Greetings all. Just a little background on this piece; I've written this for kcat1971 at her request. Ordinarily, I don't co-author stories, mostly because my writing patterns are strange and don't often operate on a time table, blah blah blah. However, this lovely person gave me, essentially, creative freedom and it seemed like an interesting challenge for me. I realize I'm making this sound very clinical, but it really was outside of my comfort zone and it took me longer to write than I expected. I tried to give it a bit of her kcat's voice, too, to kind of keep it in line with her story, hence the alternating viewpoints. It's in five chapters because the overall story is over 6,000 words and that seems like a lot for one story, so I'll post one chapter a day (I think—short term memory and all that). The first couple of chapters are kind of general rating, but that'll change, so be aware of that. Anyway, enjoy, and thanks to kcat1971 for asking me to do this!
I walk down the hotel corridor hand-in-hand with my husband. My husband! I look over at him and grin, and even though he keeps his eyes forward, he's smiling, too. His dimples are somehow even more pronounced.
"See something you like?" he teases, his fingers tightening around mine.
I just shrug nonchalantly. "Eh."
He nudges me with his shoulder, sending me a look, but I just keep grinning. I don't think there's anything that could bring me down right now.
When we reach our door, he stops and turns to me, grabbing onto both of my hands. I can feel his fingers fiddling with my wedding band, and I can't help but touch his in response. We're married. After all this time, we're husband and wife. How did that happen?
"This is it. Our honeymoon."
"Our honeymoon…" I whisper, my voice choking a little, and he tilts his head at me.
"You all right? Do you need some more time?"
I squeeze his fingers, shaking my head just a little. "I'm good. It's just…wow."
He leans forward and places a brief, sweet kiss on my lips. "No big deal, right? Just beginning of the rest of our lives, right?"
I shiver from head to toe, feeling nothing but excitement at the thought of forever. "Is that all? Definitely not a big deal."
We pause for a moment, smiling at each other goofily. It seems that I can't help but just smile right now. I'm happy. I'm ridiculously, obscenely happy. Twenty-four hours ago, I never imagined that I would be married right now, but now…I can't imagine my life any other way. This is right.
"Let's do this," he says, bending over a little, his arms reaching out for me.
"What're you doing?"
"Carrying you over the threshold."
"Josh!" I exclaim, jumping away from him. "You have a thing with your back."
"You weigh, like, nothing—"
"I'm very substantial and—"
"And it'll just be for a few feet, I swear. I'll get you over the threshold and down you'll go." Before I can protest, he has his arm under my knees. The other arm wraps around my waist and I yelp in surprise, throwing my arms around his shoulders as I'm lifted up in the traditional bridal style. He grunts a little under my weight, and it's all I can do not to smack him, less for not realizing a woman who's nearly six feet tall isn't going to weigh ten pounds and more for his insistence that he could do this.
"If you throw your back out…" I warn, but he ignores me, shifting me a little.
"No, I've got you," he answers, and I almost believe him. "Could you get the door, though?"
"Where's the—"
"Inside pocket. Left side."
I fish out the card and push the key in the slot, forcing myself to pause for the light to turn green before I pull it back out and push the handle. Using his shoulder, Josh nudges the door open and somehow manages to carry me into the room. My mouth actually drops open, and Josh lets out a little "oof" as I go almost completely slack in his arms.
"Josh," I breathe. He carefully puts me on the ground, but keeps his arm around my waist. Candles are flickering everywhere—LED candles, I notice, which explains how this is possible. The floor and the bed are covered with rose petals. "This is…wow."
"I did good?" he asks softly, and I turn to look at him. Amazingly, he looks almost bashful. Insecurity is not something I'm used to seeing from Josh. He leans more toward arrogance on a good day, and the rest of the time he's downright cocky. Seeing him unsure about this means almost as much to me as anything else that's happened so far. It means it matters to him.
"Honey, you did great," I whisper, wrapping my arms around his shoulders to pull him in for a kiss.
He pulls away a few moments later, grinning from ear to ear. "'Honey'?" he asks softly.
"It's something I'm trying. Is it weird?"
He actually looks thoughtful for a moment. "I don't hate it." I feel a smile slowly spread across my cheeks and he clears his throat, suddenly looking uncomfortable. He takes my hand and pulls me into the room, showing me around as if I didn't see it earlier today. He leads me over to the huge glass doors and stares out at the ocean. "Some view, huh? I know I have a view of the nation's capital from my place, but this is something else."
He's not wrong. There's still the faintest hint of pink on the horizon, the color reflecting on the rippling water. The rest of the sky is dark, and stars are twinkling everywhere. The night sky isn't something you get to see a lot of in DC, and out here, away from anything resembling a big city, the view truly is spectacular.
"Josh," I say softly, and he turns his head a little, his lip curling up in a half smile. I tug on his hand and make him turn to face me.