Year Later…
“You better hurry up, Becks, or you’re going to be late.”
“Impossible. Don’t you know a girl can’t be late to her own wedding?”
“The hell she can’t! We were supposed to be down on the beach half an hour ago. Grant keeps texting asking where we are.”
“Well, I’m almost ready. Why don’t you have another glass of champagne? I just want to make sure everything is perfect.”
Sighing, Sophia gets up from her chair next to the open balcony door and crosses the room to an ice bucket on the bedside table. Her bridesmaid dress is so tight that she can only move with little half-steps, her feet shuffling the villa floor. Taking the half-empty bottle of champagne from the bucket, she refills her glass.
“Too many more of these,” she says, taking a sip, “and I’m going to pass out before we even get to the reception.”
“Pour me a glass, won’t you?” I’m standing next to her before a full-length mirror hanging on the wall. For what must be the thousandth time, I pull a pin from my hair, rearrange the now-loose lock, and slide the pin back in, twisting first one way and then the other to see how it looks. “Ugh, I just can’t get this right.”
“Oh, please,” Sophia snorts. “You look absolutely perfect.” She pours a second glass of champagne and holds it out to me. “Besides, it’s not like Rich is going to notice. All he’ll be thinking about is getting you back to his villa so he can rip your dress off and have his—“
“Sophia!” I exclaim, a blush spreading up my cheeks.
“What?” she asks innocently. “Don’t think I haven’t heard you two in your bedroom. ‘Oh, Rich! Just like that! Just like that!’ The walls are very thin, you know.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“I am, indeed.”
Shuffling back across the room, Sophia pulls back the curtain covering the balcony door and glances down at the beach.
“Looks like everyone’s there,” she says. “God, what a beautiful ceremony this is going to be! I can’t believe Rich rented out the entire resort. And for an entire week no less! I’m telling you, I need to find myself an ex-football player.”
“You have Grant.”
“And I love him deeply and always will. But that doesn’t mean I can’t keep a multimillionaire on retainer, does it?”
I shake my head, though I’m unable to suppress my smile. “Incorrigible. Ahh, finally!” I drop my hands and spin around to face my best friend, the cloudless Hawaiian sky behind her framing her beautiful face. As always, I can hear the crash of waves onto the beach down below. “What do you think?”
“Gorgeous,” Sophia says, all traces of teasing gone from her voice. She carefully wipes each eye with her thumb. “Stunning, Becca. Truly. I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful.”
“Thank you, love.” I take a sip of champagne, the flute shaking in my hand. Now that I was finally ready, the nerves I’d been successfully keeping at bay were starting to take hold, my heart beating faster and faster. “You ready to get this thing over with?”
“Born ready. Let’s do it, shall we?”
I follow Sophia out the back door, across the veranda, and down onto the path leading from the villa—the same villa I’d stayed in during my very first visit here—to the beach. The dress I’m wearing is more chic than traditional, though it’s still white and covered with lace. As I walk along behind Sophia, the poor girl struggling to move in her bridesmaid dress, I force myself to take several slow, deep breaths. There’s no reason to be nervous. Everything is going to be just perfect.
When we step onto the sand not two minutes later, the fifty or so people seated in the three rows of white, wooden chairs set before the makeshift altar turn and look over their shoulders. As one, they gasp and rise to their feet. I glance from smiling face to smiling face, the world growing blurry as my tears begin to well.
“Don’t cry yet,” Sophia whispers, the hand hooked through my elbow squeezing my arm. “You’ll smear your makeup.” Nodding, I blink away the tears.
Soon we reach the white carpet running down the aisle cutting between the rows. A pianist is playing a soft, tinkling tune on a large, white piano next to the altar, its melody blending nicely with the roar of the ocean. At the end of the carpet, up on the raised dais of the altar, Rich is standing with his hands clasped before him, Jim at his side.
My eyes meet my soon-to-be husband’s. He’s smiling wide, tears glistening in his eyes. He’s as handsome as ever, his finely tailored black tuxedo hugging his thick shoulders and chest.
As soon as our eyes lock, the rest of the world drips away and he becomes all I can see. When I come to the foot of the altar, he reaches down and takes my hand and leads me up the steps to him, Sophia following after. Unable to help himself, he draws me to him, his lips finding mine. The crowd below lets out a cheer.
“Get a room!” someone yells.
“Ahem, if you wouldn’t mind,” Cal says, clearing his throat from his position behind Rich. He’s to be the officiator of our wedding today. Months ago, when Rich and I had first begun to plan our ceremony, Cal had called to offer his services. It was a suggestion the two of us had been only too happy to accept. After all, just like Jim and Sophia, he was a big part of why Rich and I were standing here today.
“Sorry,” I say, giggling as I pull away from Rich’s embrace. “I couldn’t help it.”
Looking out at the crowd, Cal raises his hand, everyone immediately quieting. I’m standing with both hands in Rich’s, Sophia just behind my left shoulder, Jim just behind Rich’s right.
