by JA Low
Dad places my hand on his forearm trying to stop me from shaking. “You’re doing good kiddo.”
I nod, not feeling the greatest, my nerves getting the best of me, not sure why I am so bloody nervous when we are already married. I try and center myself, looking down at the gorgeous orchid bouquet resting in my hand. The music starts and Kimberly is counting in the bridesmaids, one by one they disappear behind the wooden doors and once they have all gone the doors close again and the music changes. Kimberly gives me the universal sign for go as she opens up the wooden doors and I take my first steps down the aisle. My heart is racing a million miles a minute; I can see blurs of faces as I slowly walk down the long aisle. I hear the gasps and well wishes from the crowd around me, then my eyes meet Christian’s and those whiskey colored eyes looking at me with lust, love, devotion and pride. I can see the first tear fall down his cheek as he stands at the alter looking at me in awe. He looks so handsome in his tuxedo, very James Bond. That thought makes me smile as I think about his request for a James Bond themed bachelor party. I turn my attention to the rest of the guys standing beside him looking equally as dapper as my husband. Derrick gives me the biggest smile and two thumbs up, which makes me laugh. We make it to the end and Dad hands me over to Christian who can’t take his eyes off me.
“You look like an angel,” Christian whispers.
“You look like James Bond,” I whisper back, making him smile.
We both turn and look at Derrick who is standing proud, our celebrant. Yes, Derrick is marrying us, what were we thinking?
“The bride and groom have elected to say their own vows,” Derrick announces.
“I, Christian, take you Vanessa to be my lawfully wedded wife. I promise to love, honor and cherish you. I promise to not look at the credit card bills when there is a Louboutin sale on. I promise to cook dinner for you every night. I promise to always leave the toilet seat down and make sure there is enough toilet paper available. I promise to do manly things like chop wood to fulfill your unhealthy lumberjack fantasies. I promise to give you foot massages twice a week.”
“Six times,” I interrupt.
“Five.”
The congregation giggles.
“Four, and that is my final offer.”
Christian rolls his eyes. “Fine, I promise to give you foot massages four times a week.” This makes me smile. “I promise to love you in sickness and in health. I promise to love you when you are as big as a whale with our babies inside of you. I promise to be a vault when it comes to your secrets and anyone else’s.”
“Ness, no sharing from the vault,” Derrick says, making everyone laugh.
“I promise to take you on regular dates, even when we have kids. I promise to still grab your ass when we are old and gray. But most of all, I promise to be the best husband you will ever have.”
Tears run down my cheeks listening to Christian’s vows.
“Oh and yeah, I promise to love you forever, nearly forgot that. That one is kind of important,” he says, making us all laugh. He finishes off by leaning over and kissing my cheek.
“Hey, not yet,” Derrick chides him. “Vanessa, it is your turn.”
I take a deep breath, and hope I can make it through them. “I, Vanessa, take you Christian as my lawfully wedded husband. To have and to never let go even when there are manic fans around, they may be little but they are strong, but I promise no matter what I won’t let you go.” This makes him smile. “I promise I will attempt to cook dinner once a week.”
“Four times,” Christian adds.
“Two times.”
“Sold,” Christian agrees, making us laugh.
“I promise to let you watch football in peace and not try and distract you in some kind of way that usually works.” I wiggle my eyebrows at him.
“Don’t you dare stop doing that, woman,” Christian declares.
“I promise that I will stay healthy for you. I promise that I will believe you when you tell me that man flu is worse than anything else in the world, and I promise to attempt to make you chicken soup just like your mum.” Looking over to where his mum is sitting she gives me a thumbs up. “I promise to not work as much, even though technically you are the boss and set my hours.” This makes him laugh.
“Fine, you’re fired,” he whispers to me. I give him a stern look. “Fine, but you need to cut back those hours.”
“I promise to hide any new purchases from you and pretend that they have always been in my wardrobe. I promise to love, honor, and obey you sometimes. But most of all I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.” I wipe the lingering tear from Christian’s face.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” Derrick declares excitedly. “You may kiss the bride.”
Christian’s face lights up, he takes a step toward me, grabs my face pulling it to his and the lightest of kisses coast my lips. I can feel him smiling against them. “I love you, Ness,” he whispers, before opening his lips for a more passionate kiss, which makes everyone cheer.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. and Mrs. Christian Taylor,” Derrick declares as we start to make our way down the aisle, the smiling faces of our family and friends greet us as we walk. The nerves from early in the day are gone, and new memories of our wedding day linger.
123
Christian
“Can I ask for the bride and groom to come here please for the first dance.” Derrick calls us to the front of the ballroom, we haven't rehearsed anything, but I am hoping those lessons Mom made us take when we were younger will pay off. What Ness doesn’t know is what is behind the velvet curtain, it’s my wedding present to her, she thinks we are dancing to a certain song she picked out, but I have other plans. The first strings of the song she had chosen start as we walk onto the dance floor; then it stops. Ness looks around a little annoyed because she thinks someone has ruined our first dance. In one swift move, the curtain falls and behind it is the Sons of Brooklyn together with Gypsy Sisters.
