Wedding venue? A dream.
Wedding dress? A dream.
Line of bridesmaids standing at the altar and Reagan, of course, as my maid-of-honor? A dream.
Lastly, of course, the man of my dreams standing at the end of the aisle, anxiously awaiting my arrival? A dream.
Today is a dream.
"You nervous?" Connor asks me, fidgeting in his tuxedo as he glances through the crack in the door at the back of the church.
Soft music is drifting through, but it isn't our time yet.
After much wondering, pondering, and praying over who should walk me down the aisle, in light of the fact that I don't have a father, I decided that it should be Connor.
He'd helped immensely with Noah and I's wedding planning, had even helped with the organization of the reception afterwards.
Plus, nobody, save Noah and I, was as excited about the engagement as Connor was.
Why shouldn't he be the man to walk me down the aisle?
It's May twenty-first, only seventy-seven days after Noah had asked me to be his wife.
Why wait? Forever can start whenever we want it to and Noah and I had decided that we wanted our forever to start as soon as it possibly could.
The sun is high in the sky. The birds are chirping. There isn't a cloud in the sky.
I shake my head, looking over at Noah's best friend, "Are you?"
He fidgets again, glancing, once more, through the crack in the door, "Maybe a little."
"I'm pretty sure I should be the nervous one."
Connor cracks a grin, "I guess that depends entirely on why you're nervous."
"I'm getting married!"
Those words, alone, send excited, little butterflies flittering into my stomach.
"Yes, but are you nervous to walk down the aisle or pledge your life to Noah?"
"I'd pledge my life to Noah in a back alley in New York, so I'm fairly certain that's not it."
He quirks an eyebrow, "A back alley in New York? You must be pretty certain he's the one then."
"I am."
Connor grins, "Which also means you're more nervous that you're going to trip walking down the aisle."
I stare, blankly, at him for a moment and he cracks an even wider grin.
"Relax, pal, I'm not going to let you fall. I have arms of steel."
"You better hope that's true."
He opens his mouth to respond - no doubt a sarcastic comment about how Noah wishes he were as strong as he is - but doesn't get the chance before a nervous, deep voice asks, "Excuse me?"
I whirl, bouquet clenched in tight fists, and am surprised at who I see.
"Harrison?"
His slightly-wrinkled face breaks into a wide smile.
"Hey, kid," he pulls me into a hug, holding me at arm's length for a moment afterward to get a good look at me.
"You look beautiful."
Am I imagining the tears in his eyes? Probably.
Still, I can't help but feel like he's as impacted by this day as a father might be.
YOU ARE READING
Out of My League
RomanceTrigger Warning: contains graphic scenes and depictions of child abuse. Izzy hasn't had an easy twenty, almost twenty-one, years. In fact, for the first seventeen years of her life, she was physically and emotionally abused by her alcoholic mother...
