“Semantics,” I said. Smiling at her, I placed her left hand on my heart, and my left hand on her heart. “We’re married…you’re my wife.” I nodded at her, holding eye contact, desperately hoping she would understand, hoping she would agree. What could a legal document give us that we didn’t already have? How could the way we felt about each other, the depth of love we had for each other, be anything other than a husband-and-wife bond? What more did we need than this?

Marry me, right now, right here. Be my wife.

Tears streaming down her face now, Kiera nodded and said, “And you’re my husband…”

Relief flooded me. She understands. She agrees. She married me. She just fucking married me! Grabbing her face, I ended our simple, heartfelt wedding with a kiss that left me reeling. We were both laughing and crying when I finally broke apart from her. I suddenly wanted witnesses, I wanted someone to know. That was when Kiera waved someone over. I wasn’t sure who was still here. When I saw it was Denny and Abby, I grinned. It should be them.

Abby’s gray eyes watered when Kiera showed her our rings and told her we’d just gotten married. Denny briefly smirked and then shook his head, knowing full-well what we’d done was in no way legally binding. But I didn’t care about it being legal right now. That wasn’t the important part. It was emotionally binding, and that was all I really needed. The rest could be worked out later; I was just too impatient to wait that long.

Content smile on his face, Denny gave me a hug. “Congratulations, mate. I’m glad I could be here for it,” he said, clapping me on the back and chuckling.

His support filled me with a tremendous amount of warmth. My eyes drifted to the floor as I laughed too. “Yeah, me too. It seems appropriate,” I said, looking back up at him.

Denny nodded, then he hugged Kiera. She was crying so hard Abby had to hand her a napkin. She better stop it, or I was gonna lose it. The lump in my throat already made it difficult to swallow properly.

Denny whispered something to Kiera that I couldn’t hear, then he pulled back and said, “But I’m happy that you did,” so I figured it was something about our slim odds during our…rough patch. I felt pretty positive that those days were long behind us.

Beaming, Kiera told him, “Thank you…so much.”

She started sobbing again, so I wrapped her in my arms and tried my best to lighten the mood. “Should we go home and celebrate?” I asked her, suggestively raising my eyebrows.