"Do you know how much I love you?" Rex absorbs me with his softhearted spheres, being adorably serious yet wears such a sweetly mild smile as he stares down at me.
My own smile is a rapturous one, rapturously affectionate. "I do." My reply honestly couldn't be any smugger as I pull on the lapels of his handsomely worn suit. "Do you know how much I love you?" My brow playfully rises with my question back to him, before I bring his loving lips greedily to mine. As we deeply kiss, I watch Rex close his content eyes as he saviours the mellow meeting of our tranquil mouths. When they sentimentally do separate, Rex is delayed with lifting his lazily loving lids. It's as though he is re-living our exquisite kiss, over and over again.
As I affectionately swim into attentive focus, his grin is just as lazy as his eyelids and his reply. "I do know." He eventually says, gifting me with yet another one of his knee-trembling smirks. "In about twenty minutes, you will officially be mine." He suddenly tells me, excitement drifting across his elated eyes.
Stroking his smoothly shaven jawline, I smile. "I have always been yours." I say it because it's true. I have always belonged to Rex, even when I thought I didn't. "I love you...but you have to go." My forceful hand reluctantly pushes him away.
Laughing, Rex leans down to steal yet another kiss from me. "You can both get a room after the wedding!" Faith is bossily clapping her hands together, hurrying us both up. "Now please remove your lips from my bride, the ceremony is about to start." Her tone is authoritative but her eyes are full of joyous jest. "Oh Rex, you have Provocative Plum all over you now." Rolling her eyes with a grin, she finds a tissue from out of her silk yellow clutch bag. "Jesus, I leave the two of you alone for just a minute and you decide to play Snog and Smear The Lipstick game." Faith is now frantically rubbing all around Rex's stained mouth.
Laughing but wincing, he keeps pulling away from my overzealous sister. "Don't you even think about licking that tissue and cleaning my face!" Rex protests with a slight grimace.
"Then maybe you should have thought about that before playing Tonsil Tennis with my bride." She teases, still trying to remove the last of my lipstick from all around Rex's mouth.
Amused, Rex throws me a cheeky smirk. "There were no tongues. Tongues are for after we have married." He then winks, his smirk now wickedly crooked in my direction.
Satisfied that his mouth and his face are now respectfully free of all traces of Provocative Plum, Faith starts pushing him into the beautiful room where we are to be married. Once Rex has been forcefully ushered inside, my sister then calls out to the Best Man. "Hey, Aidan? Keep an eye on your groom, his mouth is messing with my brides lipstick out here!" The room promptly erupts into choral laughter, celebratory cheers and many merry whistles and whoops.
Yes, it's a tad embarrassing. But the thing is, none of us care that it is. After everything we have been through, we are all just happy to be here today. This day, is a day that we thought might never come. Yet here we are, laughing and joking about Rex and I making out just before we are about to get married. Being teasingly defiant, my gorgeous groom quickly pops his head back around the door. "I love you." He loudly tells me before disappearing back into the room with our waiting and excited guests.
Faith is soon in front of me, urgently reapplying my snog-smeared lips. "I'm so glad I kept this lippy on me." She grins, carefully gliding the lipstick across my obediently still lips. Once finished, she puts it safely back inside her sweet little clutch bag and then gives the whole me a quick little once over with her very professional eyes. With her chin proudly high, her pleased gaze is soon staring right back at me. "There, you are now fully restored to your former beautiful bride self." Without saying a word, I suddenly clutch so tightly onto my sweet and funny sister. I cling tightly for all that she has done for me and Rex. When I got out of the hospital, we didn't even think there would be a wedding. Everything just got put on hold for us. But Faith was determined to take the organisational reins. She was determined that there would be a wedding for us all to look forward to. Without her, we would have definitely not been here today. "Now stop that, I don't have my waterproof mascara close to hand." She quips with a quivery voice. But I still cling tight, because I want Faith to know how much I love her. "I know, Angel...I know." My darling little sister knows me so well, knows the hell that I have been through, she just knows what my emotional embrace means without me even having to mutter a single word.
"Are you girls okay?" Dad is resting both of his loving hands on both of our shoulders, looking at us with worry stretched over his kind features.
Breaking our sisterly embrace, I smile back at dad. "We're fine...just having a moment."
Dad also understands, emotions have been running high for everyone involved in this wedding—myself, my gorgeous husband-to-be, his mother, my mum and dad, my sweet sister and of course, our devoted friends, Aidan and Angela—for all of us, today means so very much.
