“Really?” He curls his lip at the idea, and I giggle at his reaction before he shrugs. Kissing my ring first, he begins to wordlessly express his love for me with his lips. Just as we start to lose ourselves, my phone vibrates on the nightstand, drawing our attention to it as we both turn our heads. I glance down at Easton, who’s kept us both unplugged since we entered the suite.
“Let me check it, Easton.”
“Just…wait,” he says, running the pad of his finger along my scar.
“We have to eventually acknowledge them,” I say, reaching over to grab my phone. “The last text I sent my dad was a heart eyes emoji and a thumbs up. It’s a pretty asshole move, considering the state I was in on the phone.”
“’K, baby,” he whispers, releasing me as I turn and lift my phone, seeing a missed text notification from my father.
“Is it Nate?” He asks from where he lays, his focus trained on the ceiling, voice laced with a tinge of apprehension.
“Yeah, it is. But I told you what he said.”
He nods, that reminder doing little to ease his mind as he turns on his side, propping his head in his hand while I open the message and scan the text. “What is he saying?”
Beaming, I turn to him, lowering the cell to his line of sight so he can read it for himself.
Daddy: All your mother and I ask is that you please not marry him again before leaving Mexico. We’d like to attend at least ONE of your weddings.
It’s the first time my dad makes Easton laugh.
Memory Lane
Haley Joelle
Nate
Six months later…
The door opens to the bathroom as I secure my cufflinks and pull my jacket down.
“Can you zip me?” Addie asks as I turn to see my wife holding the top of her long, navy silk gown to her chest. It flows over her porcelain skin, perfectly accentuating her figure. With her glossy dark hair secured on top of her head, tendrils of flyaway curls already coming loose—just the way I like them. The floating diamond I gave her on our tenth-anniversary sparkles on her chest, next to the diamond on her left hand, which glints against the material. A diamond I gifted her on our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. She lifts a brow at my reaction to her half-dressed, half-accessible body and does her best to hide her smile.
“Not bad for an old lady?” She asks, wrinkling her nose.
“Jesus, you’re so fucking perfect,” I murmur, taking long strides toward her as she turns and offers her bare back to me. Taking the opportunity, I press a kiss to her nape and feel her involuntary shiver.
“You’re anything but an old lady,” I assure her. “Apparently, I did a shit job of reminding you last night.”
“That was two nights ago, old man.”
I slowly pull the zipper up to secure her dress. “You’re fucking breathtaking, Addie, always have been,” I tell her as she glances at me over her shoulder, her pink-painted lips curling up.
“You don’t look so bad, yourself,” she murmurs, “but get that look out of your eyes, Butler. We have an appointment to keep.”
“What look?” I taunt, playing the long game we started with years ago as a flash of Addie the first time I saw her at the party flits through my mind. She looked like a living dream, despite the scowl on her face as she chugged champagne. Stunned by the sight of her, I stood waiting until she spotted me standing between the tables, zeroed in on her. The second our eyes met, she stopped her glass halfway to her mouth, her lips lifting up in much the same way as they are now, her expression looking a lot like ‘okay, now who in the hell are you?’
Like me, she was a little bit jaded, a little bit over it, but just as hopeful she was wrong about being both those things. I didn’t have the answer that night of who I was to her, but it hit me like a freight train a few months later.
Hers.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks. “You okay?”
Turning her toward the mirror, I circle her waist and dip my chin to rest in the curve of her neck as I study our reflection. “Better than okay…thinking about the night I saw the most beautiful pissed-off woman at a party and immediately wanted her naked.”
She grips my hands resting on her stomach. “Good thing to think about,” she says as we soak each other in. “This is going to be one of those days, isn’t it?”
The slight shake in her voice tells me none of us are getting out of this without our emotions getting the best of us. Though my wife is tougher than nails—tougher than me—I can’t help but feel the same burn of what she’s feeling as her eyes mist. “We’ve still got a ton to look forward to as well, Addie.”