If I Tie U Down by Stephanie Van Orman

Wedding Day - Shannon

I stayed over at my parents’ house the night before the wedding. All the girls stayed with me, and though there were many jokes, most of them were merely in the form of unusual lingerie. When I woke up, I immediately went to make sure no one had written on my face that night. No one had, which was good, because I had had it with ink pranks.

After breakfast, Quinn took charge of getting me ready. She was the youngest and knew more about current trends in hair and makeup than I did. We didn’t even talk about how she was going to do my hair beforehand.

She made me sit on a chair and narrowed her eyes. “Romantic or edgy?”

“What does that really mean, Quinn?”

Sage came up behind her. “If you choose romantic, it will be a symmetrical hairstyle. Probably right down the back. If you choose edgy, it’ll be a side thing.”

“Oh, the side thing. My dress isn’t symmetrical, so go look at it, and decide which side to make bigger.”

After inspecting it, she decided to do a curled bun behind my right ear.

The day was pleasant as we had lunch as a family, and I got hauled away for a manicure afterward.

My mother got out her camera and took me to the backyard to get a headstart on the pictures, taking cutesy pictures with each of my sisters and my sister-in-law. Sage took the camera away from her when the photographer arrived and took more with me and my parents.

“We should have had Fletch come over,” she complained. “That old tradition about the groom not seeing the bride before the wedding is so old-fashioned. He should be here with us, getting a headstart on being part of the family.”

My breath caught.

I think it was at that moment that I knew he wasn’t going to make it to the ceremony.

***

I pushed the thought away at first, but once we were all packed into the car on the way to the church, I got out my cell phone and tried calling him. No answer. Frustrated and cross, I dialed Simon’s number.

“Hi, Simon, is Fletch around?”

“You mean, he’s not with you?” Simon said on the other end of the line.

“No.”

“He was here at his parents’ house until last night. He wasn’t in bed when we got up this morning and we thought he’d snuck off to spend the night with you.”

“He didn’t do that. I haven’t seen him. He hasn’t called me either.” I felt a chill crawl up my spine under my satin dress and suddenly the chill went hot. “Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”

Simon sounded worried on the other end. “He might have gone home.”

“Simon,” I said sternly. “I need you and anyone else who’s free to find him. Go to his apartment. Call Chase if you know him, or go to the Eloquent Spider. Go to the music shop, the theater, and anywhere prominent where he’s played. I’ll go to the church and see if he’s there, but I feel sick like something terrible has happened. Him not answering his phone on our wedding day is a prank he wouldn’t pull.”

“It’s okay, Shannon. I’m sure he’s doing an errand that makes perfect sense, like buying you a ring. It’s so weird that you two didn’t get an engagement ring or wedding rings. He probably realized it’s nuts not to have one and went ring shopping.”

“He would have picked up his phone if he were doing something like that.”

“Maybe not. Maybe he wanted it to be a surprise.”

“I hope so,” I said, gazing out the window. “We’re at the church. I’ll check it out and call you back if he’s here.”

“Great,” Simon said as he hung up.

***

That was the story of how I got jilted on my wedding day. It was a masterful prank. I gave up waiting in the back of the church and stood at the doors where the guests were coming in. I was there because I wanted to see Fletch as soon as he came in. Everyone was in such high spirits when they arrived, only to see me and have their faces fall. The groom seeing the bride before the wedding was one thing, but the guests seeing her before the wedding was something else entirely. All of them knew something was wrong as soon as they saw me.

It was an event intended to humiliate me.

Eventually, Simon came through the doors panting and out of breath with the other boys. “We couldn’t find him. I guess he’s not here either.”

I shook my head.

At the very least, I had neither started crying nor allowed my face to show the rage that was seething behind my mask of perfect calm. Half an hour had passed since the wedding should have begun.

I turned to Tallis, who was at my elbow. “Wanna do something you’ve never done before?” I said to her.

“Yup,” she replied.

“Go in there and tell them that the groom has gone missing, but everyone is welcome to the food in the hall of the church. Reassure everyone that we’re still expecting him to show and when he gets here, we’ll still have a wedding.”

“Wait. If we’ve got to that point, do you really have no idea where he is?”

“My guess as to what has happened is pretty terrifying.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I don’t think there’s the tiniest chance that Fletch jilted me on our wedding day on purpose. I think he was kidnapped.”

