Page 40 of All In

He clears his throat. “Yes, that too. I am so unbelievably proud of who you chose.”

My throat goes tight in a way I wasn’t prepared for, three minutes before I’m supposed to walk out and get married.

“Don’t make me cry before the ceremony,” I tell him. “Juniper will never let me hear the end of it.”

“Cry. Better she know now how sensitive you can be.”

I punch his bicep. “You’re a terrible best man.”

“I’m an excellent best man. I just also happen to be your father, which means I get to do both things badly at the same time.” He squeezes my shoulder once more, then steps back, straightening his jacket, some of the levity falling away into something steadier. “You ready?”

I look down the length of sand toward where the small crowd of chairs has filled in, toward the spot where I know, in about ninety seconds, Juniper is going to appear barefoot in white with her sister standing beside her. I feel the particular, settled certainty I’ve been carrying since a Captain America costume and an ambush kiss rearranged my entire life in the space of one convention weekend.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’ve been ready for a while now.”

We walk out together, my dad and I, no aisle to speak of, just open sand and ocean and the soft murmur of family finding their seats, and I take my place where the wedding coordinator directed me hours ago and try to remember how to breathe normally.

The music starts. The crowd turns.

And there she is.

I won’t remember, later, what the dress looked like in detail, or what flowers she carried, or any of the small specific things I’m sure I’m supposed to notice. What I’ll remember is the exact moment she finds my eyes across all that sand and all those people, and smiles.

And everything inside my body shifts as if it’s finally falling into place. As if now everything is how it should be.

Just her. Walking toward me.

Exactly the way she walked toward me barely two months ago, across a convention floor, looking like a princess. Looking like my princess.

Juniper

“You’re shaking,” Clover says, adjusting the same loose strand of my hair for the third time, even though it has not moved even slightly since the first time she touched it.

“I’m not shaking.”

“Juniper. Your hands are shaking.”

I look down at my hands, holding my bouquet in a death grip that is probably bruising the stems, and concede the point. “Okay. Fine. Slightly shaking. It’s a big day.”

Her smile grows. “It’s a wonderful day.” She finally steps back, looking at me properly, something bright and shiny in her eyes. “You look incredible. I need you to know that. Like, genuinely, unfairly beautiful, in a way that’s almost rude to the rest of us.”

“You’re required to say that. Maid of honor duties.”

“Bah.” She waves her hand dismissively. “I’m required to say nice things. I’m not required to mean them with my whole chest, and yet, here we are.” She reaches out, squeezes both my hands at once, bouquet and all. “How are you feeling? Really.”

I think about the question seriously.

“Certain,” I say. “Which feels like it should be a strange thing to feel about something this fast. I mean who gets married after only knowing someone for less than three full months?”

“You do!”

“I used to think certainty was supposed to feel calm. Steady. Like still water.” I look toward the tent flap, beyond which I can hear the soft hum of the gathering crowd, the ocean somewhere underneath all of it. “It doesn’t feel like that at all. It feels like the suitcase the day I packed for that convention. Everything slightly too full, the zipper barely holding. That’s how I feel. Like I’m bursting at the seams with joy and love and excitement at getting to marry Leo.”

Clover laughs and a tiny sob sneaks out. She dabs carefully at the corner of one eye. “That is the most you answer you could possibly have given.”

I pull her into a hug.

“Five minutes,” someone calls from outside the tent, and my stomach does something complicated and enormous.