"Well, it's time." Looking at Faith, he warmly smiles at her before also giving her a tender little cuddle. "You'd better get inside." His voice is so soothingly calm as he persuades my sister to leave us alone.
Faith gives me a brief good luck kiss, quickly mouthing "I love you." Before leaving me with a shaky smile.
Dad and I watch her disappear into the ceremony room, emotional moments silently elapsing between us. Taking fatherly hold of my hand, dad pulls it against his pride-filled chest. "Before I hand you over to Rex, I just want you to know how honoured I am to be the one who gets to give you to the man who will love you for eternity. I also want you to know that I am walking you down that aisle with your parents deeply in my heart, because just like me, they will be so damn proud of you, Angel."
Tears fill my eyes, just as quick as they fill dads. "Oh, Dad." I cling onto him, trying to keep my tears at bay but aching with an emotional, happy kind of an ache. "I love you so much." My voice is broken, but my heart isn't. Over these traumatic weeks, mum and dad have been mine and Rex's rock. Their love and support has been unfailing. Dad and Rex have grown particularly close. It was dad who gently coaxed Rex to start his new job, after he had pushed back his starting date by two weeks. In fact, I didn't think he would ever leave me, but dad managed to persuade him that we needed to get back to normal. He persuaded him that our lives had to go on. For that, I can't thank my father enough. I know he has been instrumental in Rex not forever loathing himself. He stupidly blamed himself for all that happened.
He stupidly took it upon himself to carry the crushing weight of the blame. I think I shall always remember the first time that I saw Rex in the hospital, the guilt emanated from him like a pungent vapour. I hated him feeling that way. I hated that his father had made him feel that way. It didn't matter how many times I held Rex or told him to stop feeling so guilty, none of it worked. You see, every bruise I had, was a constant and hurtful reminder of what had happened. But my dad looked out for Rex. He knew that as I was slowly needing to recover, so was Rex. As their bond deepened, the more my father could reach him. And I'm so glad he did. I honestly think that Rex would have destroyed himself, and us, if he had continued to internalise everything. So that is why I cling tightly to my dearest dad, clinging to all that he so wonderfully is. "Faith will kill you if my mascara runs." I tearfully joke, resting my head on my dad's loving shoulder.
Squeezing me just a little tighter, dad laughs. "You're right, she will." Then he draws back slightly, gazing into my watery hazel eyes. "Even when you cry, you still look beautiful." He sweetly says with a docile smile sat upon his mature but utterly proud face. His absorbing attention is soon distracted though, when he suddenly spots some tissues on a prettily ornate table. "Quick, before both your mother and Faith have my guts for garters!" He promptly hands me a tissue to soak up the tears that precariously teeter on my lower lashes. Standing tall beside me, he then pulls back his shoulders and thrusts out his chest like a bold Peacock. "Right, lets go and get you married." He determinedly says before formally offering me his arm.
I too, stand tall as I smooth down my beautiful dress and coif the tendrils that hang down around by my face and neck. This is it. Everything comes down to this moment. This wonderful and precious moment. All the pain and the hurt is now nothing but a fading, evanescent memory, because today, I become Mrs Rex Ford.
Today, two becomes one.
Today, I marry the love of my life.
Today, I marry my soulmate.
**
"I adore you, husband." I sway in Rex's strong arms, swaying with the rush of love I feel for him and swaying to the music that loudly cocoons us. I am euphorically happy. I am finally married to the man who has always had my heart. He is mine and I am gloriously now his.
Bringing his caressing hands down to my lower back, Rex gorgeously grins with a quirked brow. "Are you drunk, Mrs Ford?"
Giggling, I throw my arms around his neck. "A little, but a whole lot more drunk on you." Then I kiss my handsome husbands' lips, I kiss them in a crashingly clumsy way because I giddily feel so happy and in love.
Rex pulls me closer against him, holding me tight and kissing me deep. With our lips immersed in each other's—we kiss until we need to take a breath. Sighing deeply and resting his forehead softly against mine, Rex whispers something so faintly exhilarating. "Time with you, Angel...forever just isn't going to be enough for me." His hands then come caressingly up to my face, needing to adore them with his felicitous fingers. "I love you so much. More than I can actually say."
