Carbon: Devil's Rose #8

Chapter 29: Gabriella Jordan

"Elena Greer, do you take, Julian Grant, to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do."

"Julian Grant, do you take, Elena Greer, to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

"I do."

"I now pronounce you husband and wife. You make kiss the bride."

The past few days have gone by insanely quick. 

I glance at Roman who catches my eye, giving me a wink. Our relationship has been a thousand times better in the past couple of days than it has ever been. I mean, our relationship was awesome before, but everything has been heightened. 

After I expressed my fears to him that one drunk night and he confessed how much he loves me (me reciprocating the next morning over breakfast when I could finally think about what I wanted to say), we've been closer than ever. 

We had been working on being more vulnerable with each other because we're both usually terrible at it, but it's different now. I'm not so scared anymore. That night was exactly what we needed. I pretty much word-vomit to him every day, and I have no fears about him getting annoyed or wanting me to shut up. 

He'll tell me very gently when he needs a minute. It doesn't mean he doesn't love me anymore, he's tired, and while I vent my emotions and need to get them out as soon as possible, he needs to sit in silence and contemplate. I think we reached another level of our relationship that we didn't we were ready for. 

I don't think we even knew how good our relationship could be if we opened up more, and since we have and have continued to do so this whole week (which we will take back with us to Westmoor), but now that we have, we aren't going back. It's next level. It's amazing.

I feel more connected to him.

I watch him walk down the aisle once Julian and Elena have exited with one of the ladies I met at the bachelorette party and have been getting to know this whole week. I don't remember her name, but she's nice. I stand with the rest of the people attending the wedding, and we make our way to the rehearsal dinner area. 

I wait by the door, looking out across the fields of grapes. I feel Roman's arm wrap around my waist and a light and subtle kiss pressed to my neck.

"I love you, Gabriella."

"I love you, Roman."

He cradles me to his side while we go around chatting with people and taking small sips of our wine. After tomorrow morning, his family is going their separate ways again, and I think he's sort of sad about it. 

He's probably not going to see Camilla and Enzo for some time since they live in Spain, and Julian and Elena are heading directly from their Italy honeymoon to Sweden for Elena's job to help immigrants transition into life in Sweden for a non-profit. 

How she got that job, I have no idea, but it sounds cool. Julian is in the tech industry as a coder, so he can work from anywhere as long as there is wifi. 

Felix and Kai are headed back to New York City, and we're headed to Texas. Roman doesn't outwardly tell them (per vulnerability issues), but he's going to miss them. I know he does. He calls them each once a week and still misses them. 

And he cannot stop talking about Rosco. This man needs to get a dog. Or spend more time with Bear's or something. He cried to me yesterday about how his dog is depressed. I honestly don't know what he's talking about, the dog is fine, but Roman's just worried. He's so funny.

It'll take him some time, but I know Roman will be focusing on Devil's Rose MC things, and he'll be back into his balance of things. I think he's finding that saying goodbye is hard. It's something that he doesn't have to regularly do to people he truly cares about because the MC members all live in a small town, and they see each other every day.