That loosened her tongue fast. A multitude of emotions poured out as she explained how clowns and cancer and rebellion and marriage had all tumbled together in her head. How she wasn’t afraid any longer. She wrapped it up by pointing to the wig. “I’m inside my fears. Blasting them apart where they live. You gave me that. That, along with about a million other reasons, is why I can tell you I love you.”
Sure, she still didn’t want to lose him but she had absolute faith that if that ever did happen—regardless of the reason—she’d find a way to be okay.
“My turn.” Hendrix reached up and plucked the wig off of her head, then plopped it onto his own. “This is the approved method to work through all this stuff, right?”
She nodded as the tears spilled over. “You look like a dork.”
He just grinned and patted his red curly hair. “I look like a man who has finally figured out the key to dealing with the idiotic crap running through his head. I almost gave you up without a fight because I was convinced you were going to say thanks but no thanks if I brought up the things I was feeling. Color me shocked that you beat me to it.”
“Not sorry.”
“I’m just going to insist that you let me say ‘I love you’ first from now on.”
“That’s a much better marriage deal than the first one you offered me. I accept.” Roz fished her wedding rings from her pocket and handed them to him solemnly. “As long as we both shall live?”
He better. She wasn’t a serial wife. This was forever and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’d love him until the day she died.
He slid the cool bands onto her third finger and it was a thousand times more meaningful than the actual wedding ceremony. “I do.”
Epilogue
Jonas and Warren were already seated in the corner booth when Hendrix arrived—late, because his wife had been very unwilling to let him out of the shower.
“This seems familiar,” he joked as he slid into the seat next to Jonas and raised his brows at Warren. “Down to you being buried in your phone.”
Warren glanced up from the lit screen and then immediately back down. “I like my job. I won’t apologize for it.”
“I like my job too but I like conversing with real people, as well,” Hendrix shot back mildly, well aware that he was stalling. “Maybe you could try it?”
With a sigh, Warren laid his precious link to Flying Squirrel, his energy drink company, facedown on the table. “I’m dealing with a crap-ton of issues that have no solution, but okay. Let’s talk about the Blue Devils why don’t we? Or maybe the Hornets? What’s the topic du jour, guys?”
Hendrix picked up his beer and set it back down again. There was no easy way to do this, so he just ripped the Band-Aid off. “I’m not divorcing Roz.”
A thundercloud drifted over Warren’s face as Jonas started laughing.
“I knew it.” Warren put his head in his hands with a moan. “You fell in love with her, didn’t you?”
“It’s not that big of a deal.” Hendrix scowled at his friend, knowing full well that it was a big deal to him. “Jonas did it, too.”
Warren drained his beer, his mouth tight against the glass as his throat worked. He put the glass down with a thunk. “And both of you are really stretching my forgiveness gene.”
“It was a shock to me too, if that helps.”
“It doesn’t.”
Jonas put a comforting hand on Warren’s arm. “It’s okay, you’ll find yourself in this same situation and see how hard it is to fight what you’re feeling.”
“I’ll never go against the pact,” Warren countered fiercely, his voice rising above the thumping music and happy hour crowd. “There were—are—reasons we made that pact. You guys are completely dishonoring Marcus’s memory.”
Marcus had been a coward. Hendrix had only recently begun to reframe his thoughts on the matter, but after seeing a coward’s face in the mirror for the length of time it had taken for him to figure out that love wasn’t the problem, he knew a little better what cowardice looked like. “Maybe we should talk about those reasons.”
Instead of agreeing like a rational person might, Warren slid from the booth and dropped his phone into his pocket. “I can’t do this now.”
Hendrix and Jonas watched him stride from the bar like the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels. Dealing with rejection did suck, no two ways about it. But he was getting better at it because he wasn’t a coward, not any longer. He was a Harris through and through, every bit his mother’s child. Helene had raised him with her own special blend of Southern grit and he’d turned out okay despite never knowing his father. He was done letting that disappointment drive him to make mistakes.
“Welcome to the club.” Solemnly, Jonas clinked his glass to Hendrix’s and they drank to their respective marriages that had both turned out to be love matches in spite of their bone-headedness.
“Thanks. I hate to say it, but being a member of that club means I really don’t want to sit around in a bar with you when I could be at home with my wife.”