All at once, the most beautiful of all human emotions hit me. Love. Trust. Respect. Admiration. Bliss. Contentment. Faithfulness. Joy. Adoration. Lust. Desire. Gratitude. Devotion. Hope. Honour. Dedication. Each and every one of them belongs to Rex. He deservedly owns them all. Each of those beautiful emotions satisfyingly rush through me, leaving me completely overwhelmed in his secure and protective arms. "Please just kiss me or I'm going to cry." I quietly plead with my voice already jagged, joyously jagged.
So Rex kisses me. Consumingly kisses me whilst my emotions wildly run through my blissfully happy body. Our mouths devotedly entwine, just as our hearts do. We passionately kiss, swaying to the music and losing ourselves amidst all of our happiness. As our kiss delicately ends, we remain intimately close; still romantically dancing. "Has that kiss done the trick?" Rex confidently asks, looking deliciously oh so smug.
Snuggled against his chest, I sedately nod with a serene smile firmly upon my far less plummy lips. "Yes." My dulcet reply is marinaded in the sweetest of satisfaction as I snuggle in closer against my sexy husband.
"Rex?" Elizabeth looks apprehensive as she warily approaches us. "Can I have a quick word with you both?" She nervously smiles at me before looking back at her very content son.
"What's up, Mum?" Rex asks, still holding me firmly against him.
"I've just had a phone call. It's Jonathan. He's dead. He commit suicide in prison." She speaks ever so quietly, her eyes flitting between Rex and I.
Taking hold of my hand, Rex is gently direct with his mother. "Do you care?"
With a flint of indifferent coldness reflecting in her unfeeling green eyes, Elizabeth is quick with her honest response. "No."
Stroking my hand with his thumb and leaning forward to kiss Elizabeth on her forehead, Rex quietly answers. "Neither do I." The chill to his calm voice quickly leaves him and is replaced with the warmest of affectionate smiles. "Now go and enjoy yourself, Mum. This is just his final attempt to sabotage our happiness." And just like that, the death of his father is easily pushed aside; dismissed without a second thought.
Elizabeth strokes both of our arms in a maternal and thoughtful way before doing just as her son had sweetly asked—returning to the enjoyment of our wedding day. Then Rex slowly turns and holds me once again. I look into his green spheres and can hear his silent voice and all of his silent thoughts. With only a loving gaze down at me, I knew that he was telling me that this was our day. That his father's final and withered attempt to spoil it, is now just as cold as he now is.
Resting my head on his chest, I say nothing...because right at this moment, no words needed to be said. As man and wife, we dance within our silent and matrimonial bubble. Inside of it, it's just Rex and I. Within our loving bubble, we breathe in only the happiest of air. As the song we have just danced to comes to a slow and fading end, Rex whispers something into my ear. "Lets slip out for a bit and practice making lots of Ford babies?"
I draw back, pleasantly surprised. "Lots of Ford babies?" My smile becomes wider as I look up at him with a twinkle in my very eager eye.
Rex shrewdly grins, holding me closer against his sexily suited self. "Well, I have my eye on a four bedroomed house, so those four bedrooms will need filling." He delicately rubs his mouth against mine, igniting me from within. "How about it Mrs Ford?" He covetously asks in a deeply rich and erotic voice as he pushes himself against me. "Practice makes perfect." His grin becomes wickedly crooked, his green spheres now brightly bold. "Say yes?"
Without even needing to think about it, out pops my arousingly keen answer. "Yes!"
Rex tenderly threads his fingers with mine on my left hand and leads the way with a thoroughly satisfied smirk. With elated feet, we are a giddy pair as we quickly leave the room, laughing along with each other.
You see, this really is our day.
A day that the two of us have had to wait a very long and painful time for. So I will eagerly now go wherever my husband goes. Because we are now whole. He is the other half of me and I am the other half of him. We are finally complete. We defeated Jonathan Ford and we defeated Zeus.
This is us.
This is who Rex and I now are.
So our excited selves hurry towards our future, we hurry towards it with the biggest of smiles that we can happily wear. Because we deserve such a happy future. Everyone deserves such a happy future. Now that Rex and I now have ours, I am sure our story will bring hope to those who are patiently waiting for theirs. Happiness can sometimes get heartbreakingly lost, but if it's truly yours to have, it will find its way back to you.
That is what happened to us.
It will also happen for you.
The End
*WELL, MY LOVELIES.... WAS THAT THE ENDING YOU WERE ALL HOPING FOR?
I TRULY HOPE YOU LOVED READING THE REASON, EVERY VOTE, COMMENT AND SHARE IS SO GRATEFULLY RECEIVED. BIG MWAHS TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU XXXXX