“So,” Cal begins, addressing our guests. “How’s everyone doing today? Everyone ready to see these two lovebirds get married?”
“Woo!”
“Go, Richie! Marry that babe!”
“What a fox! She’s too good for you, Richie!”
“Sorry,” Rich chuckles, rolling his eyes as the crowd breaks into fits of laughter. “My old teammates always get a bit rowdy.”
“Yeah, I bet you’re going to get rowdy!”
“You dirty, old man, you!”
Grinning, Cal raises his hands again, as before the crowd instantly falling silence. Not once have my eyes wavered from my fiancé’s.
“Well, then, let’s not keep anyone waiting,” Cal says. “As you all know, we’re gathered here today to pay witness to the marriage of Rich Anderson and Becca Warren, two people who took entirely too long to realize they belonged together. Now, before we get down to business, I’d like to start by giving all of you my own opinion on the matter. I was privileged enough to witness the first blossom of Rich and Becca’s love almost two years ago when both just so happened to be staying at this very resort. Now, naturally, I’ve seen all sorts of relationships spring up here. It is Hawaii, after all. Nothing like white sand and blue ocean to get one in the mood for love. Or lust, I might add. But watching these two, I could tell immediately that something was different. It was apparent in the way I’d see them look at one another, in the way their eyes shined whenever the other was around. It was, in short, disgusting.
“Anyways, so I knew immediately, having witnessed hundreds of vacation romances, that what I was seeing was the real deal, something not many people are privileged to find in their time on this world. I, myself, have never even come close. Which is why, besides loving both of them dearly, I also secretly hate them. But that’s neither here nor there.
“Now, as we all know, as with any good love story, Rich and Becca experienced some complications early on. I won’t go into the details, but suffice to say that even though love was beating the two of them repeatedly over the head, both tried as hard as they could to remain blind to her not-so-soft caresses. Luckily—again as all great love stories go—Becca and Rich each had some fine supporting characters to nudge them back onto the right path. And ever since then, their love has been nothing short of absolutely sickening. And beautiful, I guess I should say. But mostly sickening.
“Anyways, I want to end this little spiel by telling you both how truly happy I am for you, and how I know that the love you declare for each other today will only grow stronger with time, always serving as a reminder as to what the rest of us are missing out on. I would wish you all the best, but I know I don’t have to because the best is already upon you. Yours is a love for the ages, the kind of love the great poets liked to write about, not to mention every two-bit romance novelist. You two will always remain the paragon of what my relationships should aspire to, and will always be the benchmark for what it means to give your all to someone else, to weld your heart to theirs, to open your soul and hold nothing back. May you always, my dear, dear friends, be the couple that everyone rolls their eyes at out of pure jealousy.”
When Cal finishes, not a single eye on the beach is dry nor heart not lifted and bubbling over with joy. Every member of the audience, along with Jim and Sophia and Rich and me, are beaming. Even the birds overhead seem to be laughing as they cavort high above us.
“Okay,” Cal continues after a moment. “Now that I’ve successfully made myself the star of the show, it’s time for the two of you to say your vows. Becca, would you like to start?”
I nod.
“Rich, it to—” I begin, my words catching in my throat. Taking a deep breath, I start again. “Rich, it took me a very long time to write these words. Even then, I must have rewritten them a hundred times. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t know what to say or how I felt. It’s just that it felt, and still feels, utterly impossible to capture the immensity of my love for you. I’m not sure any language has the words to express the way you make my heart and soul soar. Then too, any attempt I made just ended up sounding like some terrible, made-for-TV movie.”
Rich laughs, his hands tightening in mine.
“But I had to write something. After all, I couldn’t just stand here and be silent. So again and again I wracked my brain for the perfect metaphor. And then I realized: it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if I couldn’t express it. What mattered was that you already knew.
“Rich, I’ve never felt more comfortable than when I’m with you. And not just comfortable in the eat-pizza-and-wear-no-makeup sort of way, though I certainly am that. Comfortable being myself, I mean. Comfortable being Becca, something I’ve struggled with all my life. I’m more me than I’ve ever been when you’re at my side. I feel capable of doing anything, capable of being anything. I’m inspired by you, lifted up by you, become something more, someone better, because of you.
“They say you just kind of know when you meet the right one. I’m still not sure if I believe this, mainly because I did my damnedest to deny it for so long. But maybe a part of me did. And that was why I could never get you out of my head, why from the moment we crossed paths you were lodged in my soul. Rich, I will love you to my very dying day. I will love you in sickness and in health and in everything in between. You are—and now this really is starting to sound like a sappy movie—the other half of my soul. I would be honored to be your wife, and I promise to cherish you each and every day until we’re both old farts whose kids have to change our diapers. Don’t ever be anyone but who you are. In return, I swear I will never give you anyone but myself.”
If I had thought all of us were crying after Cal’s speech, it is nothing compared to the waterworks coming down now. Even Rich’s old teammates are crying, laughing and clapping one another on the back as they pass packets of tissue back and forth.
