After the Rain (The Twisted Fate Series Book 1) (23 page)

34

So imperfect in
the most perfect way possible

Marcus wasn’t sure who was more nervous – him or the groom?

He, Jess and Damien were standing front and center in one of the most beautiful buildings he’d ever been in. The wedding ceremony and reception was being held in an old Chateau, and they could not have found a better venue. It was nighttime, and everything was drenched in the warm glow of candlelight. The atmosphere was mystical, almost ethereal. Large, intricate golden chandeliers hung from high ceilings that were painted with murals dating back centuries. The walls were a deep red, with subtle gold accents everywhere. It really was like stepping into another world.

Next to him, Damien stood wringing his hands, until Jess pulled his nervous fingers apart and held onto one of his shaking hands. She gave the back of his hand a reassuring pat, and Damien looked up at her with a grateful smile.

“Totally love you, dude,” she whispered and winked at him.

“Me too,” Damien bumped her playfully with his shoulder.

Marcus was also wringing his hands; he was just trying to hide it. At one point, he had to shove them into his pockets to keep them still. It didn’t really work, though, because he just landed up fingering the material at the bottom of the pockets. He felt like he was going to explode, like a ticking bomb getting closer and closer to the end of its countdown. He raised himself up and down on his toes a few times. His feet felt like they wanted to run in the opposite direction, down the aisle to where Stormy was.

And when the wedding march filled the air, he had to stop himself from jumping in front of Damien to see Stormy. Lilly entered first; as she glided down the aisle, Marcus turned to look at his cousin’s face momentarily. Damien was glowing, beaming from ear to ear at the sight of her, and the deep love visible in his expression was touching. Marcus had never felt so sentimental about stuff like this before, but Stormy had ignited something in him. Floodgates had been opened. He glanced back at Lilly. She looked beautiful: blonde, perfect, groomed. She was the type of woman he would have usually gone for in the past. But not anymore.

The bridesmaids were walking behind her, which was an unusual order of procession and only served to torture him further. And then he saw her…

Never had he felt his heart beat so fast. She looked incredible. The golden glow of the candles made her even more so. His heart seemed to swell with a sense of pride as he realized that she was
his
. Her hair was up, looking more sophisticated than he’d ever seen it. Some pink tendrils had escaped from the intricate knot on top of her head, and when he saw her scratch her scalp as if the tight up-do was making her itchy, he smiled. Only Stormy would do that while walking down the aisle at a wedding. Adorable. Her scratch loosened a few more strands of hair and when she was done, the fancy style looked decidedly lop-sided. He had to hold down a laugh, especially when a clip fell out and she bent down to pick it up off the floor. She was so imperfect in the most perfect way possible.

She was wearing the perfect dress, too. Pale pink. He adored her in pink. It sort of blended into her pale skin, which he loved. She looked, dare he say it, like a fairy out of a Disney movie. Tinker Bell came to mind, another thought that made him smile. He was basically dating Tinker Bell – just a naughtier version. A much fucking naughtier version.

She got closer and looked directly at him now. Her green eyes widened and she smiled radiantly at him, like Damien had smiled at Lilly, and suddenly he felt like he was watching his own bride walk towards him. Everyone faded away. There were no people, no Damien and Lilly; it was just him and her.

Stormy had no words for the feelings welling up inside her. Marcus was smiling at her like she was the only woman in the world. His smile felt like it reached out across the room with tentacles and physically tugged on her heart.

As she reached the top of the aisle, their eyes locked, and they stayed like that throughout the entire ceremony. Fixated. And again, his eyes seemed to reach out across to her and wrap her up in some kind of warm gossamer blanket. She could almost feel an invisible string connecting them across the aisle.

She let the priest’s words wash over her as he spoke about love. The beauty of love. The happiness of finding love, and the need to hold onto it with all your might. It all sounded so good, especially in that exotic Czech accent. It felt like he was speaking directly to her now. Lilly and Damien were the ones getting married, but in a way, this felt like her wedding.

And then Damien started speaking, and they momentarily broke their stare to look at him.

“Lilly, I’ve been trying to write the perfect vows for days now. But nothing I’ve written has been good enough, and it’s all just landed up in the bin.” He smiled a little and looked at Jess, who smiled back knowingly. “But then I realized that the reason I couldn’t write anything is because my feelings for you cannot be put into words,” he said, gazing adoringly at his bride.

As if choreographed, both Stormy and Marcus looked at each other again, knowing exactly what Damien meant.