Tallis dropped a shoulder. “That sounds crazy.”

“Does it?” I hissed. “Some pretty crazy things have been going on lately. You know what I need?”

“What?”

“I need a gun, a set of handcuffs, and a car.”

She laughed. “You’ve lost your mind. What kind of stuff have you been up to that you’re even talking like that?”

“Look, I didn’t want to scare anyone with the crazy scenarios that have been playing out lately, and now isn’t the time to talk about them. Get in there and make that announcement,” I said, giving her a push.

She held back. “If you had that stuff, do you think you could get him?”

“I don’t know if all that is necessary. I think the point of all this is to ruin my wedding, make a fool of me, and, if possible, make it so that I can’t marry Fletch.”

“If it’s any consolation, you don’t look humiliated, even though getting jilted on your wedding day is pretty much the pinnacle of humiliation.”

“I’m more sad than anything. All those people feel sorry for me.”

“Anything you’ve ever wanted to do in front of a crowd?” Tallis suddenly asked, turning the question I’d asked her around on me.

I laughed.

“It might give him some more time to get here.”

Six Hours Earlier - Fletch

I didn’t have that much experience with tranquilizers. Even though I couldn’t move my limbs or open my eyes, I knew that was what had been used on me. More than being afraid that I had been kidnapped, I was pissed off. No matter what urgency I felt inside as my body bumped in the backseat of a car, I couldn’t move to stop what was happening. I could hear voices, but I couldn’t identify them.

Soon, I stopped hearing the conspiring voices, stopped feeling the humming rhythm of the vehicle, and stopped sensing anything at all.

My sight was foggy and fuzzy as I awoke.

Morning sunlight blistered through my eyelids. I breathed and coughed. As I opened my eyes, I saw things that didn’t make sense. The ceiling was yellow. No one painted ceilings yellow. Not even my mad mother. I saw a kitchen cabinet even though I was lying on a bed. I saw a steering wheel.

Then suddenly, I realized that I had never been in a car.

I tried to sit up but unsuccessful, I fell back down. I was in a camper, and someone was in the bed with me. A foot hit my leg.

I turned to see who it was. I couldn’t see their face, but I saw the hair so purple it could only belong to Ringlet. I didn’t want to call her Rin anymore, not after what she’d helped Carver do at the last concert, but using all seven letters of her name instead of three seemed like paying her too much respect.

Managing to get to my feet, I bumped my way down the corridor of the camper to the driver’s seat. From that vantage point, all I could see were rolling hills and sky. No people and no buildings in sight. We were nowhere, but the keys were in the ignition. When I tried them, the engine turned over, but only once. Looking at the dials, it was easy to see what was wrong. The camper was out of gas.

I left it and went back to Rin. I tapped her with my shoeless foot. “Wake up,” I ordered loudly.

She rolled over and pretended to be as drugged and groggy as I was, but I knew it was an act.

I prodded her again. “Look, whatever you’re going to say you did to land yourself in this situation, I already know it’s a lie. Carver added that mini fruit pizza to our order and paid the pizza boy to deliver it saying it was a promotional item. My boys didn’t eat it because I was the one getting married today, so they left it for me. I felt tired and went to bed early. You and Carver snuck into the house and pulled me out of bed, and I was too out of it to do anything about it. You managed to get me in this camper. He left and you drove around until you ran out of gas, and now you’re pretending that you were drugged too, when, actually, you’re fine. You’re just here to make sure I stay here for the rest of the day and miss my wedding.”

“You’re wrong. I’m as much of a victim as you are,” she said drowsily.

In a rage, I grabbed the mattress and pulled it out from under her. “Don’t act like you’re drugged!”

She fell on her butt and righted herself as quickly as a cat. “Okay, fine,” she panted from the corner of the camper. “I’m not drugged, but that doesn’t mean I’m not cornered. Carver said he’d cancel Blades and Blasters’ contract if I didn’t help him. I can’t lose that contract.”

“And we’re just supposed to stay here for the day?” I asked, tossing the foam mattress next to her.

“Yeah,” she affirmed, putting the mattress back in place.

“You don’t have a phone?”

“Carver will get us at midnight,” she replied, still rattled.

I looked down at my feet. I wasn’t even wearing shoes. They were trying to make it so I couldn’t even walk out.

She got up and opened the mini-fridge. “He’s not trying to torture you. There’s enough food here to last until he comes to get us. I’m here to keep you company and entertain you.”

