"I think living here is going to be good for you."
"Being with you is going to be good for me," he said.
"I love you, Nate."
"I love you too, babe."
"Are you excited?" I asked carefully.
"I can't wait."
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Nate
Three Months Later
I'd never been to a Hawai'ian wedding before. Keno's family had wanted something a lot more traditional, while Makani's family was a little more modern. They came to a compromise that looked like a wedding of about one hundred people at a public park overlooking the ocean.
It had only been three months since Keno had proposed. I asked him over and over whether it was happening so fast because she was pregnant, but he kept denying it.
It didn't matter anyway. They were getting married. I was happy for them. After Kirsten, I had to admit, I wasn't that excited to try doing it again.
Maybe it really did come down to whether you were marrying the right person. Keno thought Makani made the sun rise every morning, and hey, I got it. I thought Abby was an actual angel, and I had just been the lucky shmuck she had felt sorry for and decided to give some love to.
I had loved Kirsten, but I didn't remember feeling what I saw between Keno and Makani with her. I didn't remember feeling for her what I felt for Abby. Maybe that was a sign that I wouldn't be paying Abby a divorce settlement in the future when it all went to shit, but I didn't see the need to rush anything.
She was still in school, and I was still moving my life from LA to Lanai. I had had to have a few flights back just to arrange everything and make sure I wiped that slate clean. I was stoked on Lanai. I understood why Abby and Keno loved it so much. It certainly didn't hurt that I had some actual friends now.
I had gone almost twenty-eight years of my life without having ever been a groomsman at someone's wedding. It was kind of embarrassing when I thought about it. Kirsten and I had had a really small ceremony at my house with like, ten guests. It hadn't felt anything like this.
The people who weren't family were friends, colleagues, and people who had known Makani and Keno since they were young. There were old teachers, former classmates, people who worked at the market in the city, everyone.
I liked it. It was great feeling like you belonged to a community. It was like it was everyone's big day, not just theirs.
Speaking of big day, Keno had been nervous as fuck since we had gotten to the ceremony.
He had been asking me how to deal, but I wasn't sure if he wanted advice from someone who had ended up getting a divorce. I just told him to wait till Makani showed up, then he'd be able to calm down. I was standing at the front of the ceremony waiting for it to begin with him, his brother who was his best man, and one other guy who was his last groomsman.
Makani walked down the aisle to the Hawai'ian Wedding Song instead of the bridal march most people knew. Before she did, though, her bridal party walked down the aisle. I watched the other girls walk down the aisle waiting for Abby's turn. She was maid of honor, so she went in just before Makani.
She and Keno were wearing white, but her bridesmaids, Abby included, had these long, flowy dresses that were cotton-candy pink. She took my breath away coming down the aisle. She looked really pretty in the dress, but she had these white flowers in her hair and I don't know, maybe it was because we were at a wedding and she was walking down an aisle. It put some crazy ideas in my head.
That was my girl.
Where the fuck would I be if she hadn't come to my suite that day to tell me to come to the luau? Definitely not here.
I was coming up on six months dope free, we were living together, and I had just gotten more and more requests from producers to work with them. She did that. Even if I had managed to stop using on my own, if we hadn't met, if she hadn't refused to give up on me, I would have gone back to LA and probably ended up trying to make it work again with Remus, which would have driven me fucking crazy.
I was happy. I had forgotten what it felt like to wake up and want to go back to sleep because everything sucked. I liked where I was and the people I was around. I loved her. She was the brightest and best thing in my life. She had met my dad, and he had felt the same way. She was perfect.
The ceremony was really nice. It really said something that the two of them were together again after they had broken up. Not every couple was like that. I thought I deserved a little credit helping them patch things up, but I didn't tell them. It was their wedding — I could just do it during the toasts.
The reception was a huge luau-style party. The feast was ridiculous; eating here had ruined me for other food whenever I had to fly back to the mainland. Abby was picking off my plate at our table. Being part of the wedding party, we were all sitting together. There was an open bar, but we didn't need booze tonight.
"How does it feel to be married?" Abby asked Makani.
"Amazing," she said, smiling.