“Wow,” Cal says after a moment, wiping a tear from his eye. “That was beautiful, Becca. Truly, beautiful. Okay, Richie. Your turn.”
“Well, that’s going to be a tough one to follow,” Rich mutters. Laughter ripples through the crowd. “Though I guess I have no choice but to try.”
Dropping to one knee, Rich pulls me closer. “Becca,” he begins, his thumbs caressing the backs of my hands, “I’ve spent a great deal of my life searching for the one thing that would make me feel complete, that would fill in that terrible hole in the center of my soul that I know we’ve all experienced at one time or another. I tried to fill this hole with football, with fame, with money, with things, with new experiences. And yet the more things I tried, the further from my goal I felt. After a while, I began to believe I would never find what I was looking for, that I was doomed to forever wander this earth in a haze of half-living, just a shell of a man pretending to be happy on the outside while being achingly alone on the inside.
“But then I met you. And, as they say, everything changed in an instant. Unlike you, I knew what you were going to mean to me from the moment you walked on that plane, your eyes so bright and you so oblivious to your own beauty. I knew—though like you I also tried to deny it—that you were going to be important to me, more important than anyone or anything had ever been. The world shifted when you walked onto that plane. And once it did, there was no going back.
“My love, these last eighteen months have easily been the best of my life. Once upon a time, saying something like that would make me sad, would make me worry and wonder if I had reached the peak of my short existence on this planet. But now it only fills me with joy. Because I know that as good as it’s been, it’s only up from here. Like a kid on Christmas morning, I’m looking forward to every step of the journey we still have in front of us—to all the hardships and the joys and the laughs and the cries and to everything else in between. Like you said, I finally found what I’d been missing all these years. Little did I know it’d be contained in a one-hundred-and-ten-pound, five-foot-four package of pure spunk!
“Becca, marrying you today is like winning all of the championships in the world. There will never be a moment in my life better than this, and yet every moment with you will be exactly the same. I can think of no greater honor than to call you my wife. Although, if I’m being honest, it still surprises me that you said yes. It just doesn’t seem fair to everyone else. Because of that, I promise with every ounce of strength in my veins that I will spend my life cherishing you, lifting you up, loving you with all of my heart and my soul until my last breath leaves me. And even then, I won’t let you go. You’re mine now and forever, just as I’m yours now and forever. I love you, Becca Warren. There’s no better way to say it. I love you.”
When Rich finishes and rises to his feet, silence envelops the beach, punctuated only by the sound of the waves rolling in behind us. For some moments, no one says a word. Finally, clearing his throat, Cal looks out at our audience of family and friends.
“See what I mean, folks? Isn’t it gross? Have you ever seen anything as beautiful in all your lives?” He smiles. “Well, now that your vows are out of the way, I suppose we should get this over with, though I’m not really sure why I’m about to ask what I’m about to ask. I think we all know the answer.
“Anyways,” he continues, looking first at Jim and then at Sophia. “If our best man and matron of honor could hand over the rings.”
Reaching around me, Sophia presses Rich’s ring into my hand. At the same time, Jim passes mine to Rich.
“Perfect.” Cal turns to me. “Now Becca, do you take Rich to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love him and to cherish him and to take care of his goofy ass until death do you part?”
“I do,” I say, barely able to see through my tears as I slide Rich’s ring onto his finger.
“And Rich, you big dolt,” Cal says, turning to the love of my life, “do you promise to hold onto this foxy lady that you probably don’t deserve, to love her and to cherish her until your heart gives out and you die face down in a bowl of applesauce and heart meds?”
“I do,” Rich says, a tear rolling down his cheek as he takes my hand and slips my ring on.
“Then by the power invested in me by the wonderful state of Hawaii,” Cal says, his voice rising as he spreads his arms out to either side, “I now pronounce you husband and wife! Go on, kiss your bride!”
His hands closing about my waist, Rich pulls me to him, his lips finding mine as the crowd erupts, everyone jumping to their feet.
“Okay, then!” Cal shouts over the clapping and cheering as Rich and I break away and turn to face our family and friends. “Now that all of this lovey-dovey, mumbo-jumbo is out of the way, you know what that means! Time to party! Come on, everyone! To the resort! Let’s get drunk!”
Jumping off the dais, Cal bounds across the sand, the guests falling in behind him, everyone still whooping and laughing and hugging as they follow him up to the resort. Only Rich and I don’t move, the two of us watching until the last guest has disappeared into the dining garden. Already, I can hear the band striking up a tune.
“Come on, my love,” Rich says finally, laughing as he scoops me up into his strong arms. He kisses the tip of my nose and sets off up the beach. “Let’s go start the first day of the rest of our lives.”
“Anything you want, my love,” I whisper, my head falling onto my husband’s shoulder. I sigh, my gaze fixed on the dark, dense tropical forest blanketing the distant mountains. “As long as I’m with you.”