The sound that came out of my mouth was almost the same as the one a drunk makes when they're vomiting in the bathroom. “Entertain me? Like you could.”

She huffed. “I’m sure I could entertain you. After all, I’m an entertainer.”

I ground my teeth together. “If you try to sing to me, I swear, I’ll break something. Maybe everything.”

“Well, you don’t have to take it out on me. I am here, but I didn’t do this to you. It wasn’t my idea,” she justified as she covered her tank top with a plaid shirt.

“I can’t think of a single reason not to take it out on you,” I said frostily. “Have you ever wanted to marry someone?”

She looked at me like she couldn’t believe that anyone was that stupid. That anyone was stupid enough to believe in marriage.

“You haven’t, huh?”

With those words, she was reduced to a little girl who hadn’t properly plunged the depths of human emotion. That wouldn’t bother most people, but Rin was a songwriter, and even hinting at her being immature made her insane.

She opened her mouth, but I cut her off. “If you start singing, I’ll rip the fridge out of the wall. You’re here to be my punching bag. What did you think was going to happen? I was going to think this was a sweet little waiting room? You’d feed me grapes, sing to me, and I’d be so blown away by your talent that I wouldn’t mind missing my wedding?”

Rin averted her eyes.

“Argh!” I balled my fists together and instead of punching anything, I merely held them at my temples while I screamed. Then I dropped my hands. “You know what, Rin? Do you know what I wanted for my life? I wanted music, just like you, but not as much as you. I wanted to have someone in the audience who was just for me. Fans? It’s nice when people appreciate your music. That leaves a good feeling, but it wasn’t the same as having her in my audience. I have never wanted another person’s approval so much in my life. That first night, I was playing the triangle, but she told me it sounded like a baby star being born. I have been hooked, addicted, and completely hers since I met her. And you and Carver put all those gross inky words all over her. I never want to see you again. How could this be friendly? How could I think anything good about you again? How will I sit through a car ride back to the city without killing Carver? My wedding wasn’t supposed to be a big event. I wasn’t doing it for attention. I just wanted to tie her to me in a way so that everyone understands how much I adore her, that I would do anything for her, even let myself be tied down.” I kicked the fridge and sat back on the bed in a huff.

“Fletch,” she said quietly. “You should forget all about Shannon. Even if you marry her, you’ll never shake Carver. For whatever reason, he’s just as obsessed with her as you are, except he’s not normal. He doesn’t understand boundaries and I don’t know if he’ll ever leave her alone.”

I shook my head. “I don’t care what he wants. What size are your shoes?”

“There’s no way you can wear my shoes. They’re size seven.”

“What’s that in mens'?”

“It’s a five and a half,” she answered coldly.

I gnawed on the side of my cheek. “That’s not going to work.”

Thinking, I opened the door to the camper and felt the wind in the spring air. If I didn’t get a lot more clothes, a walk anywhere was going to be out of the question. I closed the door and went back to the driver’s seat. I couldn’t see any road signs.

“Where are we?” I yelled to Rin.

“I’m not supposed to tell you.”

“How is Carver going to find us?”

“He told me where to drive. He’ll drive the way he told me and pick us up at midnight. I already told you.”

I looked out at the pavement. We were on a side road. Someone might drive by. I turned on the emergency lights. If someone drove by I’d flag them down. Ringlet pouted in the back while I kept my eyes on the road and the side view mirror.

“I’m cold,” I called back to her. “I saw you put on another shirt. Is there anything else for me to wear?”

She threw me the blanket that had been on the bed. I put it over my knees and kept watching.

Fast Forward to the Wedding - Shannon

I looked at Tallis. Was there anything I ever wanted to do in front of a crowd? I suddenly realized that there was.

I stepped past her and walked down the aisle even though there was no groom to greet me. Once there, I turned and spoke to our guests. “Hello, everyone!” I said brightly. “I’d like to welcome all of you to my wedding. Naturally, Fletch is supposed to be here to marry me and many of you have noticed that he’s not. The thing is… I don’t think he’s standing me up on our wedding day. I think he’s been genuinely held up. His phone is not working. So, instead of having the wedding first, I thought it would be okay if we gave him a little more time to get here and just reorganized our events. The food has already been set out, so if you’d all like to head into the hall, we’ll have dinner.”

