New Day Rising, page 34
At the head of the altar, there was no one to perform the ceremony, but Erin and Lucía turned to each other in unison as if they’d been instructed to by an unseen officiant.
When Lucía spoke, the music stopped and the guests took their seats once more. “My darling Erin,” she began, an audible tremble in her voice.
“In front of our friends, family, and the world, I make these vows to you,”
she said, her eyes filling with emotion.
Tracy fought the urge to press down on her own chest to ease the ache.
“As trite as this sounds, I knew I loved you from the moment we met.
Well, from the moment you threw that first gift back in my face,” she said with a laugh that was replicated in the crowd. “But I have been helplessly lost in you ever since,” she added with a megawatt smile.
“It is with an open and ready heart that I vow to carry you and to be carried by you,” she continued, holding Erin’s hands as she stared deeply into her eyes.
“Through all of life’s journeys, joys, and ordeals. . . ” She paused to collect herself before continuing, but Erin’s dad and the Cuban woman with the burgundy hair were already dabbing at their eyes with handkerchiefs and sniffling.
“Our love will bind us together through all time,” Lucía said, losing the battle at keeping her emotions at bay. “I promise to always be true, cherish you, and honor you as my wife and better half. I enter into this life with you without reservation, without fear or confusion, but with a clear and trusting heart. There is no place I’d rather be than by your side until death do us part,” she finished, her waterproof makeup in place as the tears flowed freely.
“I take you as my wife,” she declared, placing a gleaming, thick gold band on Erin’s finger.
Erin closed her eyes, reveling in the moment, and then Tracy was crying too. She’d never understood why anyone cried at weddings, but she’d never been in love before. She took Evelyn’s hand after quickly wiping away evidence of her emotion.
“I don’t know how I’m going to follow that,” Erin said, her entire body shaking with the force of nervous laughter fleeing her body. The honesty earned a laugh from their guests, including Tracy, who had been thinking the same thing.
“You got this, kiddo,” Erin’s dad whispered with an encouraging squeeze of her bicep.
She cleared her throat and nodded before pulling a folded up piece of paper from her suit pocket. She glanced at Lucía as if gathering strength from her warm encouraging eyes.
“Before you,” she started shakily, looking back at her handwritten thoughts. “I didn’t know how much color could be in the world. You activated something in me I had no idea was there. As someone much better with words than me said: A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks,
our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. You are my paradise.” She struggled to finish through her cracking voice. “You are my soulmate,” she said after a breath, “and I’ll never know how I got lucky enough to find you.” She looked up from the paper wedged in her shaking fingers. “But I promise I’ll never let you go.”
Erin’s words were the nail in Tracy’s emotional coffin. She openly wiped flowing tears from her face, and she wasn’t the only one. Even the great vampire queen wasn’t immune to the sentiment.
“I take you as my wife,” Erin declared, looking into Lucía’s watery eyes and placing a very modest solitaire diamond ring on her finger. “This was my mom’s,” she explained before sliding it down, “and I know it will bless us with love and happiness for as long as we both live.”
With their rings exchanged and vows spoken, Erin pulled Lucía in, dipped her, and kissed her. Tracy was the first one on her feet, clapping and cheering wildly. There wasn’t a dry eye or seated person left in the romantic courtyard of the hacienda.
As if on cue, fireworks in dazzling purples, greens, and blues exploded above them. The display matched the electricity of the celebration. It was, without a doubt, the most incredible nuptials Tracy had ever seen.
* * *
“How are you holding up?” Lucía whispered behind Erin’s ear after they’d greeted most of their guests in the long receiving line.
“I’m okay,” she smiled adoringly. “How about you?” she asked, shifting her weight.
“Me? Fine,” Lucía replied. “But I’ve had centuries of practice glad-handing. You haven’t built up your stamina yet,” she added with a laugh.
Erin couldn’t pretend that she wouldn’t much rather be in the next room where the party was, but she had to be a proper host and greet everyone before they joined the soiree.
“You girls are still out here,” Pete asked, bringing them two champagne flutes. Erin didn’t think anyone other than her dad would dare call Lucía a girl. Lucía accepted the glass with a smile.
While Erin and her dad talked, Alethia snuck around behind Lucía.
“Cheers, Lucy,” she said, tipping her glass before draining it. “I wish you and your missus a long life of dreadful monogamy,” she added with a devilish grin.
“Why do I get the sense that you’re not staying for the festivities,”
Lucía asked, knowing the other woman well.
“You’ve made me very rich, but I’ve been offered a very valuable job,”
she explained. “And if you’re finished finding yourself in peril, I do think it’s time for me to go. I can’t stay too long, or people will start to talk.
Rolling stone gathering moss and all that,” she said quickly, flicking her hand in the air.
Lucía nodded. “We’re going to do a bit of traveling. Perhaps we’ll pay you a visit when we get to Scandinavia,” she suggested.
“Oh come on, Lucy. Don’t get all emotional on me,” she replied playfully. “I’m sure you’ll recover from my absence well enough.”
When Pete meandered away, Erin joined their conversation. “You’re leaving?” she asked, even though she’d already heard her say it was time to move on.
