“Married,” Stevie whispered in return.
Tod kept whispering. “I love you.”
He thought he heard a couple of sniffles and a quiet whimper from around him, and he felt someone come close and take the champagne bottle from him, but all he really heard was Stevie replying, “I love you too, baby. Now get in the carriage so we can get liquored up in preparation for a Rock Chick party.”
Stevie held his hand out to Tod.
Without hesitation, like always, like it would be forever, Tod took it.
Stevie helped his Tod into the carriage.
By the time he sat next to Stevie, the Rock Chicks and Hot Bunch were surrounding the carriage on three sides.
Stevie took the champagne from Indy and started unwrapping the foil from the cork.
Tod leaned into his lover and said under his breath, “I can’t believe you told the Rock Chicks and Hot Bunch you were proposing to me before you proposed to me.”
Stevie looked his fiancé in the eye. “Don’t pretend you didn’t want it this exact way.”
Tod harrumphed, mostly because Stevie was right, but Tod’s lips were never going to form those words (ever, about anything).
Stevie looked to the driver and called, “We can go now.”
The driver clicked his teeth. The carriage jolted. Tod held on to Stevie. Stevie popped the cork. And suddenly all around them bits of orange and brown paper started floating.
Tangerine and chocolate confetti.
Tod turned to skewer Indy with his gaze.
But he didn’t mean it and she knew it, which was probably why she was smiling so damn big.
Silly, sweet, crazy, loving bimbo.
“You don’t throw confetti at an engagement,” he educated her haughtily.
“Every time you walk into a room from now until the day you get married, we’re throwing confetti at you,” she returned, pulling more out of her jeans pocket and tossing it as she and the others started trailing the carriage when the horses began to move. “Get used to it.”
“Fire and ice for wedding colors!” Sadie cried.
“Violet, fuchsia and charcoal!” Ava yelled, throwing more confetti that drifted around Tod and Stevie.
The Hot Bunch were hanging back, standing in the street wearing various smiles from full-on, glamorous white (Eddie and Hector), to half-smirk (Luke), to twitches (Hank and Lee), to shit-eating (Vance), to head shaking (Mace), to reining-in-laughter (Ren).
But the women were following them on the trot, throwing the dregs of confetti they had left and shouting out colors.
“Peacock!” Stella called.
“Salmon and baby pink!” Jet shouted.
“Straw and plum,” Jules yelled.
“Coral and sangria!” Indy bellowed as the horses started to trot and the carriage pulled away from the trailing women.
“Sparkle!” Daisy shrieked, falling well behind the others seeing as she was trying to keep up in clear plastic platform go-aheads that Tod couldn’t tell from his distance, but it looked like they had butterflies embedded in the soles. “Don’t matter what colors, just as long as there’s lotsa sparkle!”
Ally just stopped in the middle of the street, threw up both her hands in devil’s horns and bellowed, “Righteous!”
Suddenly, alighting from an El Camino that had parked on the street, a huge man with a wild russet beard and a wilder head of graying blond hair, roared, “Jesus Jones! What’d I miss?”
The Rock Chicks faded back.
The carriage moved forward.
And Stevie took a flute from Tod.
He filled Tod’s first.
Then he filled his own.
Tod gave him a look and inquired, “Did you buy me bling?”
Stevie caught his eyes. “Am I marrying the only man I’ve ever loved, that man being the same one I’ve lived with for decades?”
“Yes.”
“Then yes.”
Tod smiled.
Stevie smiled back.
Then he leaned in and kissed his fiancé, hard and wet, but sweet.
When Stevie pulled an inch away, he whispered, “It’s just a renewal. You’ve been my husband for a long time, honey.”
Tod lifted his hand to Stevie’s cheek and whispered back, “Same.”
Stevie raised his glass. “Toast. To Mr. and Mr.”
Tod raised his own glass. “To Mr. and Mr. Forever and for always.”
They clinked.
They sipped.
They sat back.
And after Stevie set the champagne bottle into the silver ice bucket affixed to the side of the carriage, he pulled the bling out of his trouser pocket and slid the platinum engagement band set with diamonds on Tod’s left ring finger where it nestled with the marvelous-in-its-simplicity platinum band he’d given Tod at their commitment ceremony.
They then held hands, drank champagne, and trotted through the dusk shrouding Baker Historical District in Denver.
Ten months later, after the Rock Chicks did indeed shower Tod with varying shades of confetti nearly every time they saw him, in a ceremony that was pure class (with the colors of a peacock feather, because seriously, how fabulous was that?), Tod and Stevie were married.
~ THE END ~
Discover Three Wishes
When Lily Jacobs was born, she inherited Fazire – a genie. Her family had three wishes and they’d only ever used one so Fazire was stuck in the human world. This worked since he’d become a member of the family anyway.
Even with a genie, Lily's young life wasn’t perfect. To escape the kids making her miserable at school, Lily buried herself in romance novels. One day, when the teasing was just too much, she used one of her wishes. She told Fazire she wanted to find a man like in her books and she made the most complicated wish Fazire had ever heard. Her wished-for man had to be impossibly handsome, virile, fierce, rugged and ruthless (amongst a dozen other things).
He also had to think she was beautiful and he had to love her more than anything in the world.
Nathaniel McAllister wasn’t born to a life where there were such things as genies granting wishes. His life was filled with drugs, crime and neglect. He was running errands for a gangster before he was in his teens and, even though life and hard work led him to wealth and respectability, he always knew, deep down, he was dirty. When Nate met Lily he knew he was no good for her but as virile, fierce, rugged and ruthless as he was, Nate was no match for the pull of sweet, innocent Lily.
Unfortunately, Lily’s wish included that she and her hero go through trials and tribulations to test their love. And Fazire wasn’t only a good genie, he loved Lily – so he gave her exactly what she wanted.
Turn the page to read the first chapter now!
Sarah, Fazire & Rebecca
April 1943
SARAH READ THE TELEGRAM IN her hand again and sighed.
She would only allow herself a sigh. No use worrying about what she didn’t know. Not yet anyway. That’s what Jim would tell her. She had enough to worry about today. She would allow herself to worry about it tomorrow. Or maybe the next day. Or maybe (she hoped) there was nothing to worry about at all.
She walked through the house Jim had built her with his own two hands, well most of it anyway. A sweet, somewhat rambling Indiana limestone house surrounded by ten beautifully lush acres. Smack in the front yard there was a large pond. In each windowsill, even though the house was nowhere near grand enough to carry them off, were slabs of marble. Jim had wanted her to have something spectacular and elaborate. The only bit he could afford to make elaborate on his teacher’s salary were those Italian marble slabs, and by damn he got them for her.