As soon as people started standing up, Fletch’s mother rushed me. “What do you mean, he’s not here?”

I met her gaze steadily. “I’m not hiding him. I don’t know where he is. The only thing I know is that he would not have deserted me if he could help it. We have to hang on.”

She straightened herself. “What can I do to help?”

“You can get that look off your face. Until they kick us out of the church at midnight, this is still my wedding day, and if you can smile and have a good time, that would really help out. Don’t even look tense. Everything is going to work out just fine. Have faith in your son.”

A strange look crossed my soon-to-be mother-in-law’s face. “And you’re sure he hasn’t walked out on you?”

I stood firm. “Fletch would not do that. If he wanted to dump me, he would have told me to my face. He would have told you. He would not allow his family and friends to be inconvenienced at a non-existent wedding all night. If he wanted to dump me he would have no interest in humiliating me.”

My faith in him moved her. Her face changed. “I suppose all that is true,” she said softly. “I made a mistake just now when I asked you that. Of course, he would have told us.”

I nodded at her and sent her to join her husband.

My family was waiting in the wings, flocking toward me as soon as Fletch’s mother had gone. “What can we do?”

I grabbed my brother Ethan by the arm. “Make sure the microphone system in the hall works. I’m going to make an announcement later.”

“No problem,” he said as he left.

“What about the rest of us?”

I cracked my neck. “Go pretend to have a good time and if anyone asks anything, just say I said it all when I spoke up. Don’t cut the cake yet.”

Most of them left, but my mom hung back. “Do you think he’ll make it?”

“I don’t know if he will,” I replied. “There is someone really nasty out there who wants to get my attention this way. I can’t believe they would stoop this low. My instinct is to chase after him and find out what he has done with Fletch, but tonight, I have the frustrating job of staying still. He’ll come here and I have to be here when he gets here.”

“Who is trying to ruin your wedding?”

“Carver Criche.”

“He’s here,” my mother said. “He signed the guestbook.”

Gang it all! - Fletch

I saw a pack of motorcycles coming down the road. I palmed the horn, rolled down the window, and waved at them.

Rin came running. “What are you calling them for?”

“I need a ride to my wedding,” I explained tersely.

“Yeah, but you don’t need help from them. Don’t you know who they are?” she screamed as she pulled my hand off the horn. “They’re Hell’s Dragons. It’s one of the biggest gangs around these parts. We do not want them messing with us.”

“I just want a ride. Maybe they can help me get back to town, or better still, away from you and away from Carver. I would, dead serious, rather ride with them than with him.”

Her lower lip quivered in anger. “No. You don’t know them. You don’t know what they’re like. You can’t go with them. You won’t be safe.”

I continued waving and honked the horn again. “You think I’m safe with you?”

Her eyes widened.

The bikers pulled up and Rin disappeared into the back of the camper.

One of them stopped next to me and raised his visor. “What’s up?”

“We’re out of gas and I am going to miss my wedding if I don’t get back to the city. Could I get a ride?”

The biker moved his tongue around his teeth like that was the way decisions were made. “I’d need to talk to the guys.”

I inclined my hand politely. “Please do.”

Rin returned from the back with a red gas can. She hopped out of the trailer and circled to the tank. “That won’t be necessary,” she said in an overly cheery tone. “I was just tricking him. We aren’t really stranded.”

The biker looked at her with drooping eyelids. “Are you the bride?”

“No,” she said as she opened the gas cap.

“Is she the stripper from your bachelor party?”

“No. She’s a kidnapper! Would you believe it?” I said, feeling the tension escape from my shoulders.

He stroked his beard and peered at her, his disgust evident. “If that isn’t the worst trick to play on someone, keeping a man from his wedding? Do you know how many years a man waits to get married?”

She put her hands on her hips and tried to smile. “I’ve been told.”

“Do you want us to take her with us so you can drive straight there?” the biker offered.

My eyebrows went up. I was sorely tempted.

“You wouldn’t!” she cried as she lifted the can to fill the tank.

The biker waved a dismissing hand at her and turned back to me. “How far do you have to go? That’s not a lot of gas.”

“Edmonton.”

He looked at it and then at the camper. “You might not make it. You got any money?”

“Do you have any money, Rin?” I called.

“Yup. Loads of money. There’s so much of it, it’s coming out of my ears.”

The biker got out his wallet and gave me two twenty-dollar bills. “I hope this helps. Seriously, want us to take her with us? She’d look good on the wall.”

