Chapter 262

Chapter 262
Aiden

Six months later

If someone had told me years ago that on my wedding day I’d be standing in front of a mirror being aggressively fussed over by Micah, I probably would have assumed I’d been hit in the head or we were role-playing.

But here we were.

“I still don’t know if this is appropriate,” I muttered.

He scoffed. “Please. I’ve been dressing you for years. This is just a higher-budget episode.”

He straightened my shirt, stepped back, squinted, adjusted the tie, and sighed dramatically.

“You know, Sir—Aiden, I mean,” he said, voice full of theatrical regret, “if I ever imagined myself dressing you for marriage, I definitely didn’t think I wouldn’t be the one getting married to you.”

I gave him a look.

He smirked.

Then I shook my head. “Micah, I know this is…unusual. And if this feels too strange or—”

“Oh my God,” he cut in, waving a hand. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m totally over you.”

I raised an eyebrow.

He rolled his eyes. “Okay. Fine. I’m totally over you in the tragic, romantic, star-crossed-soulmate way. Happy?”

“A little,” I admitted.

“Besides,” he continued, smoothing my vest like a mother hen, “now that I think about it? You’re a handful. Like…24-7 emotional and logistical commitment. I dodged a bullet.”

I snorted.

“And,” his expression softened, “I happen to be with the most beautiful girl in the world, so I’m good.”

“I know you are,” I said gently.

Silence settled between us for a moment — not awkward, not sad. Just…full of history. Growth. Peace.

He smiled. “I’m really happy for you, you know. You’re getting your fairy-tale ending. And I can’t wait to walk you to the altar.”

I blinked. “Micah…you’re not walking me to the altar.”

He frowned. “I’m not?”

“No. Only one of us is being walked to the altar. And that’s Noah. Hale’s walking him.”

Micah paused.

Then shrugged. “Fine. I’ll walk you to the end of the church. Same symbolic energy.”

I laughed. “Sure. That works.”

He went back to straightening my tie even though it was already perfect.

I sighed. “I still don’t understand why I can’t see Noah. Why can’t we get ready together? We’ve survived everything else — but suddenly this is the line?”

Micah stared at me like I’d just confessed to not knowing how to use a fork.

“Oh, my God. You are so not in tune with weddings. It’s bad luck to see the bride before the ceremony.”

“He’s not a bride.”

“Technicality.”

“And I’ve already seen him in a suit.”

Micah snapped his fingers. “Irrelevant. New day. New energy. New superstition. New suit. You’ll see him when he walks in. End of story.”

I swallowed, steady but full. Not the shaking panic some men felt on their wedding morning. Just quiet awe. Gratitude. The sense that somehow, impossibly, every wrong turn had still led me here.

He caught my expression and softened again.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “It’s going to be perfect.”

“I know,” I said. “Because he’ll be at the end of that aisle.”

He squeezed my shoulder.

For a moment, everything was still…

And then, realization hit again—somewhere, just minutes away, the man I loved was getting ready too.

Waiting to become my husband.

Micah clapped his hands together. “Alright. Enough meaningful talk. Let me finish dressing you before you wrinkle something and I have a nervous collapse.”

He helped me with my jacket, fiddling with it for another ten minutes before turning me toward the mirror…and even I had to admit the reflection startled me.

Not just a suit. A proper tuxedo — black, precisely tailored, silk lapels, crisp white shirt, cufflinks that caught the light. Timeless. Elegant. Formal in the kind of way that felt like reverence rather than costume.

Micah smoothed my shoulders. “Stop frowning. You look like you walked out of a royal wedding.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Be honest.”

“Yes.”

“For real?”

“Yes.”

“For the hundredth time?”

He grabbed my face. “Aiden. Mercer. You look perfect.”

I breathed out slowly.

Then he softened — truly softened — expression warm and fond.

“Anyone would be proud to stand beside you today,” he said. “You look like the perfect king. And he’s lucky to be your perfect prince.”

I swallowed.

“I’m the lucky one,” I said quietly. “And I think for the first time…I’m shaking.”

Micah didn’t tease me.

He just hugged me.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “That’s how you know it’s real.”

We pulled apart and patted my chest.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

We left together. The drive felt suspended somehow — sunlight sliding over the windshield, summer warmth humming in the air, the world unhurried. I watched the trees pass, the city giving way to open edges and quiet roads.

We hadn’t chosen grandeur.
A small chapel just outside New Orleans — white stone, ivy creeping softly up the walls, old wooden doors and stained-glass windows that scattered color across the floor when the sun hit right. The opposite of the cathedral in Texas — no ghosts, no darkness, no weight.

Just new beginnings.
Just love.

And, God.... This was really happening.

Micah had insisted on driving.

Not just any car — the sleek black classic I’d rented for the day. Understated. Elegant. Timeless. Or at least, it had been before Micah triumphantly tied white satin bows onto every door handle like a wedding fairy had gone on a sugar high.

He’d also wanted to attach rattling bells to the bumper.

That was where I drew the line.

“Absolutely not.”

“Party pooper,” he’d muttered — but he left it at the bows.

Now he guided the car along the narrow gravel road that curled gently up the hill. And then the chapel came into view — small, peaceful, wrapped in sunlight and ivy. The tires crunched as we pulled into the lot beside it, the summer air warm and still around us.

I was still staring at the building — at the place where my entire life was about to tilt into something beautiful and permanent — when my phone buzzed.

Noah.

Hi, babyyyyy. We’re leaving in a few. See you there.

Of course, tradition said I had to arrive first. Apparently I needed time to sit here and quietly unravel before the man I loved walked through those doors and made it all worth it.

I pictured him getting ready.

His mother and Emily lived nearby now — not on our street like we once imagined, but close enough for dinners and drop-ins and Sunday mornings that turned into afternoons. A sweet little house in a calm New Orleans neighborhood, full of soft light and second chances. They had insisted he dress there, so the mystery stayed intact.

I didn’t complain, but I missed him.
My heart pounded. Steady. Certain. Overwhelmed.

I typed back:

I’m already here, baby boy. I'm here for you.


From that moment forward, everything became a blur.

Not the bad kind — not panic — but the warm, dizzy haze that happens when joy grows too big for the body to hold. A blur of music and footsteps and whispered voices. Hands touching my arm. Someone hugging me. Someone else saying my name. Laughter. A distant flutter of nerves. I couldn’t have told you who stood where or who spoke to me or who didn’t. It all melted together like colors in sunlight.
None of it mattered.

The next moment I was aware of myself again, I was already standing at the altar.
Micah beside me.
Emily across from us.

And still — everything past the first pew felt like fog.

Until the music changed.
Until the doors opened.
Until I saw him.

My Noah.

And suddenly the world sharpened into impossible clarity.

He stepped into the light as if the chapel had been waiting for him. His tuxedo fit him like it had been crafted by someone who loved him — clean black jacket, silk lapels, crisp white shirt, subtle silver cufflinks that winked when he moved. His hair was soft and carefully styled, but one golden curl had escaped and fallen onto his forehead like it refused to behave.

But it was his eyes that wrecked me.
Blue. Luminous. Overflowing. The second they found mine, the tears gathered — not from sadness, never again — but from too much love, too much relief, too much finally.

Hale stood tall beside him, steady as stone, offering quiet strength.

And Noah began to walk toward me. With every step, the rest of the world faded — pews, walls, music, guests, air — until there was nothing left in existence but him and the way he looked at me.

My boy.
My love.
My future...

And as he moved closer, one slow heartbeat at a time, I knew with absolute certainty:

This was the only story I ever wanted to live.