My Real (36 page)

Ella comes around the corner, and I hear Jake gasp next to me. I glance over at him and see that his jaw has dropped. Ella’s long brown hair is pulled up, but there are pieces falling down around her face. She has on a strapless ice blue dress that falls well above her knees. The fabric moves with the wind.

“Holy shit,” Jake whispers to himself.

“Nothing going on huh?” I laugh.

Ella winks at Jake and turns to take her place at my right.

The song ends and “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri starts playing. Bailey walks around the corner and now it was my turn to gasp. She looks radiant. Her hair is also up. She has on a long white dress that is covered in lace and dragging in the sand behind her. There is a ribbon tied around her waist. She is holding a single stem of a stargazer lily.

I become choked up as she walks closer. I bring my hand to my mouth to try to contain the emotion swelling in my throat threatening to betray my masculine exterior. But, I can’t stop the tear from falling. I notice that her eyes are moist.

She stands next to me in front of the minister, and I mouth “You look amazing.”

If the minister is talking at his point, I can’t hear him. All I can concentrate on is the amazing woman standing in front of me. Bailey starts saying her vows.

“Andrew, I take you to be my husband, my partner in life, and my one true love. My real. I promise to love you more each day than the day before. I will trust you, respect you, laugh with you, and cry with you. I give you my hand, my heart, and my real love, from this day forward.”

The minister hands her my ring, and she places it on my finger squeezing my hand three times.

“Andrew, please make your solemn vow to Bailey,” the minister says.

“Bailey, from the moment I first saw you, I knew you were the one with whom I wanted to share my life. Your beauty, heart, and mind inspire me to be the best person I can be. I promise to love you for eternity, respect you, and protect you.” I take Bailey’s ring from the minister and slip it onto her finger.

“Andrew and Bailey have requested to include Emerson in their ceremony as well, Emerson will you please come up here,” the minister continues.

Emerson walks up to stand in the middle of us. Bailey kneels down in front of her.

“Emerson, you asked me a few weeks ago to be your mommy, and I was very honored that you asked me. I want you to know that I love your daddy very much. You have been so nice to share your wonderful daddy with me, so I will share the love I feel for him, with you.”

I tap Bailey on the arm to hand her a tissue because she can no longer hold the tears back. I have to admit, I’m getting choked up too.

The minister leans down and hands Bailey a box. Bailey takes a necklace out of the box and attaches it around Emerson’s neck. “I promise to be fair and to be honest with you. I will not attempt to replace your mommy, but to make a place in your heart that is for me alone. On this day when I marry your daddy, I marry you too, and I promise to love and support you as my own,” Bailey says then places a kiss on Emerson’s cheek.

Emerson smiles and looks down at the necklace. “It’s an eight.”

Everyone laughs as Bailey explains, “It does look like an eight, but it’s also the sign for infinity and infinity means forever. I just wanted to you know that I will be here for you forever.”

Emerson throws her arms around Bailey, almost knocking her over, kisses her on the cheek, and then says “Thank you Mommy,” into her ear. Ella takes Emerson’s hand and they step back as the minister continues.

“By the powers vested in me by the state of New Jersey, I now pronounce you husband and wife.” I didn’t wait for him to give me permission. I grab Bailey, twist her around dipping her to the ground, and kiss her. Our small wedding party claps and cheers.

After a few minutes of hugs, kisses, and pictures, Ella follows my directions perfectly and gives me a few minutes alone on the beach with my new husband. The sun is just starting to set behind the buildings on the boardwalk. There is a light breeze, and we are alone on the beach. He holds me in his arms as we watch the waves come in.

“Well, Mrs. Cooper, that was quite a surprise seeing the girls walk down the aisle to Eddie.”

Laughing I saying, “I thought you might like that. I do have another surprise for you.” I lean down and pull the gift box out of my purse and hand it to him.

“Oh, what is this? I didn’t get you anything,” he says as he starts to open the watch box. He pulls the watch out of the box and looks at it.

“I noticed that your watch broke a few weeks ago. I thought I’d replace it with a new one,” I say hardly containing my excitement to the news he was about to get.

He leans in to kiss me as he puts it on his wrist.

“It’s engraved on the back.,” I tell him as I flip the watch over and read the inscription aloud.

“We will love you for all time. Your wife and children,” I say through a smile a mile wide. My heart is racing waiting to see his reaction. I’ve been holding this news in for days and I’m about to explode.

“Oh no, they wrote the wrong thing,” he says, grimacing.

“No, they didn’t,” I smile waiting for him to catch on. It takes him a minute, but when he does, his face lights up.

“Are you serious?” he yells. He grabs me around the waist, lifting and spinning me in the air. “I can’t believe it. You’re giving me a baby?” He asks putting me back on the ground and pulling me in for a hug.

Still unable to control my smile I explain, “I went to the doctor earlier this week because of the pains I was having all through my stomach. I thought the Endometriosis was coming back. She gave me an ultrasound after I told her some of the other symptoms I was having and she told me the problems that I was experiencing were due to pregnancy.” I pull the ultrasound out of my bag and hand it to him.

“This is our baby?” He asks staring at the picture. “I thought you couldn’t get pregnant,” he wonders.

“That’s what I was told when I had my surgery. Dr Cam said it is very unusual, but not unheard of. She is going to want to keep a close eye on the pregnancy, but she said there is no reason we won’t have a healthy baby.”

“When are you due?” Andrew asks, dropping to his knees and kissing my still flat belly. It won’t be long before I start showing.

“February.”