I chuckled. “I think I have to return her to her owner. Thank you for the money.”

“Think of it as a wedding present.”

Rin replaced the gas cap and turned to the biker. “Everything is sorted now. You can go.”

He regarded her with an emotion that was best friends with boredom, except lower on a mood spectrum. “I’ll wait until I see him drive away.”

She eyed the gangsters and rushed to get back in the camper.

“What’s your name, friend?” I asked pleasantly.

“Santa.”

“Are you sure it’s not Mr. Claus?”

“I go by that too,” he said with a smile.

“I’m Fletch,” I volunteered. “And thank you again.”

Rin got in the seat beside me.

Looking at her, a huge problem just struck me. I turned back to the biker. “Where are we? How do I get back to Edmonton?”

He grinned and told me the way.

Five-Thirty at the Wedding - Shannon

“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” my mother asked as I took a break from working the room.

“Nope. I’m just moving around to avoid Carver. He’s over there trying to look like Humphrey Bogart in the fedora and failing. Did you see the look on his face? This is clearly not the wedding he envisioned for me.”

“Why not?” my mom asked huffily. From the pictures I’d seen, her wedding was very similar to what Fletch and I had planned.

“He thinks I’m a badass, and this is entirely too wholesome.”

She huffed again. “Why would he think that about my daughter?”

I smiled. “I’m about to explain it to everybody.” We had been moseying along, greeting people on the way to talk to Ethan. I stopped to talk to anyone who looked at me.

They said things like, “You’re holding up well!”

Like I wouldn’t hold up well!

“You look so beautiful!”

I always looked beautiful.

I got to Ethan. “Have you got a microphone ready for me?”

“You’re going to talk more?” he gawked. “No one likes listening to you talk.”

“I know,” I laughed like he had just given me a compliment. He was right though. He knew me well enough to know my insides did not match my outsides. My mouth was how my insides came out. But today was the day to let it all hang out. “Can I have the microphone, please? It’s my day.”

“You’re always such a glutton for public humiliation. Should we get grandma out of the room?”

“Why would we bother with that? Someone will just tell her after the fact what I did or show her the evidence. Are the live streams ready?”

He groaned. “You are out of your mind.”

Nevertheless, he handed me the microphone, got out of the way of the cameras, and I took it. “Is everybody having a good time?” I asked the crowd.

I got a few random cheers from the tables with my siblings at them.

I glanced at Ethan to make sure he was still live streaming it. When I got the thumbs up from him, I continued.

“Great. Normally, at this point in a wedding, we would have actually had a wedding and so it would be customary to toast the bride and the happy couple, but this is not a normal wedding. I want to tell you the story of how Fletch and I met. The thing is, I kidnapped him.”

Only the fiddle player from Fletch’s orchestra made a sound.

“I put a toy gun to his back and ordered him into a car. I bet some of you are wondering why I did that. It was a case of mistaken identity. I thought Fletch was someone else. I had a friend, who isn’t here tonight, who wanted to get the attention of a certain man in the music industry. She asked for my help and as some of you know, I can’t say no to a prank. Except this didn’t turn out to be a very good one. Even though we successfully kidnapped Fletch and handcuffed him to a stove in a camp kitchen, he wasn’t who we thought he was. We were trying to kidnap Carver Criche.” Our eyes met across the hall.

His jaw clenched and he pulled his fedora further down his forehead, but he didn’t leave his chair.

I went on. “My friend and I fought and she hit me over the head with a brick. I was unconscious and she panicked because she didn’t know what to do. Fletch, however, had a cool head and had her bring me into the camp kitchen. Seeing me on the floor, he recognized me. He had never met me, but he knew who I was from the trail of broken hearts I left behind me. I’d hurt someone important to him and he didn’t want to miss the opportunity to let me have it. When I woke up, I was handcuffed to him through the stove and I couldn’t get away. So, he told me what he thought of me.” I smiled at everyone. “I know, the romance is almost too much.”

I got a couple of laughs at that, aside from the owl-like attention I got from every adult in the room.

“So, we fought about what I had done, who was wrong, and what a rat I was. At the end of the night, he said he wanted one more thing before he unlocked the cuffs. He told me he wanted to go on a date with me, just to see what I looked like when I ruined a man’s life. I thought that sounded like great fun and agreed to go. Our first date was magical. I didn’t have to pretend to be someone I wasn’t. I could say what I really felt and thought.”