“So all I can do, Lilly, is show you how much I love you every day for the rest of my life.”

At that, Marcus gave Stormy a slight nod, and she felt her heart catapult out of her chest. She blushed and smiled back at him. The desire to reach out and touch him in that moment reached an all time high. It was almost painfully unbearable.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife, you may kiss the bride.”

But as soon as those words were out of the priest’s mouth, Stormy and Marcus flung themselves at each other. Marcus cupped her face and kissed her. Stormy took his hands in hers and wrapped his arms around her as they kissed each other – the most important kiss of their lives. It was a kiss of promise. One of hope and possibility and excitement. Destiny. Magic and –

“Excuse me!” Damien tapped Marcus on the shoulder, and he and Stormy broke apart. Stormy looked around in surprise; Marcus too glanced around, and his eyes widened in shock. Wrapped up in their own private bubble, they’d forgotten where they were.

Stormy burst out laughing, as did half of the guests.

“You’re stealing my thunder here,” Damien playfully punched Marcus on the shoulder.

Jess stepped forward. “Leave it to me, I’ll deal with these two.” She took them both by the hand and pulled them aside so that Lilly and Damien could have their moment. “Down, naughties. Down,” Jess whispered to them with a smile. “Keep your pants on until after the ceremony, please.”

“Okay. Shall we try that again?” the priest said, looking rather amused. “In all my years of doing this, I’ve never seen
that,
” he chuckled. “Right, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride.”

“Don’t you dare,” Jess hissed in their ears.

Lilly shot Stormy a quick warning look in jest, before she turned to Damien. Damien pulled his new wife towards him, and like he’d done with the first kiss they had ever shared (which had also happened to be on a stage at a strip club in Thailand, of all places), he dipped her unexpectedly and kissed her.

The crowd clapped and Marcus turned to Stormy. “I missed you,” he whispered.

Stormy smiled. “Yes, I missed you by a mile,” she replied.

“I’m not even going to correct that this time,” Marcus laughed, wrapping her up in his arms and kissing her again.

Epilogue

6 weeks and 1 minute

It was dark and the flicker of the streetlights made it all somewhat eerie, like something out of a horror film. Stormy had brief visions of men wearing human skin masks, with hooks for arms jumping out of the bushes, but she quickly pushed that away. She needed to focus. Because she was currently trying to climb over a fence, in the dark, without alerting all the neighborhood hounds or the security guards that patrolled at night. The fence was high, the night was cold and Stormy was not really
au fait
with the finer points of breaking and entering, especially while trying to hold a cake and carrying a backpack on her back.

She’d baked the cake earlier that day. Let’s just say she was no Martha Stewart. It had only risen on one side – how does that even happen? – and when she’d taken it out the oven, the middle kind of caved in, so now it was more like large donut. She’d filled the middle with cream to try and disguise the culinary grand canyon that had been created, but forgot to add sugar, so she’d poured it on top, and threw some cherries on in hopes they would distract from the disaster that lurked below the white fluff. So at this point, she was just hoping it was vaguely edible.

After a tentative start, and a near tumble, she finally managed to climb over the fence and looked around suspiciously like a cat burglar… she’d never understood why they were called cat burglars. Did they steal cats? Or look like cats when breaking in? OR did the cats do the breaking and entering? Cats were sneaky things – she wouldn’t put it past them.

She tiptoed up to the front door and slid the key in. She actually hadn’t needed to tip-toe, but she just loved the drama of it. At least it wasn’t full-on breaking and entering, she thought – she’d ‘borrowed’ the spare key the day before and had a copy made. She’d unblocked the locksmith’s aura once and he owed her a favor.

She slipped into the house unseen and closed the door quietly behind her. She was really getting the hang of this breaking and entering thing. Hey, if busking, and doing readings and acting didn’t work out for her, maybe she could become one of those professional international burglars, those cool ones that do cartwheels and yoga moves through glowing security beams, cut holes through glass and climb up the side of buildings wearing leather cat suits. (
Mmmm,
curious – why was it called a cat suit? What was it with cats and burglarizing? Suspicious.)

The house was dark and Stormy didn’t want to turn on the lights. She was counting on the element of surprise, and she couldn’t wait to see the look on Marcus’s face when he found her. She snuck inside his bedroom, and found him fast asleep and snoring! Not those skin-crawling snores that large, hairy men make, but a cute little snore. Mind you, she thought everything he did was cute. He could probably burp and scratch his balls and she’d still find it adorable. He was just as cute as a zipper.

