Chapter Three: THE BEST OR WRONG CHOICE

The whole chapel went silent.

Alexander Calvert stood in the doorway with the afternoon light behind him. He had on a charcoal suit and a white shirt, and his dark hair was slightly mussed, the way it got when he ran his hand through it, which meant he'd done it at least twice on the drive over. He was breathing a little hard.

He looked past the guests and the flowers and the champagne glasses, straight down the aisle to me.

Then he started walking.

He walked the way he did everything, steady and certain, without wasted motion. People turned in their seats to watch him go by. Somebody in the back row actually started to clap and was hushed.

"Ten minutes," Jessica breathed. "On the dot."

He climbed the two steps and stopped in front of me. Up close, I could see the pulse beating hard in his throat. He took both my hands. His were warm, a little unsteady, and holding on tight.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi."

"You called."

"I called."

His gray eyes searched my face. When he spoke again, he dropped his voice so only I could hear. "Lila. Before anything else. Are you sure?"

"Alex—"

"Listen to me. If you want to walk out of here instead, I'll walk out with you. I'll get you in the car, and we'll get burgers, and you can cry on me for as long as you want. Nobody in this room ever has to know why I came. But if we do this, I'm going to mean it. Every word. So I need to know you're sure."

I looked at him. The boy who'd taught me to ride a bike and picked me up when I fell into his father's roses. The teenager who'd sat up with me all night before the calculus final. The man who'd called me at two in the morning to tell me he'd loved me for twenty years, and then said I'm not asking you to choose me.

"I've never been more sure of anything," I said.

Something moved across his face, so quickly I almost missed it. It looked like relief and grief and joy all at once, the expression of someone setting down a weight they'd carried so long they'd forgotten it was there.

He nodded once and turned to the altar. "Reverend. Shall we?"

Reverend Hollis looked at me over his glasses. "Miss Clement?"

"Yes."

"There is the small matter of the license—"

"Judge Ramirez will be at the reception at four," Alexander said. "I called her from the car. She'll sign whatever needs signing. She's owed my father a favor since 1998."

The reverend opened his mouth, closed it, and then, very slowly, he smiled. "Well. I've been doing this for thirty-one years, and I've never once had a groom show up with his own judge." He opened his book. "Dearly beloved…"

I didn't hear most of it. I was looking at Alexander, and he was looking at me, and the chapel full of people faded into a hum somewhere at the edges.

"The couple has prepared their own vows," the reverend said, and then caught himself. "Or, ah. Perhaps not."

I looked down at the folded card tucked into my bouquet. My vows, written in my neatest handwriting three weeks ago, for someone else.

I pulled the card out, tore it in half, and handed the pieces to Jessica.

A ripple went through the pews.

"Alexander," I said. My voice shook. I let it. "I didn't write anything for you, because half an hour ago I didn't know I'd get to marry you. So here's what I have. You've seen me for twenty years. All of it. The bangs, the braces, the bad boyfriends. You never once made me feel like I had to earn a place in your life. I promise I'll spend the rest of mine seeing you back."

His jaw tightened. His eyes had gone bright.

"Alexander?" the reverend prompted gently.

He cleared his throat, and he didn't look at a card. He didn't need one.

"Lila. I promise to keep oat milk in the house, always. I promise to never, ever send you lilies. I promise that when it storms, I'll turn off all the lights and watch it with you, so you never have to be afraid of the thunder alone." His thumbs moved over my knuckles. "And I promise that when you call, I'll come. I've been doing that since we were seven. I'd just like to make it official."

Somebody in the third row burst into tears. I was fairly sure it was my mother.

"The rings?" the reverend asked.

Alexander let go of one of my hands, reached into his inside jacket pocket, and brought out a small box of worn navy velvet.

I stared at it. "Where did you get a ring in ten minutes?"

"I didn't," he said quietly, and opened it.

It was a band of platinum, slim and simple, with a fine pattern of waves etched all the way around. The velvet in the box had gone soft with handling.

"Alex. How long have you had that?"

"A while." He slid it onto my finger. It fit perfectly. "I'll tell you about it sometime."

I opened my mouth and realized with a jolt that I had nothing to give him in return.

My father was already climbing the steps. He was twisting the gold band off his left hand, which took some doing, and pressed it into my palm.

"Borrow mine," he said gruffly. "Your mother's been after me to have it resized for thirty years."

I slid my father's ring onto Alexander's finger. It was too big. He closed his hand around it as if it were the most valuable thing he had ever been given.

"By the power vested in me," Reverend Hollis said, "and with the enthusiastic cooperation of Judge Ramirez, I now pronounce you husband and wife." He paused. "You may kiss the bride."

Alexander looked at me. He was asking. He would always ask.

I went up on my toes and kissed him.

It was brief. It was soft. It shouldn't have meant much, a kiss at a wedding, in front of two hundred people who'd spent the last hour watching my life fall apart. But his hand came up and cradled the back of my head as if I were something precious, and the whole room went quiet around us. When we pulled apart, he let out a breath that shook.

The chapel erupted. Applause, cheers, Jessica shrieking, my father whistling through his teeth the way he did at football games. Champagne flutes went up all over the room.

Alexander laced his fingers through mine. "Mrs. Calvert," he said, as if he were trying out the sound of it.

"Mrs. Calvert," I repeated, and laughed, a little wildly. "Oh my God. Alex. What did we just do?"

"The smartest thing either of us has ever done." He kissed my knuckles, right above the ring. "Come on. Let's go eat the cake Miles paid for."

We walked back down the aisle together through the storm of applause, and I felt lighter than I had in three years.

We were almost to the doors when my phone buzzed in my hand.

A text, from a number I'd blocked twice and unblocked twice, because Miles had said it was cruel to shut his sister out.

It was a photo. Valeria outside the airport terminal, her rolling suitcase at her feet, her face pressed into Miles's shoulder. He was still in his tuxedo, with both arms wrapped around her, and the boutonniere I'd pinned on him that morning was crushed between them.

Below it, a single line:

He chose me again. Better luck next time, sister.

She'd sent it four minutes ago.

She didn't know yet.