I hadn’t meant to cry, but I felt myself tearing up. “I don’t know if any of you understand how it feels when you think that no one could love you, really love you, because your insides are filled with confetti crumbs labeled with your faults. I have always sought to be understood on a level that kept people as far away from me as possible. Communicate with others so they can never communicate back, but they would know I was here, that I thought things, and did things. Fletch changed all that because I could be me, and it was clear that he loved me anyway. Insecurities, fears, fake battle armor and all.”

I started playing with the strap of my wedding gown. “Except, there was a problem. I was supposed to kidnap Carver Criche that night and he knew it. He was upset that I didn’t kidnap him. He got a fake gun and came after me, wondering why I didn’t do what I was supposed to. When he didn’t get what he wanted, he came to my work. When that didn’t work, he went after Fletch, and through other people, offered him a job that would take him far away from me. When that didn’t work out, he broke into my apartment with a real gun and left me handcuffed to my bed.”

“How did you get out?” someone from the back yelled. It might have been Carver himself who asked.

“Bolt cutters under the bed. I’m not twelve.”

“Is that why you have bolt cutters under the bed? In case you get handcuffed to your bed?” someone else called.

I waved my hand airly at the accusation. “Actually, it isn’t. The bolt cutters are for my art. I am an artist and I need proper cutters for thick wire and other hardware. You see, I’m so shy that my family doesn’t even know about my art projects. I have felt the need to keep myself so hidden that no one even knows what food I like.”

I smiled. That was some championship PR spinning.

“After the handcuffing thing, I received a dress in the mail that I thought was from Fletch, but wasn’t.” I turned around to see the picture Ethan had projected on the wall. The projector was meant for a slide show of the pictures I had taken of Fletch and me when we were on dates, but instead, it was one of the pictures Officer Todd had taken of me in the bathroom of the Eloquent Spider. It was the most pitiful one, where I had been crying and there were mascara smears down my face. The words ‘I want Carver’ were plainly seen across my chest, as well as the ink smear around my neck.

“This is a picture the police took of me that night,” I said, looking straight at the spot Carver had been a moment ago. He was gone.

I peered over the crowd. Had he left the building completely?

I brought the microphone to my lips. “I don’t think Fletch is missing out on our wedding because he wants to stand me up. I think he’s been kidnapped to keep him from getting here. Isn’t it amazing how a prank with an orange water pistol can elevate so quickly? In case some of you don’t know, my little confession has been filmed and posted to every social media outlet that can support it. I want off this carousel.” I looked directly into the camera. “Please repost and help my fiance make it to our wedding.”

Five-Thirty in the City - Fletch

I got gas, but forty dollars in that gas guzzler wasn’t going to take us far.

Rin’s cell phone had magically reappeared and she had been sending texts the whole drive back to the city. Whatever happened, she wanted to make sure her contract with Carver remained intact, so she was giving him everything she could. I would have let her drive to stop her from texting, but she would have turned the camper around and gone in the wrong direction.

"Since you had a gas can in the camper, I guess Carver was never going to come back to get us and that was another one of your lies. At midnight, you were going to fess up to the truth and drive us back to the city then?"

"Yup," she said with a pop of her lower lip while she stared at her phone.

“Does Carver have my wallet and keys?” I persisted.

“I don’t really know,” she said coldly.

From that, I had to assume that he did. In that case, I wasn’t going to drive back to my parents’ house. My place was on the way to the church, whereas my parents’ place was out of the way. If I made it back to the fragrance store, the lady who ran it had a spare key to my apartment in case of an emergency. I just had to make it back before she locked up.

I pulled up in front of the shop. Sunlight glistened off the store front’s glass panels and I wasn’t sure if she was still in. I hopped out onto the sidewalk.

The door was locked. I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered inside. No one was there.

Rin got behind the wheel and skidded away.

I didn’t care. If I had been worried about her leaving me in the lurch, I would have taken the camper keys with me the same way I had when I got gas. I was thrilled to be rid of her, but now I was on the sidewalk with no shoes, no coat, no phone, and no idea how to get into my apartment on the second floor.

The music store wasn’t that far away, but it would also be closed.

I banged my fist against the wall and shouted.

A siren went off behind me. “Sir, you can’t beat up buildings.”