“What have you planned?” she whispers.
“Just watch and see.”
“Congratulations Christian and Vanessa.” Blake congratulates us and continues into the microphone, “Christian wrote a song for you for today and here it is. It’s called Angel.”
The music starts and I take my shocked bride into my arms and we dance to the soft sounds of my song dedicated to her. She nuzzles her tear streaked face into my neck as we lose ourselves to the song, dedicated to the way I feel about her. When it’s over she surprises me with a very public kiss that has the wedding reception hooting and hollering.
“I fucking love you,” she mumbles against my lips.
Vanessa is my wife again, but this time it’s legit, we have said our vows in front of our friends and family. Seeing Vanessa walk down that aisle toward me like a damn angel was more than my little heart could handle, I thought it was going to burst right there and then, I don’t think I have ever been so happy. Now she is snuggled up beside me at our table while everyone is up dancing after dinner. “I am so happy.” I give her a kiss on the cheek.
“Me too,” she agrees, looking out over our friends and family dancing in the ballroom. One of our signed acts DJ Duo have been getting everyone up and dancing with their music.
“I think this has been a pretty awesome wedding, don’t you?”
“The best.”
“This is the start of our lives together, forever,” I remind her, which make her chuckle.
“I’m pretty sure I’m not going anywhere, babe. I have married you twice, I am knocked up with your babies so this better be forever.”
“Okay, okay, I get your point. I wonder what our little girls think about today?” My hand moves and rests on her invisible belly.
“I think they would think it’s pretty cool, I mean we got married in a freaking castle. They would most certainly love all the dresses.”
I let out a groan, “Are we seriously going to have girly girls who are going to want everything to
be pink and shit like that?”
“Yep, sure are, you better get used to it, babe, because these girls are going to rule you.”
I groan because it’s the truth, those two little nuggets already have me wrapped around their fingers and they aren’t even born yet. “What are we going to call them?” We haven't had the baby name discussion yet.
“Bloody hell, I have no clue, I don’t want to give them weird Hollywood names.” I shudder, there is no way in the world do I want to name my kids Apple or Peach. “I honestly haven't really thought about it, but I guess we need to. I was going to deal with baby stuff once we got back from our honeymoon.”
I am whisking Vanessa away to Bora Bora for our honeymoon. I am going to do it right this time and we are going to have two weeks of nothing but relaxing in the sun and making love on the beach. I know things are going to be crazy when we get back to LA, especially since Isla dropped the bombshell that she is leaving us and going to work for Sebastien in Europe. I kind of understand what she means by wanting to try something else because she has been working with us since she was eighteen and she is twenty-eight now, but we are all so used to her being around so it’s going to take a little time getting used to. We thought Oscar would take it hard because that’s his little sister and he has always been overprotective of her, but he surprised her with being one hundred percent supportive of her new adventure. Finn on the other hand not so much. I ran into him at the gym where he was taking his aggression out on a punching bag the morning after. He confessed that he was pissed that she was leaving but he understood. I told him to man up if he wanted her, but he said that she needed to go out and see the world and it wouldn't be fair for him to hold her back like he has been for years. I think Isla leaving for another country might actually force Finn to reveal his feelings, or they might both get over their weird secret infatuation they have for each other, it’s totally unhealthy.
Either way things at Dirty Texas Records are going to be changing next year. With Isla leaving and Ness going on maternity leave there is going to be lots of new faces on board and I think that is going to be pretty darn exciting.
124
Christian
Six months later
“I’m scared, Chris.” Vanessa squeezes my hand as we walk into the hospital, well Vanessa waddles because she is truly the size of a house, but I would never ever tell her that, I value my life too much. She still looks gorgeous though with her huge belly and the assortment of limbs that poke out of it. Our girls are very active, she says they get that from their daddy, and she most definitely was not saying that with a smile on her face. Usually that is when she has a foot in her ribs or an elbow on her bladder.
But today is the day I get to meet my two girls and I am so excited. We scheduled in a C-section a couple of weeks earlier than full term. Ness’ blood pressure was becoming too high and it was dangerous, she had already been on bed rest for the past month, and you can image how happy she was over that, not. Sienna and Evan still have a couple more weeks to go until they get to meet their baby boy. I know right, another boy, so Dirty Texas 2.0 already has four members; two boys and two girls.
“Right this way, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor,” one of the nurses greets us. “Are you ready to meet your babies today?” she asks enthusiastically as I push Vanessa along in her wheelchair.
“Hell yeah,” I answer for a very tongue tied Ness.
“That’s good to hear.” We make our way through the labyrinth that is the hospital corridors. “Here we are.” She ushers us into our hospital suite. “The midwife and your obstetrician will be here soon.” Then she is gone.
“Okay, I’m freaking out now,” Vanessa confesses.
Kneeling before her, I soothe, “You can do this, okay. Just think that today our babies are going to be born, that we are going to get to hold them and that you won’t have to be pregnant again.” This makes her laugh.
