“They totally bought it.” Noah’s eyes gleamed. “Oooh, news hot off the press, the members of Schoolboy Choir at one another’s throats over some unknown woman—total public meltdown. David even threw a punch at Fox after we shouted down the restaurant.”
Abe glanced at David. “Thea?”
“She says it’s great publicity, especially since it’ll be obvious by tomorrow that we were fucking with everyone. Of course, if Sarah had said no, you’d be in the shit.”
“Worth the risk.” Abe couldn’t imagine his life without the woman who was about to become his wife again. “Sarah’s worth every risk.”
David’s phone buzzed. “Thea,” he said, after reading the message. “Their limo is here.”
“Then we’d better start walking.” Abe had chosen a chapel not far from the hotel, one with the requisite Elvis impersonator.
If he and Sarah were getting married in Vegas, they were getting married Vegas style.
Walking out with his best friends into the light and color of Sin City, Abe wanted to whoop with joy. Somehow managing to keep it together, he took several deep breaths. Soon, he told himself. Soon Sarah would be his again. All official and public and permanent. Very permanent. No way was Abe messing this up a second time around.
They arrived at the chapel to find it more tasteful than could be expected.
Ten seconds later, a white-jumpsuit-clad Elvis hustled them to the head of the aisle and took up his position with an “A-ha-hah” and a hip swivel.
“Right,” Abe said, settling his suit jacket when it didn’t need to be settled. “Shit, why am I so nervous? I already married Sarah once.”
David was the one who answered. “It’s because this time around you know exactly what’s on the line, how precious it is.”
Yeah, he did.
The sound system came on, filling the chapel not with the wedding march but with the song Abe had written for Sarah. He’d recorded it alone two days earlier, given the CD to Elvis’s assistant. Around him, he felt his friends go still as they recognized his voice.
Then he saw Sarah enter on his mother’s arm, Lola, Kit, Thea, and Molly following. Everything else receded. His Sarah had chosen a strapless gown in a rich emerald green that made her skin glow. The fabric gathered together in a kind of a knot between her breasts before waterfalling to the ground. It was stark and simple and stunning.
She’d left her hair in wild curls about her head, tucking only a vivid red rose behind her ear. Her sole pieces of jewelry were the ring he’d put on her finger and a delicate diamond necklace Abe remembered his father giving his mother on their twentieth wedding anniversary.
The bouquet in her hand was a profusion of color.
She looked like his every dream come to life.
“There you are,” he said when she reached him, immediately taking her hands into his after she passed her bouquet back to Lola. His beaming mother waved him down, kissed his cheek, then did the same to Sarah before stepping back to let Elvis begin the ceremony.
Mostly all Abe remembered was the unhidden love in Sarah’s eyes and the joy flooding his veins. When Elvis declared them husband and wife, he couldn’t hold it in. He gave a roof-shaking whoop and then kissed a laughing Sarah until everyone hollered and Elvis offered to rent them a room.
Grinning, he clasped Sarah’s hand in his and they walked out as a group… straight into the flash of a camera.
Basil froze, his eyes huge in his pasty face. “Shit,” he whispered. “I think I just got the exclusive of a lifetime.”
Abe looked at Sarah, lifted an eyebrow.
She laughed and, turning to the photographer, said, “It’s your lucky day, Basil.” She tilted up her head, Abe bent, and they kissed while their friends showered them in flower petals the women must’ve brought in with them.
Vegas sparkled and shone around them, bystanders gathered to applaud, but all Abe cared about was the woman in his arms. The woman who was now his wife.
CHAPTER 39
BASIL, FOR ALL HIS FAULTS, proved to be an amazing wedding photographer. He even sent a whole set of the images to Thea—after he’d gotten his exclusive splashed all over not the tabloids but the glossiest magazine in the business. “I always wanted to be a wedding photographer,” he’d written in the accompanying note. “With the money from this exclusive, I can follow my dream. Thank you.”
Going through the photos the week after the wedding, Abe reveled in the joy he saw on Sarah’s face in every shot. The same joy suffused his.
According to Thea, the social media outlets had gone crazy.
Abe ignored the noise of the world, he and Sarah cozily ensconced in a spacious villa an hour from Los Angeles that he’d rented so they could have a small honeymoon, free from media intrusion, before they went home to prepare for the baby’s arrival. That’d happen in about two to three weeks, depending on if the peanut decided on a little extra womb time.