“I’m sure you’re torn to bits, babes,” Alethia replied. “Do try and keep it together.”
Erin laughed as she shook her head. “You’ve been a really good friend to Lucía,” she added extending her hand for Alethia to shake. “What do you say we bury the hatchet?”
Alethia’s gleaming green eyes darted at a surprised Lucía before finding Erin’s face once more. For a moment, Erin wondered if she was trying to find the mockery or insincerity in her tone, but there was none to find.
She’d been silly to be so jealous of an ex from so long ago.
She took Erin’s hand and gave it a strong shake. “You know, if you really want to work it out, I’ve got an idea that’s a lot more fun than a stiff handshake,” she added with a wink before releasing her hand. Without waiting for Erin’s response to her proposition, she turned to Lucía. “I suppose good ol’ Helen of Troy isn’t as bloody awful as I first believed,”
she said before joining Scarlett and disappearing through the massive ornamental doors.
“So, can we join the party now, or what?” Erin asked. “This married lady wants to dance!”
Lucía laughed before offering Erin her hand. “Then dance we shall,”
she said with a throaty chuckle.
The string quartet took a break while Erin signaled for the DJ she’d insisted on having though Lucía had seen no need for her. 90’s dance music thumped through the parquet floor set up for the occasion.
In a burst of energy, Erin started pulling the reluctant onto the dance floor. The only ones who’d darted toward it as soon as the music changed were Bo and Charlie. Granted, there were so few of them who’d even heard of this music, but there were no bad sports. Even Adrian, his robotic fist pumping in the air, joined the celebration with a stiff sidestep.
Night rolled into morning, and the champagne kept flowing and music kept blaring. Even the vampires had discarded their shoes to dance by the time it was all over. It was as joyous a night as Erin had ever lived, and she hoped it was a good omen of things to come.
* * *
“So are you thinking of changing your name to Lewis?” Erin asked as she stepped out of the shower after Lucía. What was left of her makeup after sweating all night was circling the drain.
Lucía laughed, busy removing her makeup carefully, unlike Erin, who’d just washed it off with soap, and released her wet hair from the towel turban she’d made to dry it. “Are you going to change yours to Guerra?” she countered. “My name is already inscribed on so many things,” she added with a very serious expression.
“Hm, maybe we can hyphenate,” she suggested.
“Or in a couple of decades when we have to fabricate new identities,”
Lucía said, spinning around from her vanity, “we will pick new matching ones.”
Erin thought about it for a moment. “Okay,” she agreed, figuring that she’d have time to get used to the idea of no longer being Erin Lewis. The
possibility was too foreign now.
“Glad that’s settled then,” Lucía said with a smile as if Erin had played some serious hardball during their negotiation. “How about we go to bed,”
she said with a dangerous look in her eye. She pulled off the towel wrapped around Erin’s body with one finger, letting it fall to the floor in a dramatic fashion. “Have you thought about where you’d like to make our home?” she asked, her eyes hungrily devouring Erin’s naked form.
“Can I talk you into a nice rent-controlled apartment in Flatbush?” Erin suggested with raised eyebrows and a half-smile, like a salesman trying to sell the worst used car on the lot.
Lucía chuckled. “If that is what will make my new bride happy,” she said with a shrug before effortlessly sweeping Erin off her feet and kissing her hard. “I will live anywhere you desire. Any house would be a home with you.”
Erin kissed her until the over-the-top declaration made her laugh. It had taken her some time to get used to Lucía’s grand proclamations. At first, she’d thought no one could be so full of it, but in the time they’d gotten to know each other, she’d realized just how sincere Lucía was when she said things like that.
“I feel the same way,” she decided aloud. “I don’t care where we are as long as I’m with you.”
“I do quite like the idea of starting somewhere new. A new home to go with our new life together. Somewhere neither of us has any memories so everything we do will be uniquely ours,” she said as she sat on the bed with Erin on top of her and laid back to feel the full weight of her body against her. They could never get quite close enough for either of their liking.
Erin liked the idea of that. “Maybe somewhere open, airy, and colorful,”
she suggested as she kissed the soft, tanned skin on Lucía’s neck.
“I would like that very much,” she sighed, her eyes closing reflexively at the hands slowly exploring her body as if it were the first time they’d touched her.
Erin’s lips found Lucía’s once more before she spoke. “There’s this abandoned chocolate factory in Boston I was always kind of obsessed with as a kid. I’d daydream about living there, and even as an adult, the idea of living somewhere with so much history seemed so cool. You know, restore it and bring it back to its former glory.”
“What a romantic idea,” Lucía replied, flipping Erin onto her back and climbing on top of her. “Now that that’s settled, Mrs. Lewis-Guerra, I would very much like to consummate this marriage,” she said with a fanged grin.
Erin laughed. “I’m pretty sure we’ve consummated it a few hundred times,” she replied, moving her hip quickly to throw Lucía off before getting back on top.
“But now it’s official. And there are certain formalities that must be followed,” she said very seriously.
“Oh, I see,” Erin feigned insult. “I’m just an item to cross off your list,”
she added with her hand on her chest as if mortally wounded.
