Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 48039 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48039 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Axel offers his hand. I give him mine. His palm is warm, rough. The calluses scrape just enough to spark.
“Hi, paramedic,” he says, voice low for me alone.
“Hi, firefighter.”
His mouth tilts. “You came.”
“I always do,” I whisper. “Eventually.”
He exhales, that soft, ruined breath he saves for when I say what he needed to hear without asking, and for a second I feel it in my bones—how we’re going to do this for decades. The officiant welcomes the crowd. The river answers in its own language. The sky bruises deeper into indigo. Axel’s thumb strokes the inside of my wrist, a private vow.
“Dearly beloved,” the officiant begins, and Levi fake-sobs in the second row until Dax elbows him hard enough to make his chair scoot.
There’s a bit about love being a verb, about weathering and wonder and work. There’s a passage Axel chose from some article he keeps folded in his wallet—something about choosing each other being not a moment but a practice, not a landing but a path. I hear words about flame and shelter and the danger and beauty of heat when it’s contained by care. The crew stands straighter at that; it’s a sermon they understand.
Then the officiant nods at us. “Your vows.”
We decided to speak them without paper. I open my mouth, and my past is suddenly a bright, hard thing being held in gentle hands. I see the narrow hallway where my father put me behind him and went back, the way his shoulders never turned. I see sixteen-year-old Axel standing barefoot on the frozen lawn, shouting my name into smoke until it swallowed his voice. I see the letters he wrote, so many letters, all unsent.
He lifts our joined hands to his mouth and kisses my knuckles once; it breaks whatever dam was threatening to make me quiet.
“Axel,” I say, and his name is my balance. “I won’t call you my hero tonight. You’ve been enough of those for other people. I’ll call you mine—my partner, my harbor, my stubborn, impossible home. I promise to be the one who drags you into bed when you’re bone-tired, to run you cold water when the heat won’t quit, to remind you that rest is brave. I promise to keep choosing you with my hands and my voice and the boring Tuesday morning parts of my soul. I promise to put my boots next to yours at the door and my head on your shoulder when the walls won’t stop talking. I promise to keep lighting the porch. Come home to me.”
His eyes shine and I have to take a quick, steadying breath. He nods once, like the wordless version of copy that, I’m on my way.
He doesn’t glance at paper either. “Savannah,” he says, voice rough enough to hitch against my ribs, “you were my first shot of adrenaline and my last prayer. I thought I could out-stubborn the ache of you. I couldn’t. I promise to build with you—walls and shelves and a peace we earned. I promise to listen, especially when you say you’re fine and your hands are shaking. I promise to carry weight when your back needs rest and hand it back when you say put me down, Ramirez, I can walk. I promise to try first, apologize faster, and stand in front of the heat but never between you and the sky. You’re my yes. Every day, you’re my yes.”
He doesn’t wipe the tear that breaks free and slides down my cheek; he watches it like a witness, like he’ll remember exactly where it fell. The officiant nods, satisfied, moved, practical. “Rings,” he says.
Holly puffs up, marches forward, and opens the little wooden box with an exaggerated flourish that makes the crowd laugh again. Ash mouths nice work and she preens.
Axel takes my ring and slides it home with steady hands, a soft exhale hitting my knuckles. The band catches the last shred of twilight and turns it into a thin line of fire. I take his and push it onto his finger, watching how it settles against his skin like it recognizes where to stop.
“By the power vested in me by the state of Colorado and a committee of firefighters who threatened to foam my front yard if I declined,” the officiant says dryly, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” He grins. “Kiss your bride before Dax throws a shoe.”
Axel doesn’t hurry. He steps in like a man walking through a door he built, slides his hand up into my hair, and tilts my face. The world tightens to the size of his mouth and the heat under my ribs. He kisses me slowly. Reverent. Like he practices gentleness because it used to be hard for him and now it’s a thing he’s proud to be good at. My shoulder blades hit his palm, my spine arches, the crowd blurs into stars.