“One of the first things you noticed was my nostrils?” I asked, outraged.
“And your ass,” he said, leering at me.
“Language,” Dad said. “But how nice.”
“The love here is so overwhelming,” Mom said.
“And that’s why we want you to share in our love,” Vince said.
“I’m not into open relationships,” Nana said.
“Oh dear,” Mom said. “I don’t think I am either. And we’re related to Paul.”
“You’re a handsome man,” Dad said to Vince. “But I don’t want Paul to be jealous, even if I’m a DILF.”
I banged my head on the table.
“It’s not that,” Vince said. “We want you to….” He hesitated, looking down at my hand in his lap. Then he proceeded to shatter my heart into a thousand tiny pieces. “I don’t have parents. Not anymore. My mom… well. You know what happened to her. And even if she hadn’t died, I don’t know that anything would have changed. I hadn’t talked with them. Not like—not for a long time. Not anything meaningful. And then came Paul and with Paul came all of you, and for the first time in a long time, I thought maybe I could have something just for me. Someone that didn’t care that I wasn’t always the smartest person or didn’t need for me to act a certain way because of an election.”
Well fuck me up and call me his bitch. If he could just think of this off the top of his head, I was absolutely doomed when it came to his vows. There was absolutely no fucking way I was going to win this bet. That asshole. That beautiful, sweet asshole.
He looked back up at my parents, who were clutching each other’s hands on top of the table. Mom’s knuckles were white with tension. He huffed out a little breath. “I thought that after she died that things would be… different. Maybe my dad would see me differently. That he’d realize some things weren’t worth losing your family over. I waited, but he never called. And I almost called him a few times, but I didn’t.”
I hadn’t known that. It made me ache a little.
“And after a while, I stopped waiting. Because I saw what was right in front of me, you know? I didn’t need him to be my family because I already had one.”
Jesus Christ. Even Nana was wiping her eyes.
“Sorry I rambled,” Vince said, blushing furiously as if he realized just how monumental his words were. “I just… wanted you to know. So when we asked you to walk us down the aisle, you would. Because gender norms, right? We don’t need them. NPR taught me that. And Paul.”
I was so going to get the radio fixed as soon as possible.
“What he means,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, “is that Nana is already standing up with me. We’d like it if Mom would walk with Vince and Dad would walk with me, and then both stand with us too.”
Mom burst into tears.
Nana started wailing.
Wheels howled.
Johnny Depp screeched.
Dad looked thunderstruck.
“Wow,” Vince said. “Did I do all of that? Holy crap, Paul, you’re so boned when it comes to the wedding vows! Ha! Suck on that, motherfucker! Oh, sorry, Larry.”
“Language,” Dad scolded him, wrapping an arm around Mom’s shoulders as she laid her head against him and cried.
Vince leaned over to me, mouth near my ear. “I didn’t mean to make them cry,” he whispered. “Was that okay?”
I turned my head and kissed him hard. “Yeah,” I said as I broke the kiss. “You did okay. They’re happy.”
“You’re ours too,” Mom said, hiccupping just a little. “You have been since the day Paul brought you home for the first time.”
“Yeah?” Vince said, sounding hopeful.
“It’s why we wanted you to call us your parents,” Dad said. “Because you’re just as much ours as Paul is. And Kori and Sandy. And, most likely one day, Darren.”