Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Tears came to his eyes when he saw his baby girl, and he pressed a kiss to her cheek. “You look beautiful, darling.”
“Thanks, Dad,” she said, fighting back tears.
Then, Peyton appeared, holding Aly’s hand. “Your flower girl is here.”
Annie’s seven-year-old niece, Aly, twirled in her white dress with a navy-blue sash around her waist and a basket of rose petals in her hand. “I’m here, Aunt Annie.”
“Oh, you look gorgeous, Aly.”
Aly did another perfectly executed twirl, like the little ballerina she was. “Thank you. Miss Peyton helped do my hair.”
“I love it,” Annie said, admiring the twin braids that snaked into a crown atop her head.
Peyton squeezed Annie tight. “I love you. So glad to be your sister on this day.”
“My sister always,” Annie said.
Once Peyton got into her seat at the front, I took Aly’s hand and gestured for her to do her thing. To her credit, she was spectacular. A performer through and through. She didn’t just toss her petals. She skipped and twirled and did little leaps, raining petals all over the aisle. Everyone appropriately oohed and aahed over her before she dropped into the seat next to Peyton and waved at her daddy. Isaac waved back from his spot as a groomsman, next to Julian.
I sent the bridesmaids down the aisle, and then it was Annie’s turn. “Whenever you’re ready.”
The audience rose as Canon in D came on. Annie looked to her dad and nodded. She straightened her spine and then walked down the rose-strewn aisle. I stood with Tessi at the back in awe. We gripped each other’s hand and sighed over the beauty of it all. My favorite part. The very best part.
Jordan got the first look of his bride. His jaw fell open at the sight of Annie walking down the aisle toward him. It was a one-of-a-kind look. A perfect, heart-wrenching moment that would be encapsulated in pictures and videos for all time. But right now, that look was just for her.
The rest of the wedding was as stunning as I’d thought it’d be. They had written their own vows, and most of the party was sniffling into tissues by the end of it, Tessi and me included.
But it was the first look by the groom that always did me in. The moment that I knew true love existed and no one could take it away. It was the moment I’d wanted for myself all those years. The one I’d fought for with August for nothing.
True love couldn’t be destroyed.
It couldn’t be buried.
It was effervescent and irrevocable and forever.
Maybe it made me a sap to believe in something that I’d seen fall apart firsthand with my parents. But pain didn’t make love any less beautiful; it made it essential. And no one could ever convince me otherwise.
16
Weston
Here I was, determined to stay away from Nora, and she had come over to tell me she…missed me. All I could think the whole time Annie and Jordan said their I dos was that Nora had missed me. That the house had been empty without me.
I’d barely been able to pull myself away. I wanted to dig into that comment. Was she saying what I thought she was saying? Because despite how I’d told myself I’d stay far away, I kept thinking about her, too.
Whitt stood at my side in the reception as we waited for the bride and groom to show up. Harley was on her phone, ignoring us both.
“Hey, did you miss Dad’s call?” Whitt asked.
I shot him a look. “I saw that he called.”
“He keeps asking about you.”
“And why are you even answering his calls?”
Whitt shrugged. “Because he’s still our dad.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Debatable.”
“His semen created half our DNA,” Harley interjected. “But yeah, fuck him.”
This was one of the few things that Harley and I agreed on. Whitt still talked to Dad. As if there were some reason to still talk to the man who had hidden us as a secret family while he was married to someone else. He was the one who had fucked up. I didn’t owe him a damn thing.
Whitt sighed, as if he knew that he’d lost this battle again. “Fine. He just wants to congratulate you.”
“He never wanted me to pursue music full time. Why would he congratulate me?”
“He was wrong.”
Damn right he was.
“I’ll believe it when he says that to my face.”
“And how can he do that if you never talk to him?”
I rolled my eyes. I didn’t care if Owen Wright ever congratulated me. I wasn’t sure I’d believe it even then.
Whitt hit me. “Bro.”
I glared at him to tell him I was done with this conversation. But his eyes were elsewhere.
“What?”
He pointed across the barn. I followed his finger past dozens of guests in their finest, sipping on drinks and eating finger food while they waited for the bride and groom to make their appearance, to the golden girl who had just stepped inside.