“February?” I could tell he was trying to do the math quickly in his head. “But that’s …”

I was nodding before he could finish his sentence. “It had to have been that first night I saw you at the bar.”

“Well, talk about fate stepping in and taking over. A baby. I can’t believe I have been reconnected with the love of my life, the woman who I can share a real love with, and now a baby.”

“Well, believe it mister. Do you think you can handle it all again? Diapers, midnight feedings, crying, messes?” I ask, knowing his answer.

“Absolutely!” he yells. Laughing, we walk back up the beach to where everyone is standing on the boardwalk. Ella walks up to me with her teacher look.

“The photographer wants to get some pictures of everyone on the beach before the limo bus gets here,” Ella tells me as she turns me around and leads us back to the beach.

After several hundred pictures are taken of everyone, we all head back up to the limo bus that is waiting to take us to the reception.

We walk into the restaurant, and I’m blown away with everything that Andrew and Judy did yesterday. It’s more than I could ever have expected. Once cocktails are handed out, Jake and Ella pull seats into the middle of the make sift dance floor and direct Andrew and I to sit down.

“Can everyone please have a seat,” Jake says, giving everyone a minute to sit. “First, I would like to thank everyone for being here. It’s not like you had a lot of notice from the bride and groom and yet, here you are.” Everyone laughs at Jake poking fun at us.

“But seriously, I’m glad so many people could be here to celebrate Andrew and Bailey. There are no two people who deserve this more than the two of you. Andrew,” he pauses and swings his head toward him. “I’ve known you for many, many year. We’ve been through a lot together. Many girls for me, many headaches for you.” The crowd laughs again. “But we’ve come out on the other side much happier men. You are the brother I’ve never had, and as a brother I can tell you. You did good this time,” Jake says gesturing toward me. I blow him a kiss as a thank you.

“Now, having been friends with Bailey as long as I have you, I can say I’m like a brother to her too. So if you hurt her, I will hurt you,” Jake threatens with a smile.

“Hey! You stole my line,” Ella chimed in pushing Jake out of the way. “You’re done. My turn,” Ella says standing in front of Jake. This gets another laugh from the guests.

“Bailey, WE’VE been through a lot too. You’re MY best friend,” Jessica turns to the guests and says, “I swear I wrote my speech first. He copied off of me.” She swings her gaze at Jake and says, “Slacker.”

“Bailey, I recently told you that you are the strongest woman I know. I admire your passion for life, I value your trust in me, and I depend on your friendship to get me through the hard times in my life. I’ve seen you forgive the unforgivable, and care and love everyone if they deserve it or not. I’m so happy that you finally found something real to hold onto.”

As I try to stand, Andrew leans over to help me and places his hand on my stomach, and I put my hand on his and smile. Ella catches the whole exchange, her eyes get huge, and she puts her hand over her mouth. I see in her eyes that she’s guessed my secret. I give her a tiny nod to let her know she is correct and she starts crying.

Ella leans over, kisses and hugs me tight and whispers, “Congratulations, Momma.” As she hugs Andrew I hear her say, “Those are quite some swimmers you’ve got. Congratulations.” Andrew gives her a big smile.

Jake followed behind with his own hugs and kisses, oblivious as to what just happened.

“Grab her before she gets away,” I whisper in Jakes ear. He smiles and pats my cheek.

As Jake and Ella sit down, our first song starts to play. Andrew takes my hand and spins me across the floor to Kenny Chesney’s “Me and You.”

“So the cat’s out of the bag. Do you want to tell everyone now?” Andrew asks.

I smile and nod looking around for Emerson. Finding her sitting between Ella and Jake, I call to her, “Emerson, come here.” She comes running around the table and jumps up into Andrew’s arm.”

“Did you have a good day Emerson?” Andrew asks her.

“The best ever,” she says pulling his face over to give him a kiss.

“What if I told you I could make it even better?” I ask her.

“What could be better than the beach, and pretty dresses, and throwing flowers, and cake, and the beach?” She asks.

“What if I told you that you were going to be a big sister?” I ask.

“I’m going to be a big sister?” Emerson throws her arms in the air and cheers. “I’m going to go tell everyone right now.” She wiggles her way out of Andrew’s arms and runs up to her grandma.

“I don’t think she is excited at all about that,” Andrew’s eyes light up with laughter. “She might take some convincing to get her to come around.”

“Yeah, she’ll warm up to the idea eventually,” I say as I look over at her jumping up and down telling anyone who will listen. I turn back to my handsome husband. “What about you?”

“What about me?” He cocks his head to the side waiting for me to finish my sentence. We continue to sway slowly. People are starting to fill the dance floor around us as another slow song starts.

“Are you going to warm up to the idea of being married to a girl you knocked up on the first date, weaseled her way into your life on the second date, and moved in with you and married you in less than three months.” I paused for a second and gasped. “God, that sounds like an episode of Jerry Springer.”

“First of all, I told you, that wasn’t the first date. That was destiny setting us up for our happily ever after. I think that we were supposed to get married young and rough it for a while.” After tucking a piece of hair behind my ear, he rests his hand on my cheek. I tilt my head into his caress. “We were taught lessons in our time apart that will help us as a couple now. We’re stronger and wiser. We appreciate each other more because of what we’ve already been through.” His words warm my heart. I release a sigh just thinking about our future together.

“That version sounds a whole lot better than my Jerry Springer one,” I laugh as I lean in and put my head on his chest. “I’m pretty lucky to have finally found such an amazing guy.”

“I’m the lucky one. I thank God every day for him bring you back to me. For bringing me my real.”