The morning after your wedding would be incredibly sweet and intimate, even though you’d both be exhausted from the planning and the wedding and not getting a whole lot of sleep due to last-minute details and wedding parties and plain ole jitters. And heavens knows you’d stay up way too late the night before regardless of those things—I mean, who wouldn’t? But the next morning you’d probably sleep way later than you really intended to because the whole ordeal of getting hitched is quite an exhausting thing, and your bodies would just be too tired to do much of anything else. He’d probably wake up before you and raise his head just enough to catch a glimpse of your hair falling into your face, deep sleep still clamping your eyelids shut, before letting his head fall back into his pillow. He’d just sort of lay there for a minute, the realization dawning on him as the sleep slowly worked its way out of his eyes— you were married! Married! It was all real, it all happened, you were totally and completely his and he was totally and completely yours. And when he’d hear you rustling a bit, he’d flop over on his side and pull the pillow that had somehow wedged its way between you down, his half-asleep eyes meeting yours with an obvious excitement. And in a low morning voice he’d mumble out a tired, but happy “Good morning, Mrs. Payne..” and you’d suck a deep breath in with a stretch of your arms and a smile on your face, totally in love with the sound of his name as yours. “Good morning.” You’d nearly whisper back, your eyes stayed on his as he’d prop himself up beside you. And then he’d murmur again and again how he couldn’t believe it—you were actually, finally married—and he’d crack that boyish grin of his, making you giggle like a little girl as he’d weasel his legs between yours and lift his body over you, kisses and laughter and silly exclamations of “you’re my wife!” making his giddy excitement playfully obvious. And, honestly, it’d be a phrase he’d bust out with quite often, especially right at first, because every time it occurred to him that you, well, you were his wife, he wouldn’t be able to help but exclaim it out loud—sometimes as a shout of excitement, sometimes as a whisper of love, sometimes more to himself than anything else. But, no matter how many times he’d repeat it, it’d always make you smile and feel weak at the knees— like it was the first time he’d ever said it and it was all new again. And for that reason, you wouldn’t think you could ever, ever get tired of hearing it.