I turned around. A police cruiser had pulled up to the curb, and an officer had sprung from it. The siren had stopped, but the lights kept flashing. It was Officer Todd.

“I thought that was you,” he said in a friendly way. “Aren’t you supposed to be at your wedding?”

“I am,” I replied, so relieved I couldn’t explain it.

“Yeah, the guests at your wedding are going nuts. Shannon has been posting every five minutes asking if anyone has any idea where you are. You look like you could use a hand. You are aware you’re still wearing your pajamas.”

“I know. I came home to get a suit. I have ten of them, but I haven’t got my house keys, and as much as I want to marry Shannon, I don’t want to go to my wedding in an undershirt and pajama pants.”

Todd nodded. “Yeah. I can’t get you into your apartment, but if you’re not picky, I can get you something to wear.”

“I’m not!” I declared.

“I can give you a ride to the church too!” he winked.

And I happily went with him.

Six O’clock - Shannon

“Let’s take down the tables and move the chairs to the edges of the room!” I said, still stalling. “We can still have music and dancing, and people can talk on the outskirts if they want.”

“Shannon,” my cousin Francene interrupted. “I know I said I wanted to dance at your wedding, but this isn’t what I had in mind.”

“No one had this in mind, Frankie. But I refuse to fall apart. I plan to keep this party going until midnight if I must.”

“You should at least cut the cake,” she complained.

Despite my best efforts, my shoulders fell a little as I sighed. “It may come to that. I may even send someone to do a chip run. I have no idea. People don’t have to stay if they don’t want to though. This is my fight.”

“Oh no,” she said quickly, shaking her head and hands in unison. “I’ll stay.”

“Really?”

“Whose wedding is like this? It’s chaos.”

I smiled and patted her arm. “I appreciate the support.”

Fletch’s boys were doing what I said and had begun taking down tables in the most leisurely manner. Just the way I liked it.

Ethan had turned on the speaker and was playing music both wholesome and nostalgic, which I also appreciated. It wasn’t even loud, which was why I was so surprised when two police officers entered the hall.

They wore their hats pulled down over their eyes. Was the one in the back Officer Todd? I couldn’t tell at that distance.

“We’ve had a noise complaint,” the one in the front said loudly. “You’ll have to turn the music down.”

I had never heard such a crisp authoritative voice in my life. My spine went rigid and every single one of my wedding guests stopped what they were doing. The only sound that was made was the tinny music coming from Ethan’s speaker. Eyes were wide. Mouths hung open. People whispered panicked words into the ear of the person next to them. Probably most of them had never been to a party the police broke up before. Some of them looked worried.

All this time, I’d only been dealing with Officer Todd and guys like him on the force. I’d never once come head-to-head with a real hardliner. Well, I could do it. I rolled my shoulders and approached him.

“Sorry about the noise,” I said sweetly.

“No, seriously,” he said, his jaw clenching and unclenching with his words. He pointed at me and the people around me. “You’re going to have to turn that music off, round up all these wedding guests, and get them back into the chapel.”

I stared at him. Something was off.

He continued, “Because the groom has arrived for the wedding.” He swept his hat off and there was Fletch.

I leaped into his arms.

The crowd thawed.

“Wait, do you have the wedding license?” I asked in sudden fear. It would be terrible if I had kept all the guests here and we couldn’t do the wedding after all because of a technicality.

Simon leaped forward. “I have it. I also have your vows.”

As people hurried into the chapel, I held him back. “Isn’t it illegal to wear a police officer’s uniform because you aren’t supposed to impersonate a cop?”

“Maybe,” Fletch shrugged. “It was either this or my jam jams. I’ll go to jail if I have to.”

“You look terrific,” I said as my sisters pulled me away. I kept my eyes on him for as long as possible, until I was swept around a corner.

“You look a complete mess,” Quinn complained as she corrected my makeup. “I’m not even going to bother recurling your hair. We’ll just pin in up.”

“It doesn’t even matter,” I sang. “He made it!”

“You know,” Tallis said thoughtfully as she leaned against the counter in the bathroom. “Was what you said true, Shannon?”

“What?”

“That you didn’t think anyone could love you? Was that true?”

I nodded. “Before Fletch, the only time I ever really felt loved, it didn’t work. He didn’t really love me. When things didn’t go his way, he bailed. I was a bit traumatized by the whole thing.”

“But you know that we love you, right?”

