The Buy-In (Graham Brothers #1)(61)

Her words catch on what sounds suspiciously like a sob, and without stopping to question it, I pull my seventy-two-hour fiancée into my arms. Lindy trembles against me.

She clings to me, and I lean in, speaking softly, my lips brushing her hair. “Do you want to call this thing off?” Please say no. “Do you want to pick up your mama? Or move the ceremony to her facility?” Complicated, but doable.

I try not to hold my breath, waiting for a response. Lindy sniffs. “I’m okay,” she says, voice strong but quiet. “We’re here, so we should do it.”

I chuckle. “I didn’t realize you were such a romantic.”

“It’s a well-kept secret. Don’t tell, okay?”

“Never.”

Judge Judie chooses that moment to rap her gavel on the bench, and Lindy and I jump apart. “Are we all ready to get started?” Judge Judie asks, looking down at us.

I give Lindy my most charming, hard-to-resist smile. “Last chance to run.”

Lindy’s eyes narrow. “Is that a challenge, Patty?”

“Nah. I just need to stretch if I’m going to have to chase you.”

“We’re ready,” Lindy says to the judge. She gives Jo a quick wave. I grab Lindy’s hand again. I take it as a good sign when she doesn’t resist.

It’s the most basic of basic ceremonies, like an off-brand wedding ordered from a sketchy site online. I try not to be disappointed we’re not even reciting vows—I didn’t even know it was possible to get married without them.

It feels disappointingly empty when Judge Judie says a few quick words and then asks for the certificate and our witnesses. The romantic part of me wants to wail. I ache for the pomp and circumstance, the drama and the magic. A wedding, in my mind, should be a capital-E Event. Not some kind of drive-thru, fast food thing like this.

But then Lindy looks up at me with a goofy smile that actually looks sincere. Romance, flowers, string quartets—who needs all that when I have her?

Tank joins me, beaming and clapping me on the back. A sniffling Val, wiping her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief, joins Lindy. I’ve signed a lot of legal contracts in my day, but I’ve never teared up while doing so before.

Tank leans in as I finish scrawling my name across the line. “There’s no crying in baseball, son,” he whispers, just loud enough for Lindy to hear.

She bites back a laugh and eyes Tank, then me. “So, this movie quoting thing—it’s genetic?”

“Afraid so,” Tank says. “Welcome to the family, Lindy.”

She startles at his words, like she is just now realizing exactly what she’s gotten into. Yep—you put your name on the line and now you get all the Grahams. For better or for worse.

Judge Judie adds her signature to the bottom of the license, and in the most anticlimactic ceremony in the history of the world, Lindy and I are married.

“Give this to the clerk on your way out,” the judge says, handing the license back. Lindy hands it to Val, and before any of us can move, Judge Judie bangs her gavel again. I swear I see a tiny smirk before she steels her expression. “And now, you may kiss the bride.”

Lindy’s head snaps up, and her cheeks flush pink. “Wait—what?”

Maybe Chevy was right about a few people in Sheet Cake being on my side, because Lindy told me several times a kiss was not required.

Lindy leans closer to the bench as our guests begin murmuring. “I thought we agreed we would just sign papers. Not do all the, um, you know. Other wedding stuff,” Lindy hisses.

Judge Judie raises her brows so high her forehead lifts her white tuft of hair too. “Are you trying to tell me you’re not planning to kiss your husband?” She gestures toward me with the gavel. Her eyes narrow. “Are you making a mockery of marriage vows in my courtroom? Are you telling me this isn’t a real marriage, but some kind of sham designed to—”

Before I can react, Lindy stretches up on her tiptoes and plants the quickest, most G-rated kiss on my lips I could ever imagine. I can tell she thinks she’s about to get away with it too. But before she can escape, I cup her face in my palms and kiss her back.

I won’t get too amorous in our current setting, but a closed-mouth kiss doesn’t have to be cold and stiff. Or fast.

When Lindy doesn’t resist, I keep on kissing her. My movements may be slight and restrained, but our chemistry makes even a chaste kiss light a fire. Lindy still smells of mint and strawberry, and her lips are pliant beneath mine. The curves of her cheeks are smooth under my rough palms. The ends of her hair tickle my wrists.

I’m aware of it all, drinking it in, memorizing it, taking as much as she’ll let me right now.

We may not have said vows, but I let my lips hint at promises to come. This is only the start, they vow. This could be so good if you let it. Be mine, Lindy. You are MINE.

And just when I feel her start to melt against me, like she’s forgotten the courtroom even exists, I pull back. Better to leave her wanting more than scare her off. From her parted lips and the glazed look in her eyes, I stopped right in the middle of wanting-more territory. Excellent.

Judge Judie grins her approval as she bangs her gavel. “I now present to you Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Graham.”

The room erupts in cheers in stamping feet. The feeling is better than running out of a stadium tunnel onto the field. It’s better than catching a touchdown pass. I drop my hands from Lindy’s cheeks and circle one arm around her waist, pulling her into my side as we face our friends and family. I wave like a pageant queen, and when I glance at Lindy, she’s got a stupid-happy grin on her face.