Problematic Summer Romance (Not in Love, #2)(91)

Eli watches Rue watch the water, an unusual shine to his eyes. “Here?” he asks, at last.

She smiles. Facing straight ahead, she nods. “Here.”

My brother pulls her into him, and they kiss. They kiss and kiss, and it doesn’t—this one moment looks like something that I should not be witnessing. Conor seems to be of the same mind, and we lock eyes.

“I think I get it,” I whisper. “What’s happening.”

His lips twitch. “Yeah?”

“Do you think—”

“So,” Eli says in his loud, hockey team MVP voice. His grin is not his regular one. This might be the happiest I’ve ever seen my brother. “Thank you for coming. Both of you.”

I bite back a smile. “You practically abducted us.”

“Yeah, well. You needed abducting, Maya. Rue and I talked about it, and we decided that you were the only person we couldn’t do this without.”

I blow out an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. I’m going to give you a kidney.”

“And Hark”—he turns to Conor—“you are my best man and my oldest friend.”

A smirk plays on Conor’s lips. “But that’s not why I’m here, is it?”

“Nope.” Eli points at Salvatore, who’s staring at his empty cigarette pack with a desolate expression. “I need you to explain to this government official that he needs to marry Rue and me. Right now. With the fastest ceremony he is capable of.”





2 days before the wedding


The day of the wedding





Chapter 38




They kiss right as the sun emerges from the water.

A truly cinematic moment that would have made for a perfect picture. No one takes any, but it doesn’t matter. Neither Eli, nor Rue, will ever forget.

“We just want to be married,” Eli told us, at once deeply relieved and outrageously happy. “I need to be married to her. Everything else—I’m sure there was a time when I gave a fuck, but that’s so long gone, I can’t even recall it. I’m ready for this woman to be legally mandated to never leave my side—”

“Not how the law works,” Rue murmured, unfazed.

“—until the day we both die in our sleep, surrounded by our immortal dogs and millions of plants.”

Conor and I exchanged a look. Then a smile. Then he said: “Solid choice. I approve. Signor Salvatore?”

I watch Rue’s arms close around Eli’s neck, but the glare of the rising sun turns them into little more than contours, dark shapes against the horizon. Maybe this is what relationships are. How people’s lives unfold. Opaque from the outside, the layers and depths impossible to grasp.

I will never fully understand Rue and Eli’s odd, mismatched love, but they fought for it. They made this happen. This happiness, it didn’t just fall into their lap. They compromised, and—

It all happens at once. Tears streak my cheeks. Conor’s arm draws me into the warmth of his chest. “Hush,” he murmurs against my hair. “It’s all good.”

Rue and Eli break apart. My brother beams, looks in our direction as if to say, Maya, Hark, did you see this? Did you see me marry her? Do you see my wife? Rue, though, tugs at his hand, asking for one more second of his undivided attention.

“Just,” she says, and it’s so oddly out of character for her. The hesitation. The way her voice carries to us. “Thank you. For not giving up on me, even though I had given up on me.”

Eli’s reply is an extended murmur in her ear. The tears rear back, flooding my eyes.

“That’s not like you,” my brother tuts, turning in my direction. “Bawling at a wedding.”

I wipe my cheek with the heel of my hand. “I’m not bawling.”

“Of course not, pumpkin.” He hasn’t called me that…God. Since I was twelve, maybe. Dad’s funeral. Gently, he coaxes me out of Conor’s arms and into his own.

“I’m so happy for you. I don’t know why I’m making such a scene. It’s just—things were so shitty for a while, and we were so alone, and I’m…really, really happy that you have this.”

“I know.” His palm travels up and down my back. And then it’s Rue’s turn, which…doesn’t happen a lot. In fact, it may be our first hug. She’s much taller than I am, and despite her softness there is something rigid about this, a sense of discomfort on her part. It makes me love her even more.

“I’m sorry about coming to your wedding in my overalls with little strawberries embroidered on them. If Eli had told me where we were going, I’d have worn my tripod shirt.”

She pulls back, but holds on to my hand. A smile tugs at her lips. “The second best thing about meeting Eli, is that it led to you becoming my family.”

“Second after Tiny, or second after Eli?”

She considers it. “May I amend my previous statement?”

“Third, huh?”

She nods somberly, kisses me on the forehead, and I think my heart explodes.

Next to us, Conor and Eli just exchange one of those one-armed hugs, even as Tiny tries to get right between them. “Congrats on not letting a natural disaster fuck with your wedding, man.” Then we’re all heading back down, the trip much less quiet this time around. Salvatore leaves the gates of the park open before leaving, explaining something about how time is not so important in Italy. When the others head for the car, I stay behind.