I smiled for my sisters who did not pull a prank on Fletch when I brought him home that first night. They had been happy for me. “Of course, I know that,” I smiled.

She put her hands on her hips. “As long as you know that much.”

“Thank you, for being there for me,” I said, and I meant it.

She knew it.

Quinn finished touching me up and my sisters hurried out of the bathroom. I didn’t have any bride’s maids or flower girls, so my father met me outside the bathroom and led me down the aisle to Fletch, who for all the world looked like a stripper who hadn’t gotten started yet. Simon and Officer Todd stood up with him.

My father raised my veil, kissed my cheek, and handed me off to Fletch with all the happiness of a proud father.

The minister spoke.

I was so ruffled I didn’t hear what he said until he got to the part where we were supposed to talk. “Fletcher and Shannon have asked to read their own vows and then to make the traditional vows on top of them. Fletcher?”

He pulled a paper out of his pocket. It was a photocopy of the inside of a book. I recognized it.

“Wait,” I said, showing him that I had done the exact same thing.

It was the thing that changed my life. It was the thing someone had written in the back of the book about the girl who fell down the well. I showed it to him on our second date.

Fletch smiled. “We’ll read it together. Each a line until the end,” he offered. “I’ll start.” Then he raised his voice, “I’m not important.”

“I’m a few scratches of ink on a page,” I said.

“I shouldn’t even be here.”

“But I am.”

He read on, “As unlikely as it is.”

“You’re here reading me.” My eyes got glassy.

“And I adore you for it.”

“You’ve only been reading me for a few blinks of your eyes.”

His jaw clenched for a second before he spoke the next words. “And if that’s all we have.”

“I’m grateful.”

“Wouldn’t it be something?”

“If our connection could be something more?” I said wistfully.

“If I could see you…” Fletch said.

“And you could see me,” I said.

“If I could catch you when you fall.”

“I could be your heart,” I said, struggling to make my words clear.

“And you could be my soul,” he said with conviction.

“Each day…”

“Forever…”

“I’d be yours,” we said together.

We held hands across the space between us and put our foreheads together. No two people ever stood so close together as their minister finished their wedding ceremony.

We kissed, and I could feel how our love hit everyone. Everyone in the chapel could feel it because when I turned to see our friends and family, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

We returned to the hall, had cake, and accepted the good wishes of our guests.

“I am sorry about one thing,” I whispered to Fletch between well-wishers. “That you didn’t see me in my wedding gown coming down the aisle the way you’re supposed to.”

“Yeah, it was pretty unfair of me to steal the show. No one is ever excited about the groom’s entrance.”

I smacked his arm playfully. “It’s not about that. You can be the star of the show. I don’t mind. I just wanted to see your face look all joyful with anticipation when I came into view. As it happened, when you saw me in my dress for the first time, I was quelling wedding guests, and your hat was covering your eyes.”

“Hmmm,” he said, pausing to shake someone’s hand and accept their congratulations. When he finally turned back to me, he said, “Want me to buy you a different dress? We could have another ceremony and renew our vows?”

“Five seconds after our wedding?” I gasped.

“We could do this every year if you’d like. Have a bigger party each year to celebrate our anniversary. Imagine how many dresses you’d have by the end? No need to be bridezilla because there’d always be next year, like Christmas. Every year, you could make a grand entrance, and every year you could see the anticipation on my face for the moment when you come into view.”

I looked skeptical. “But it won’t be the first time, like tonight.”

He returned my expression. “You might not know this, but the first time is not usually the best. Trust me, I’ll be excited each and every time.”

Officer Todd approached and said pleasantly to Fletch, “You can drop those clothes off at the station tomorrow.”

“I surely can do that. Our honeymoon doesn’t officially start until the day after tomorrow. Thank you so much for the ride and for coming to get me.”

“Think nothing of it. I’m happy to have helped. It’s good that you didn’t miss flights or something by booking them immediately after the wedding. You must have seen the future,” he said to Fletch before smiling and turning to me. He whispered, “Now that you’re married, Shannon, I do hope you’ll stop spraying painting the brick buildings downtown. If I catch you after today, I won’t be able to let it slide.”

I went crimson. He knew!

_______________

Author's Notes: Thanks for reading! If you'd like to read the entire book, it is available for free on GooglePlay, Barnes and Noble, AppleBooks, KOBO, Smashwords, and DriveThru Fiction.