And the more time she spent with him, the cuter he’d gotten. He’d actually purchased a vegan cookbook the other day, as he’d promised, and attempted to make her dinners – and he was a good cook. He was good at other things, too… she bit her lip just thinking about it. You would’ve thought that the insane sexual attraction might have fizzled out a little by now, but
oh no
. It had escalated.
They
had escalated, and they were currently doing things that Stormy was pretty sure were illegal in parts of the world! Or if not, should be.

She stood there in the doorway watching Marcus for a moment. His face was squished into the pillow and he had the slightest bit of drool in the corner of his mouth. Adorable! Even his drool was cute, that’s how stupidly in love she was with this man.

She tried to figure out what the most surprising way of doing this would be. What would generate the most shock value? She could jump on his bed and yell
surprise!
She could lie down naked on the floor with the cake on her, like one of those sushi girls, and shout ‘konnichiwa’! Or she could just slip in next to him and wrap her arms around him – that was currently her favorite thing to do. And they’d been doing it almost every night since returning from the wedding. ‘
Taking it slow’
they’d said, ‘
not
seeing each other everyday
’, ‘
not sleeping with each other every
night’
.
Yeah, right! That hadn’t happened. They had spent almost every waking moment and free bit of time they had together.

Lilly had been right. He was the Ying to her Yang. The jelly on her peanut butter, the sprinkles on her vegan ice cream, that last missing puzzle piece that you can never find no matter where and how hard you look, and then when you do finally find it, everything is complete and you can finally see the full picture. That’s how it all felt with Marcus.

Stormy crept closer to the bed. She decided that the best approach would be to jump on top of him, so as to wake him with a flight and get the most out of this moment. She wanted to make this a moment he would never forget. She glanced down at her watch –
yup, she owned a watch
now
. Marcus had bought it for her when he realized that she always ran late. It was neon pink at least, and not a gold housewifey watch. The watch confirmed it: it was exactly six weeks and one minute since they’d started dating!

This was cause for a celebration indeed. Stormy put the cake and her back pack on the floor and hurtled herself through the air…

Marcus woke with a fright as he felt something pounce. His immediate reaction was to fight back, which he did. He pushed whatever had pounced on him off and immediately saw a flourish of color rush past his face, followed by a loud squelching noise.

“Storm?” He sat up, guessing that the flourish of color belonged to his girlfriend. The squelching sound, however, he wasn’t so sure about. “Are you okay?”

“Umm… sort of?” The room was in total darkness, and Marcus reached for the bedside light. When he flicked it on, the sight before him was nothing like he’d ever seen before.

Stormy was sitting on the floor – luckily unhurt – but her face, hair and upper body were now covered in a sticky-looking white goo.

“What the hell is that?” He pointed at the mess that Stormy was covered in.

“It
was
a cake,” Stormy said as she stood up slowly, wiping the cream from her face. It was completely obscuring her eyes. “That
so
did not go as I’d imagined.”

Marcus was still not a hundred percent sure what had happened, exactly. How was she even here? Why was she here? And why cake? In the middle of the night, no less? He turned to look at the time on his watch; it was two minutes past twelve.

“Happy anniversary!” Stormy shouted in a happy, singsong voice. “Well, not really anniversary, but happy
making-it
-through-the-six-week-vibe-thing
!” Marcus watched as she did a kind of jump, swooshing her arms around and coming to land in a kind of ‘Ta-Da’ pose. He smiled broadly at her. This perky, cake-covered, rainbow-haired woman standing before him – she was
his
perky, cake-covered, rainbow-haired woman. And God, he loved her.

Marcus climbed out of the bed and walked over to her, a little hesitantly. He loved her, but he wasn’t so sure about being covered with cake. “Thanks for the anniversary surprise!”

“Sorry about the cake, but you can lick it off if you like,” Stormy offered, sticking her face closer to him, where the majority of the stuff seemed to be.

“As tempting as that sounds, I’d rather not.” He reached for her hand. “But… might I suggest a shower?” He gave her a naughty smile, which wasn’t lost on her. She gave him one right back and started leading him to the bathroom.

Marcus turned on the shower and checked the temperature with his hand, and when it was perfect, he stripped his clothes off and stepped into the cubicle. Stormy soon followed. And although he had seen her naked at least twice a day for the past – he still couldn’t quite get over it – six weeks, he was sure he would never get bored of seeing her like this.

