She's Broken

Chapter 31

                The church was silent as she made her way up to the altar, in front of the vicar. Ally’s smile was intense and she kept looking at her feet abashedly.

                The vows weren’t there own, Ally claimed to be unimaginative and English wasn’t Cooper’s best subject, so even though they went along with the words of the vicar, every word that came out of their mouth hit home, especially when Ally subconsciously touched her stomach and looked up at her husband to be.

                Miss Holdana cried, so did Lisa and Sadie, Cooper’s mother. When the rings were placed, you could hear Sadie’s attempts at being quiet failing. She had to go and redo her makeup before they went outside of the photographs.

                Ally was positively giddy when doing the photos, so much that the photographer had to chuckle and take a moment to photograph the others while she calmed down. Eli and I stuck to the sidelines, leaning against the church wall, talking quietly as we watched the proceedings.

                “Photo?” I asked, reaching into my bag, taking out my camera. Eli smiled, taking it from me. He leaned closer, holding the camera in front of us as we smiled and took a second one as I kissed his cheek. When Carter came over, I took one with him and some with Lisa, Ally and my parents.

                We changed around on the car share, my dad being the one to take us to the reception. Apparently, he wanted to meet Eli officially.

                “So, how are you?” My dad asked Eli as he put the car into drive. I sank down in the seat, giving Carter my best ‘save me’ look. Carter just grinned, obviously thinking that if he had to go through it, it was only fair that Eli did, too.

                “I’m good, thanks, sir, you?” Dad let out a noise of approval and I let out my sigh of relief, grinning when Eli glanced back at me out of the corner of his eye.

                “I’m very well, thank you.” They managed to get a conversation going about Tempest and how Australia was. Thankfully, Ana wasn’t mentioned so the trip was pretty calming.

                When we pulled up outside the hall, everyone was already there, even people that weren’t at the actual church. I didn’t know where Ally was, but she couldn’t be there as the limo wasn’t there. Lisa and Josh were standing by the door so we went over to talk to them.

                “Wasn’t that amazing?!” Lisa exclaimed, grinning when we reached them. I nodded, leaning into Eli as he put his arm over my shoulder.

                “Wait till you hear my best man speech, that ceremony was nothing compared to this,” Josh teased with a wink and I smiled.

                It wasn’t long before the happy couple themselves showed up, laughing with everybody as they made their way into the main hall.

                Lisa had changed from the large bridesmaid dress into something more comfortable, the dress she’d bought at the shop when we all went together. Ally was right when she said that Josh would be drooling over her, the cleaner would definitely have a puddle of the stuff to clean up if he continued the way he was.