Book Six, Chapter 38: Wedding Bells

“You have 15 minutes, Little Missy,” Jules said. “If you try to fight me on this, I don’t care if you’re a bride or a bronco. The real world is knocking, and when it hits you, it’ll knock the hair dye right off your head.”

“Thank you so much,” Daphne said deliberately. “This will mean everything to my parents.”

“Uh-huh,” Jules responded.

I wasn’t sure why Jules had decided to play her character so adversarially. It was interesting.

We walked to the chapel.

“Riley,” Daphne said. “I want you to know that I will always love you. I would marry you anywhere, at any time. All I want to do is give you the happiest day of your life.”

We were On-Screen. I had to engage with her on this.

“You don’t have to promise me happiness,” I said. “That’s too much to promise. I just want you to be there with me no matter what.”

I figured my character would be a little bummed with Antoine’s death.

Daphne looked at me closely. She held tightly onto my arm.

“I know you can’t trust happiness with what happened to your parents. I know. I just hope that we can have one perfectly happy moment. Just you and me. You can’t count on having more than a moment, but you can trust the moment.”

“Well,” I said. “Let’s go have our moment.”

And that was how we ended up rushing into the chapel, with me standing at the front like some sort of doofus as a record player played wedding music.

None of my family was there. Thank goodness. I didn’t want Carousel to cast any NPCs to pretend to care about me.

I realized I was staring at the pews. My side was so blank. Her side, at least, had people on it: her parents, her cousin Emmet, and his wife sitting in the back row, waiting to return to the slot machines, surely.

If we were ever to get married, it would look very similar to this… if we were somehow able to escape from Carousel.

Daphne had given Kimberly a pep talk, begging her to try to put on a happy face for just a few moments, and Kimberly had agreed, though she did look at Daphne in a funny way. I couldn’t blame her. What would the audience think of us? A wedding while Antoine’s body was still cooling.

Yes, Daphne was taking the wedding a bit too seriously.

And maybe we should have called it off; it wouldn’t really have affected the story that much. But each player is responsible for their own subplots, and Daphne, or Rachel, as she was called from the storyline, was responsible for giving her two elderly parents the experience they had waited for their entire lives. I hoped it was worth it.

After a long wait, the wedding march came, and there she was.

Her father was walking arm in arm with her, crying joyous tears.

She cried too. And her beautiful white dress…

They had given her a great dress to wear. Even as a stylistically blind guy, I could see that that wedding dress was special. It was sleek and ornate at the same time. She wore a white veil. She looked fierce and graceful all at once.

My heart raced when I looked at her, and I probably didn’t look half bad myself in my tux, especially with the fresh haircut.

She locked eyes with me and smiled, and it drove me wild.

When she passed her mother, she reached out and grabbed her hand, smiling deeply at her.

Her mother was crying her eyes out in her wheelchair.

Then they made it to the front, to the altar.

Logan led us through the words. Did I take her to be my lawfully wedded wife? She would never forgive me if I didn’t.

She even took me to be her husband. Somehow, it didn’t seem like a fair trade; I definitely got the better side of that deal.

Then was the reading of the vows. I had put some time into mine, but I was still nervous as heck.

“Rachel,

I don’t always know the right words, but I know what I feel.

I never believed that I could actually let myself be loved. It always felt so impossible.

But with you, it just happened.

You’re my safe place, my reason, the best hand I’ve ever been dealt.

I promise to love you in the good, the bad, the boring, and the beautiful.

I promise to choose you, every day, for the rest of my life.”

Everyone clapped.

Then her vows.

“Riley,

I never thought I’d find someone like you.

You’re kind, steady, and you see me in a way no one else ever has.

I know I can be a little strange, a little hard to understand, but you never made me feel like I had to change.

All I’ve ever wanted is to give you one perfect, happy day.

And being here with you, like this… it’s everything.

Riley, I’ll love you till the day you die.”

Logan gave us the “in sickness and in health” speech, and we both made our promises.

We smiled at each other and then kissed when Logan directed us to kiss.

And just like that, I was a married man, at least until the storyline ended.

It was a strange moment. The blood-red glow from the stained glass window was omnipresent and cast a morbid veil over the event.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Under its light, even Daphne’s wedding dress looked red.

“I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Riley Lawrence,” Logan said, and then everyone clapped and cheered.

The moment couldn’t last forever, but I wished it could for Daphne’s sake. This storyline had brought out something strange in her. Maybe she was trying to live vicariously through her character. It felt like it. This was the equivalent of an amusement park ride for her.

It was time to move to the banquet hall for the reception, which was not that much different than the normal catering they usually had in that room. But it had all the classic wedding foods, and we were On-Screen and Off-Screen as we gave Carousel its footage.

Of course, Carousel got footage of us sharing the wedding cake. Daphne insisted on it.

“Don’t shove it in my face,” she said.

“I won’t,” I said. And I was honest. I took a small piece of the cake and gently put it between her lips.

She did the same for me. It was incredibly sweet.

She kissed me on the cheek for a photo op. The icing got all over, and we had to go clean up.

Robert and Beth Hutchins approached us. They hugged and kissed their daughter. Beth hugged me, and Robert shook my hand.

Then Beth, almost in an apologetic whisper, said, “We’re gonna go up to our room.”

She looked absolutely exhausted.

Daphne hugged her and said, “I am so glad you got to be here.”

“So am I, sweetheart. So am I,” Beth answered in tears.

We waved them goodbye as Robert pushed Beth’s wheelchair out of the banquet hall and toward the elevators.

I turned to Daphne as she wrapped her arms around me.

“We did it,” I said. “We gave them a perfect day.”

Daphne hugged me tight and said, “Yes, we did.” She was practically giggling like a schoolgirl, crying happy tears. She wasn’t even pretending.

“We should go up to the penthouse,” she said. “It is our wedding day, after all.”

Was she playing her character? Or really swept up in the romance?

“Sweetheart,” I said, “we have to try to figure out what happened to Antoine. Remember? There’s a killer on the loose.”

The brightness in her eyes dulled. “Right,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”