Page 163 of X's and O's

“Sometimes I look at our daughters, especially Mila, and she’s so much like you that I can’t help but remember the little girl Axel and I saved all those years ago.”

I sniffed, nodding, vividly remembering the ache in my belly from starvation. The lice that ran through my hair, and the complete and utter neglect I’d experienced at the hands of my mother and her boyfriends.

His eyes burned. “I promise our children will never know any of that pain. I promise I will always be your family, and until the day my eyes close for the last time, I will love you with every inch of my being.”

My big brother and his best friend had been the only reason I’d survived.

More than twenty-five years ago, they’d loved and taken care of me.

Now, Nash was standing here, staring down at me, committing to love and take care of me for the rest of my life.

I clutched my fingers in the lapels of his tux. “I’d do every ounce of pain and neglect and hurt all over again, if it brought me here to you.”

He tipped up my chin and kissed my mouth fiercely, a hard press of lips that said he hated that idea, but that he understood that if our paths had been different, we might not have been standing here right now.

“The kissing is supposed to come AFTER the I dos, Nash!” Scythe shouted from the end of the aisle where he waited with War and the officiant at his side. Then lower, but not quiet enough for us to not hear because the officiant had her mic on, he said, “Should we get him checked for dementia? He is really old.”

The crowd tittered.

Nash rolled his “really old” forty-six-year-old eyes and smiled down at me. “It’s not too late to back out of marrying him, you know. We can just put him in one of those boats down on the beach and push him out to sea. No oars needed.”

“I heard that,” Scythe called back.

War dragged Scythe in and kissed him to shut him up.

And Nash and I walked down the aisle, the way I’d been hoping for since I was that neglected little girl in a trailer park, dreaming of marrying the man who’d always protected her.

An evening breeze blew through my hair, and I took it as a sign that Axel was here with us, giving me and his best friend his blessing.

We’d agreed not to write our own vows. There wasn’t much about this day that was traditional, from getting married at sunset, to the fact there were three men committing their lives to me instead of one. And I was fine with that.

I’d known from the minute I’d met these men, I was never going to have a church wedding or even an official marriage license. I wouldn’t have changed that for all the money in the world.

But a tiny part of me had wanted a big white dress and all the traditional bells and whistles.

And so having traditional wedding vows had seemed like a nice idea. None of us were writers, so sticking with the classics felt like the best way to go.

I was grateful for it when I got to the top of the aisle and the officiant smiled at me encouragingly.

I handed my flowers off to Rebel with shaking fingers.

War noticed and took my hand, squeezing it. His eyes were on fire as his gaze dipped over my body clad in white lace and satin. He leaned in, so his mouth was close to my ear. “You look so fucking beautiful, baby girl.”

My nerves floated away, the three of them surrounding me, War wrapping his arms around me from behind and pulling me tight to his chest. Nash and Scythe flanking me on either side, their fingers finding mine. The celebrant started her speech.

Our daughters sat in the front row with Rebel holding Ridge on her lap and watching on with tears in her eyes that I knew matched mine.

I turned around, facing the men who’d saved me, loved me, worshipped me for the past six years.

“Do you, Bethany Melissa Arthur, take these men to love and hold, ’til death do you part?”

I smiled at them, my heart close to bursting. “I do.”

And I meant it with every beat of my heart. It was the easiest two words I’d ever said.

Nash and Scythe repeated the words back to me, and I gazed up at War.

He’d been the one to start this whole wedding thing. I think it had really started when he’d stared down at Ridge and we’d all known instantly whose biological child he was.