Bedwrecker(87)

Instead I got heaven.

The chapel is swathed in a bluish glow that sparkles off the silver chairs. The carpet is white. There are lights everywhere. And there are even clouds painted on the ceiling.

The Elvis on duty dons an open-necked black jumpsuit with red rhinestones and a pair of aviators.

Spot-on look-alike.

My palms are sweaty and I wipe them on my slacks. I am ready for this. Ready to be about more than myself. Ready to allow my world to revolve around more than my success, around more than my anything.

But do I deserve her? I have no fucking clue. Really, I don’t know anything aside from one very real fact . . . I love this girl.

I am in love with Maggie May.

Whatever the definition of love is, it’s what we share, and maybe it’s a fucked-up version or maybe it’s crazy or maybe it’s upside down and backwards at the same time, but whatever it is, it is real.

Up at the altar, I wait impatiently for the woman that I call mine to make an appearance. And then she does.

Like a vision, I take her in. Her short white dress. Her long blond hair with flowers pinned in it. The white sparkly Converse sneakers we bought on the way here because her feet were hurting her in her fuck-me white pumps.

We will save those for later.

And then I look at myself in my white suit, black shirt, white tie . . . and think I can’t believe we are really doing this.

We are getting married.

Eloping, really.

Slowly she walks down the aisle with a bouquet of white flowers to a crescendo of guitars and rock and roll, and when she reaches me, she takes my face in her hands. “Are you sure about this?” she asks.

More than a little cocky, I nod. “I’ve never been more sure in my life, sweetheart.”

She laughs, and I do too.

Hey, when you got it, you got it.

Maggie and I flew straight from New York City to Las Vegas. We can celebrate with friends later, but I needed to make her my wife now. After this, we’ll spend a few days here in Vegas, and not at the tables, and then fly to Graceland for a short honeymoon.

I still can’t believe this.

I love this woman.

And she’s having my baby!

Sure, I might have had a moment of complete freak-out, but I came around pretty fucking fast, you have to admit.

I mean really, how could I not?

A baby.

She and I are having a baby.

Not Cam and Makayla, the perfect couple, but Maggie and I, the most imperfectly perfect couple.

Turns out the antibiotics Maggie took when she was sick after our New York trip weeks ago counteracted the effects of the pill.

Hey, who would have thought?

“Love Me Tender” starts to play and then Elvis is standing in front us, and we’re exchanging vows, and then Elvis is pronouncing us husband and wife.

And we are married.

We.

Are.

Married.

“Smile,” Elvis croons.

And we do. At each other, with each other, even on each other.

Crazy.

Insane.

Intense.

And real.

Love—it’s a four-letter word I’m no longer afraid of . . . because of her.

“That’s the one,” Maggie says, practically jumping up and down.

“You sure?” Elvis asks in that husky voice of his.

Really excited, she takes his camera and shows me the picture. In it I’m licking my tongue up her cheek.

All I can do is shake my head. Guess that will be the picture to remind us of this day. When I look again, I have to smile at it. Perfect. Fucking perfect. Shifting my gaze to Maggie, I can’t help but think . . .

It’s all or nothing.

All or nothing.





Maggie

The lines of their bodies cross in the most artful way.

I think I could stare at the photos for hours—eyes filled with desire, heads bent as if in search of what can only be pleasure, backs arched and ready, legs intertwined just for the physical connection.

“What are you doing?”

Crap!

I shove the book back on the rack and look up to find Makayla’s mouth all twisted in a knot. “Nothing, just taking a little break from baby books, that’s all.”

She shoves a different book in my hands. I look down at it: Nine Months Along.

Great!

I’m already experiencing it; do I really have to read about it? To pacify Makayla, though, I feign interest and open to a random page to start reading. “You might have a very overactive sexual drive,” are the first words I read and then start laughing in fits and giggles.

Much to my chagrin, she laughs right along with me.

Yeah, thanks for that tidbit, Nine Months Along.

It makes me laugh because although the description fits the stage of my pregnancy at thirty-seven weeks, it also describes me all the time.

Sex with Keen is always . . . well, to be blunt, freaking fantastic.

Then again, from our first time together in that hotel room in New York City, I knew that what we had was different from anything else I’d ever experienced.