They wrapped their arms around each other under the gush of warm water. Marcus was glad she’d surprised him like this, because he’d had this slight fear that he was actually going to wake up today and find her gone. It had only been a slight twinge, though – he was pretty convinced of her feelings by this stage. He’s also been mulling over something in his head for the past week that he had been to scared to bring up, but this seemed like a good a time as any.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” he started tentatively. He didn’t want to scare her away – he knew what a big deal crossing the six week mark was. “We basically spend every night together. And you’re staying at Lilly’s mom’s house while she’s on tour, but she’ll be back soon and then you’ll have nowhere to go…” He paused, making sure he sounded casual and nonchalant. He didn’t want to come across as too desperate or needy – which he kind of was, to be honest. “So I was thinking that –”

“Yes, I’ll move in with you,” Stormy cut him off with a smile.

“Really?” Marcus felt his heart do some strange back flips. “You don’t have to do it right now, we can wait a little while if you want –”

Stormy shook her head. “Oh no. I’m moving in tonight. I’ve already packed my bag, it’s in your room, and I also got myself a key made.” She winked at him playfully.

“You don’t fuck around, do you?” he chuckled, feeling stunned and elated all at once. Now that the cake had washed away, he pulled her close and kissed her. “Thank you for moving in with me.” It was the best
sort-of-anniversary
gift Marcus could have ever wished for.

“It’s a pleasure,” she smiled.

“I’ve also got you a gift,” he finally said, after a bit more kissing. He knew she wasn’t going to like it, though; in fact, she was probably going to hate it, but it was time, and she needed it for what he had planned for her. Her face lit up, and he felt slightly bad, because he knew when she saw it her face would not be doing that.

They got out of the shower and wrapped themselves up in towels. He lead her by the hand to the lounge, where he’d left it. But as predicted, when she saw it, she stopped dead. Marcus went over and picked the box up and passed it to her.

“Here,” he was trying to sound cheerful. “It’s a –”

“I know what it is, Marcus,” Stormy eyed the box suspiciously. “It’s a lap computer.” She looked like she was trying to size the thing up.

“Laptop, but close enough.” He smiled to himself – that never got old. Ever. And the more he got to know her, the more extensively she had revealed this unique, Stormy-styled English. It knew no limits, either – some of the things that came out of her mouth were priceless. He loved that about her.

“It’s very sweet of you, but I’ll use my typewriter if I need to write anything.” Yes, she had a typewriter, an actual old-fashioned typewriter. And not in an ironic sense, like a Hipster might have; in a genuine, honest-to-God ‘I use a typewriter’ sense. He hadn’t believed her at first, until she’d shown him “Tilly Typewriter” (she named practically everything).

“Well, for what I have in mind, you’re going to need it. Because without it, you won’t be able to do all this, and I’ve already signed you up.” Marcus put the computer down and pulled out the booklet he’d downloaded from the internet. He’d researched for ages until he’d found the right one for her. He handed it over and she gazed at it, and started reading out loud.

“The Universal Center of Knowledge? What is this?” She looked up at him.

“Read on.”

She opened the booklet and started reading. “The Universal Center of Knowledge is an online college for the study of holistic practices and alternative healing.”

Marcus jumped in. “I thought it was time to make all the things you do official, and they have this really great course in something called Vortex therapy. It sounds interesting, although I didn’t understand a word of it. And there’s also a course in homeopathy – which I know you love – and also on aromatherapy. But you can enroll in whatever you want, and it’s correspondence so you can take your time doing it. There’s not hurry or anything. And then I thought, one day, when you’re ready, we can always convert the cottage outside into a space for you to see clients, and I know you also said you want to teach drama to kids, so you could do that there too, and –”

Marcus felt Stormy throw her arms around him, cutting off his stream of nervous chatter. She held onto him tightly and he wrapped his arms around her. He’d been hoping for this reaction; he’d been thinking about a way to help her do this for a while now, ever since he had sensed the sadness in her when she’d told him she’d dropped out of school, that day in Mombasa. He didn’t want to be some great knight in shining armor, swooping in to rescue her, but she deserved this chance. And he was the guy to give it to her.

“I love it. Thank you.” She looked up and Marcus with that expression that totally melted and annihilated him. And it probably would for the rest of his life – hopefully.

“But you’re going to have to help me with that thing,” she said, pointing her finger at the dreaded computer. “Is it even safe?”