“Are you saying no more kids?” she questions me.
“I would love more but if all we have are these two beautiful girls then I am fine with that. It has been a really hard pregnancy for you and I don’t want to lose you, I don’t need any more chances of that happening. So yeah, what I am saying is, I am okay with just these two girls.”
“Thank you,” she gives me a weak smile.
“But we don’t have to make any decisions now, let’s just concentrate on our babies, okay.” She nods in agreement. “Now, let’s do this.”
“Congratulations, baby number one.” The doctor pulls out of my wife’s stomach a bloodied little thing that has a set of lungs on her. As soon as she is placed in my arms she settles. My God, my heart is exploding, this little pink thing wriggling is mine; I created her with the woman I love.
“Here comes baby number two.” She too has a set of lungs on her, and is placed on Vanessa’s chest. She is looking in awe at our little daughters wriggling around in each of our arms.
“They’re here.” Vanessa stares in wonderment.
“They certainly are.”
“They are loud.”
“Yep, I think I might need to buy ear plugs now, our girls are going to be really loud.”
“Just like their daddy.” Vanessa smiles up at me, and seeing her with our baby against her breaks me, I lean down and kiss the ever loving shit out of her with tears streaming down my face, but I don’t care because it’s all so overwhelming.
“Thank you for making me the luckiest man in the world.” She too is crying.
“Thank you for giving me everything I ever desired,” Vanessa whispers back.
Our little family is complete.
“I’m an uncle.” Axel stares down at the little baby in his arms and I can see it hits him, the same love I have for my two little girls has just hit him smack bang like an arrow to the heart. “They are so little.” One of the baby’s little fingers wrap around onto his. “They are so perfect,” he says to no one in particular as he just stares at her.
“Welcome to the club, man.” Evan slaps me on the back,
“Not long until you have two to match.”
“Not sure how you’re going to handle two babies at once, it was hard enough with one.”
“It’s called helpers.” We both laugh.
“So what did you call them?” Derrick asks as he snuggles with my other daughter.
“Sadie and Ruby,” Vanessa states with a huge smile on her face from her hospital bed. Thankfully she’s on the good drugs now. Being cut open couldn’t have been nice. I can tell you it wasn't very nice to look at.
“Those names are gorgeous,” Sienna coos, rubbing her extremely large belly.
“You better keep those Wyld boys away from my girls,” I joke to Evan.
“Um, I think your Taylor girls are going to be trouble, I don’t want them corrupting my boys, thank you very much,” Evan jokes back.
“I can’t believe the two biggest man whores are married and popping out kids,” Finn jokes.
I punch him in the arm. “Watch what you say in front of my daughters, they don’t need to know what their stupid daddy did before Mommy.”
“Going to be a bit hard when they can look things up on the internet,” Oscar adds.
“That’s it, no internet for my girls,” I say, and everyone in the hospital suite erupts into laughter, startling the babies. Everyone quickly quiets down as the grandparents swoop in and settle the crying babies.
Don’t think life can get much better than this.
“They won’t stop crying,” I complain as I listen to the piercing screams of my girls.
“Have you changed their nappies?” Vanessa asks.
I stare at her blankly.
“Argh, diapers, I mean diapers,” she yells at me. I am so brain dead I can’t understand Australian.
“Yes, and she’s been fed, and I played with her, I also took her for a walk. I don’t understand why Sadie won’t stop crying. It is Sadie isn’t it?” I question, staring at my daughter.
“Check
her wrist,” Vanessa adds.
We have identical twin girls, so it’s hard to work out which one is which. You’d think being their dad I would know, but I don’t. So we decided to leave the hospital band on their wrists to make it a little easier on us.
“Oh my God, Uncle Derrick is here.” Derrick strolls into the nursery like a baby whispering superhero, picks Sadie up out of my arms and cradles her. She stops crying instantly, what the fuck? “What can I say, chicks dig me.” He smiles and takes a seat on the pink leather feeding chair. He leans back and starts rocking in it. Slowly, the once screaming Sadie falls asleep.
“I owe you, man,” I say to Derrick when he joins me in the living room on the sofa. Derrick wiggles his eyebrows at me, suggestively. “D, at this point I am so exhausted that I would probably do that to get an ounce of sleep.”
“Duly noted, maybe another time. Why don’t you and Ness have a sleep, Axel is coming over any minute with your mothers and we will be on baby duty for the next couple of hours.”
I stand up and grab Derrick’s face and I place a wet kiss on his lips. “I love you, man.” Derrick looks shocked as I make my way to the bedroom and crash head first onto the covers.
Couple Weeks Later
“Congrats man.” I slap Evan on the back. We are back at the hospital, this time welcoming Evan and Sienna’s new baby boy.
“Thanks, you’re looking like shit,” he says with a smile.
“FU. Babies don't stop screaming.”
He chuckles, “Yep and you have two to feed all at once.”
“I am so glad our mothers stayed, I don’t know how we are going to cope when they are gone. I want them to stay until they are potty trained.”