Lucía nodded as if dreadfully sorry to be delivering the news. “A very sexy item to be sure, if that’s any consolation.”
If she had her way, Erin would stay frozen in this moment forever.
Laughing with Lucía, the prospect of a long and happy life looming large ahead of them. There was nowhere else she ever wanted to be. It was her very own Heaven on Earth.
Chapter Thirty
The sun shone brightly in Erin’s eyes as she picked up the long pieces of lumber to fortify the 18th-century former confection factory’s new roof. When she walked into the transforming building, she inhaled the imbedded chocolate scent like a lingering perfume. Even amidst the flurry of construction, the occasional fragrance of long-gone candy wafted in the air.
Erin took her haul like a well-conditioned pack mule up the grand staircase. Its splendor was obscured by the thick plastic wrapped around the antique wood banister to protect it.
The grand stairs spilled out onto a cream-colored marble foyer. She glanced up at the massive mural, painted in oils, of a woman carrying a mug of something steamy. Her face, distorted by the heavy plastic sheeting draped over her, was a friendly blast from the past. Erin took the staircase to her right and walked the circular, open walkway up a steady incline.
Once on the third-floor landing, Erin caught sight of her dad and smiled.
His heavy tool belt hung sideways off his hips as he worked on installing drywall in a room with boarded-up windows. Since they’d started the Herculean project of renovation, she’d never seen him so happy.
The sight of him moving with his head held high and with real purpose made Erin’s heart light. On more than one occasion, Gale had driven all the
way to the site to drag him home and force him to rest and nag him that he wasn’t a machine.
“Need a hand?” Bo asked as she ran up behind her.
“Sure,” she said with a smile, even though she didn’t. “I thought you two were leaving today,” she said after Bo had taken half the beams.
“Ah, Charlie decided we should stay an extra day,” she said, hoisting the wood onto her shoulder. “Apparently some teenaged pups turned up at Tuck’s bar. No parents, no pack.”
“And she ran to scoop them up, huh?” she guessed.
“Yup,” Bo said with her dimpled smile shining proudly. “I figured I’d come make myself useful while my Alpha was off—”
“Alpha-ing,” Erin interjected.
“Exactly,” she replied with a laugh.
They trudged up three more flights. At the top, the tapered redbrick exterior was being converted into a glass enclosure.
In the room that was going to be a solarium, but now was little more than wood frames and bright blue tarps to keep the outside from coming in, Lucía had found refuge from the loudest construction mess. Even sitting cross-legged on a turned over bucket, she was magnificent.
“I’ll take these the rest of the way,” Bo said with a knowing smile when she saw Erin’s eyes on Lucía.
“Thanks,” she replied, unloading the heavy materials.
Bo took the extra beams like they were nothing but a box of pencils.
“Hey,” Erin said as she parted the plastic flaps keeping the dust out of the room.
“Hey yourself,” Lucía answered, looking up from her tablet.
“I thought you’d gone home,” she said, referring to the downtown Boston hotel were they’d been indulging in indoor plumbing, consistent electricity, and Wi-Fi.
“This is home,” she said with a raised eyebrow and a sideways grin.
Erin dropped her body at Lucía’s feet. “We’ve made some good progress today,” she informed. “I think six months is really looking realistic as a target date.”
“That’s wonderful, my love,” she replied, running her fingers through Erin’s sweaty hair as she used her legs as a backrest. “We will have to start planning a proper inauguration.”
“But not like a whole gala thing. More like a regular housewarming party where our friends bring us supermarket wine and maybe a plant or two,” she explained.
Lucía chuckled softly in nonverbal acceptance of her terms.
“Tracy and Charlie are probably going to be the only ones to do it right,” Erin added, thinking that Evelyn would probably be just as clueless as Lucía would be without her advice of how ordinary people moved in the world. “Your friends are likely to show up with wildly inappropriate offerings, and they’ll be terrible at party games.”
“You may not be entirely wrong,” she admitted with a nod.
Erin relaxed into the sensation of Lucía’s fingers in her scalp. Nothing could be more right than building their new home inside the shell of something old, their friends and family contributing to their foundation.
* * *
“I’m going to have to stop you right there,” the host of the cable news program said while the spiky-haired man was mid-rant about hoaxes and conspiracies. “We have live coverage from the congressional hearings. Let’s go there now,” she said before the image changed to a wood-paneled room.
Grave looking senators glowered at the three suited individuals at the table several feet below them. Days of testimony had culminated in the complete breakdown of the movie producers called as witnesses.
“Yes, Senator,” the woman in the middle said into the microphone. “We are prepared to admit—” the woman leaned over to a man on her left and whispered behind a yellow legal pad before continuing.
“Regrettably,” she began again, “we made a decision in poor taste to promote our forthcoming urban fantasy series of movies by orchestrating a multifaceted publicity stunt. By using unknown actors,” she continued, while black and white headshots of actors that looked just like Ximen, Lucía, and the others flashed on the screen, “we coordinated what we hoped would be a viral social media sensation,” she admitted. “We did not anticipate that our marketing plan would cause such disruption and consternation,” she finished as if having read exactly what her lawyer had written.
