“Okay, then.” With a no-nonsense nod, Charlie reached into her tote bag and started to rummage, prompting Tess’s brows to climb upward.
“What are you doing?”
“Improvising. Ah!” Charlie brandished a tube of cherry lip balm, still in its packaging. “This is going to have to do double duty as something borrowed and something new, I’m afraid.”
This time, Tess’s laugh was genuine. “I don’t believe in any of that stuff, you know.”
Charlie put a hand on her hip. “You did when I got married. Both times,” she said.
“That’s totally different! First of all, you married the same guy both times. Secondly, you and Parker are all in love and stuff. This”—Tess waved a hand in front of herself—“hardly counts.”
“It’s legal,” Charlie insisted. “It counts.”
Ehhhh, she had a point. “Fine, have it your way. My jeans can count as something blue.”
“Great. Now we just need something old.”
“I’m old,” Tess said, taking the lip balm out of its packaging and slicking some over her mouth to humor Charlie, who rolled her eyes at the claim. “And I’m also going to be late unless we leave right now.”
“Alright, then. Let’s go, Methuselah.” Charlie rolled her eyes, but the sparkle there removed any rudeness from the gesture. “Being late for your own wedding is bad luck.”
Since Tess had both pickup from daycare and maneuvering Remington’s city streets down to an art form, she and Charlie and Jackson made it to city hall with four minutes to spare. Her heart kick-started in her chest at the sight of Connor, Harlow, and Declan already standing in the building’s main lobby, her pulse doing double-time at the way Declan’s eyes went impossibly wide as he took in the baby on her hip.
“You have a son?” he asked, his voice rusty and low. Jackson gripped her shirt a little tighter and buried his face in her neck, but she smoothed a hand over his back to reassure him. Not a whole lot of things could derail her plan to proceed, here, but this? Was definitely one of them.
“Is that a problem?” she asked, trying to keep the edge from her voice. “This thing between you and me doesn’t involve him, at all. Legally or otherwise.”
Declan’s head shake came too quickly to be anything other than genuine. “No. I…no. I’m just surprised, is all. You didn’t mention him before.”
“Oh.” That made sense, Tess supposed. She hadn’t mentioned Jackson because she’d known there would be no obligation or question of custody, but if Declan had shown up with a baby in tow, she’d have been equally WTF. “Well, this is my son, Jackson.”
“How old is he?” Declan asked as Charlie finished hugging Harlow and Connor in greeting, then bribed Jackson into her arms with his favorite stuffed octopus.
Tess let him go reluctantly, which was always how she felt when she let go of him. “Almost ten months.”
“He looks like you,” Declan said, and Tess made herself smile. Alec had always been far more handsome than she was pretty, so the fact that Jackson looked like her (and he really did) had never struck her as a compliment.
“He’ll probably outgrow it. Anyway”—she gestured down the hallway that, according to the directory in front of them, led to the clerk’s office—“did you bring all the documents they asked for on the website?”
Declan nodded. “I didn’t leave much of anything behind in LA, so…”
Right. Tess ignored the last-hope sucker punch his words delivered to her breastbone. “Good. I filled out my part of the application.” She pulled the sheets she’d printed out at the nurses’ station out of the diaper bag on her shoulder. “I wasn’t sure where you were staying, so I just put my address down for both of us, to make things easier. All you have to do is fill out a few more things and sign it.”
“Sounds good,” he said, taking the pen she’d passed over and starting to read. Harlow chose that moment to interrupt for a quick hug, handing over a small bouquet of hydrangeas tied together with a white satin ribbon.
“For the bride,” she said, smiling so warmly that Tess had no choice but to smile back.
“Okay, but—”
“Nope. No buts. I know this isn’t exactly, ah. Traditional.” Harlow’s gaze was loaded with understanding, but she squeezed Tess’s arm regardless. “Even so, it matters. A lot.”
Well, shit. Tess could hardly argue the point. “Thank you.”
Connor appeared beside Harlow, taking Tess’s free hand, which happened to be her left. “Alrighty, then. Let’s see if we got this right,” he said, taking a ring from his jeans pocket.
“I hope it fits,” Harlow said, smiling as the band slid easily over Tess’s finger. “I thought you and I might be about the same size. We got it from the jeweler up the street on the fly.”
Tess looked at the band, made up of thin ribbons of gold and platinum woven together in a simple braid. “Actually, it’s perfect. And beautiful.”
“Declan picked it,” Connor said, nodding at his friend, whose expression was—shocker—unreadable as he filled out the marriage license from a few paces away. The ring was lovely, far more her taste than the over-the-top, blinged-out band Alec had insisted upon giving her when they’d gotten married, but no. Nope. She had to shove that down, and shove it down fast.
This wasn’t a wedding like that, and there damn sure wasn’t going to be a happily ever after other than the one Declan was going to get by way of a clean bill of health.
Tess turned toward Connor, her armor fully in place. “I’ll pay you back.”
“No can do, doc.” He took the ring back and pressed a simple, gunmetal gray band into her hand—clearly meant for Declan—and winked. “Consider them both a wedding present from me and Harlow.”
Oh, come on. They didn’t even technically need rings to make this official. “Connor—”
“Look, I know the deal with your motivations,” he said, dropping his voice as Harlow quietly moved over to the spot where Charlie was putting Jackson into his stroller. “I get that this isn’t the way most people—or, okay, any people other than you—do this. I just want you to know how much it means to me that you’re willing to do something big to help him, and the rings were the best I could do on such short notice. So, could you help a guy out, please, and just smile and say okay?”
Tess’s eyes warmed, and ugggggh, she’d always had such a soft spot for the big oaf. “Okay. Thank you.”
He gathered her in for a bear hug that did nothing to help her get rid of the pesky tears forming behind her eyelids. “You’re welcome. Now, let’s go get your wedding on so I can have cake. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Declan finished with his part of the license a minute later, and after a meeting with the clerk for the whole document-check, sign-here-here-and-here thing, they filed into the courtroom side by side, with the rest of the group right behind them.
Declan surprised her by stopping less than halfway up the aisle, then surprised her harder by grabbing her hand. “You’re sure you want ta do this,” he murmured, so softly that no one else could hear.