Page 137 of Something Like Forever

She pursed her lips andnodded. “Mm-hm!”

“Okay!”the teacher said, sounding desperate. “Let’s take our lunch breakearly. Everyone meet back here in thirty—no, let’s make it an hour.And when we reconvene, let’s try to focus, shallwe?”

“Toobad,” Ben murmured as he and everyone else stood to collect theirthings. “I was just starting to have fun.”

“Yeah,”Tim agreed. “I thought we were making realprogress.”

Together they walkedoutside. The class was being held on a church property, and afteragreeing that neither of them were hungry, they instead strolledthrough a neighboring park.

“I can’tbelieve we have four more hours of this,” Tim grumped. “Some thingsare worse than chemo.”

Ben laughed. “Iwasstarting to feelnauseous in there. I might pull my hair out too. Still, what canyou do? This course is required if we want to get our marriagelicense.”

“That’sso dumb,” Tim said. “And weird, because I asked Jason if we wouldhave a test at the end, and he had no idea what I was talkingabout.”

“Really?” Ben saidinnocently.

“Yeah! Must be a newlaw.”

“Couldbe,” Ben said. They sat on a bench together, facing a playgroundfull of kids gleefully using their outdoor voices. “What kind ofwedding should we have?”

“I’vebeen wondering about that too,” Tim replied.

“Well,we could do it like before, have all of our friends and family atthe house. We have a few new ones we could invite. Corey andKioshi. Daisy would be there this time. Lilytoo.”

“Yeah,”Tim said, not sounding thrilled.

“Or,”Ben said, scooting nearer, “this one can be private. We’ll applyfor our marriage license, make our vows without any witnesses, andhave Marcello sign off on it later.”

“Justyou and me?” Tim asked, putting an arm aroundhim.

Ben nodded. “Sounds nice,doesn’t it?”

Tim nuzzled his noseagainst Ben’s cheek. “Sounds like Heaven.”

“We should probably eatsomething before going back to class.”

“And that sounds likeHell. The class part, not the eating.”

Ben sighed. “Yeah. If I’dknown what a drag this would be, I wouldn’t have signed usup.”

“But then we wouldn’t beallowed to get married.”

“Hm?Oh.”

Tim pulled back. “Is thatright? Or is there another way?”

Ben tried hiding a smileand failed. “Strictly speaking, we don’thaveto take thiscourse.”

Tim looked more hopefulthan angry. “We don’t?”

“But if we complete it,the County Clerk will waive the marriage license fee.”

“Oh. How much isthat?”

“Sixtydollars.”

“Sixty dollars?” Timrepeated incredulously. “Are you kidding me? I was ready to bailafter the first thirty minutes when she made us all write our nameson the board and say one thing that we’re grateful for.”