“Let’s take down the tables and move the chairs to the edges of the room!” I said, still stalling. “We can still have music and dancing, and people can talk on the outskirts if they want.”

“Shannon,” my cousin Francene interrupted. “I know I said I wanted to dance at your wedding, but this isn’t what I had in mind.”

“No one had this in mind, Frankie. But I refuse to fall apart. I plan to keep this party going until midnight if I must.”

“You should at least cut the cake,” she complained.

Despite my best efforts, my shoulders fell a little as I sighed. “It may come to that. I may even send someone to do a chip run. I have no idea. People don’t have to stay if they don’t want to though. This is my fight.”

“Oh no,” she said quickly, shaking her head and hands in unison. “I’ll stay.”

“Really?”

“Whose wedding is like this? It’s chaos.”

I smiled and patted her arm. “I appreciate the support.”

Fletch’s boys were doing what I said and had begun taking down tables in the most leisurely manner. Just the way I liked it.

Ethan had turned on the speaker and was playing music both wholesome and nostalgic, which I also appreciated. It wasn’t even loud, which was why I was so surprised when two police officers entered the hall.

They wore their hats pulled down over their eyes. Was the one in the back Officer Todd? I couldn’t tell at that distance.

“We’ve had a noise complaint,” the one in the front said loudly. “You’ll have to turn the music down.”

I had never heard such a crisp authoritative voice in my life. My spine went rigid and every single one of my wedding guests stopped what they were doing. The only sound that was made was the tinny music coming from Ethan’s speaker. Eyes were wide. Mouths hung open. People whispered panicked words into the ear of the person next to them. Probably most of them had never been to a party the police broke up before. Some of them looked worried.

All this time, I’d only been dealing with Officer Todd and guys like him on the force. I’d never once come head-to-head with a real hardliner. Well, I could do it. I rolled my shoulders and approached him.

“Sorry about the noise,” I said sweetly.

“No, seriously,” he said, his jaw clenching and unclenching with his words. He pointed at me and the people around me. “You’re going to have to turn that music off, round up all these wedding guests, and get them back into the chapel.”

I stared at him. Something was off.

He continued, “Because the groom has arrived for the wedding.” He swept his hat off and there was Fletch.

I leaped into his arms.

The crowd thawed.

“Wait, do you have the wedding license?” I asked in sudden fear. It would be terrible if I had kept all the guests here and we couldn’t do the wedding after all because of a technicality.

Simon leaped forward. “I have it. I also have your vows.”

As people hurried into the chapel, I held him back. “Isn’t it illegal to wear a police officer’s uniform because you aren’t supposed to impersonate a cop?”

“Maybe,” Fletch shrugged. “It was either this or my jam jams. I’ll go to jail if I have to.”

“You look terrific,” I said as my sisters pulled me away. I kept my eyes on him for as long as possible, until I was swept around a corner.

“You look a complete mess,” Quinn complained as she corrected my makeup. “I’m not even going to bother recurling your hair. We’ll just pin in up.”

“It doesn’t even matter,” I sang. “He made it!”

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“You know,” Tallis said thoughtfully as she leaned against the counter in the bathroom. “Was what you said true, Shannon?”

“What?”

“That you didn’t think anyone could love you? Was that true?”

I nodded. “Before Fletch, the only time I ever really felt loved, it didn’t work. He didn’t really love me. When things didn’t go his way, he bailed. I was a bit traumatized by the whole thing.”

“But you know that we love you, right?”

I smiled for my sisters who did not pull a prank on Fletch when I brought him home that first night. They had been happy for me. “Of course, I know that,” I smiled.

She put her hands on her hips. “As long as you know that much.”

“Thank you, for being there for me,” I said, and I meant it.

She knew it.

Quinn finished touching me up and my sisters hurried out of the bathroom. I didn’t have any bride’s maids or flower girls, so my father met me outside the bathroom and led me down the aisle to Fletch, who for all the world looked like a stripper who hadn’t gotten started yet. Simon and Officer Todd stood up with him.

My father raised my veil, kissed my cheek, and handed me off to Fletch with all the happiness of a proud father.

The minister spoke.

I was so ruffled I didn’t hear what he said until he got to the part where we were supposed to talk. “Fletcher and Shannon have asked to read their own vows and then to make the traditional vows on top of them. Fletcher?”

He pulled a paper out of his pocket. It was a photocopy of the inside of a book. I recognized it.

“Wait,” I said, showing him that I had done the exact same thing.

It was the thing that changed my life. It was the thing someone had written in the back of the book about the girl who fell down the well. I showed it to him on our second date.

Fletch smiled. “We’ll read it together. Each a line until the end,” he offered. “I’ll start.” Then he raised his voice, “I’m not important.”

“I’m a few scratches of ink on a page,” I said.

“I shouldn’t even be here.”

“But I am.”

He read on, “As unlikely as it is.”

“You’re here reading me.” My eyes got glassy.

“And I adore you for it.”

“You’ve only been reading me for a few blinks of your eyes.”

His jaw clenched for a second before he spoke the next words. “And if that’s all we have.”

“I’m grateful.”

“Wouldn’t it be something?”

“If our connection could be something more?” I said wistfully.

“If I could see you…” Fletch said.

“And you could see me,” I said.

“If I could catch you when you fall.”

“I could be your heart,” I said, struggling to make my words clear.

“And you could be my soul,” he said with conviction.

“Each day…”

“Forever…”

“I’d be yours,” we said together.

We held hands across the space between us and put our foreheads together. No two people ever stood so close together as their minister finished their wedding ceremony.

We kissed, and I could feel how our love hit everyone. Everyone in the chapel could feel it because when I turned to see our friends and family, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

We returned to the hall, had cake, and accepted the good wishes of our guests.

“I am sorry about one thing,” I whispered to Fletch between well-wishers. “That you didn’t see me in my wedding gown coming down the aisle the way you’re supposed to.”

“Yeah, it was pretty unfair of me to steal the show. No one is ever excited about the groom’s entrance.”

I smacked his arm playfully. “It’s not about that. You can be the star of the show. I don’t mind. I just wanted to see your face look all joyful with anticipation when I came into view. As it happened, when you saw me in my dress for the first time, I was quelling wedding guests, and your hat was covering your eyes.”

“Hmmm,” he said, pausing to shake someone’s hand and accept their congratulations. When he finally turned back to me, he said, “Want me to buy you a different dress? We could have another ceremony and renew our vows?”

“Five seconds after our wedding?” I gasped.

“We could do this every year if you’d like. Have a bigger party each year to celebrate our anniversary. Imagine how many dresses you’d have by the end? No need to be bridezilla because there’d always be next year, like Christmas. Every year, you could make a grand entrance, and every year you could see the anticipation on my face for the moment when you come into view.”

I looked skeptical. “But it won’t be the first time, like tonight.”

He returned my expression. “You might not know this, but the first time is not usually the best. Trust me, I’ll be excited each and every time.”

Officer Todd approached and said pleasantly to Fletch, “You can drop those clothes off at the station tomorrow.”

“I surely can do that. Our honeymoon doesn’t officially start until the day after tomorrow. Thank you so much for the ride and for coming to get me.”

“Think nothing of it. I’m happy to have helped. It’s good that you didn’t miss flights or something by booking them immediately after the wedding. You must have seen the future,” he said to Fletch before smiling and turning to me. He whispered, “Now that you’re married, Shannon, I do hope you’ll stop spraying painting the brick buildings downtown. If I catch you after today, I won’t be able to let it slide.”

I went crimson. He knew!