Hate F*@k: The Complete Story
Page 29
Her lips part on the last point, and her eyes fill with tears, but she blinks them back. “I like that last part. I’m stealing it.”
“It’s yours,” I whisper back. “Everything I have is yours.”
“Ours.” She smiles and takes a deep breath. “Whew. This is hard! I need a tissue.”
Alison drifts one over her shoulder and she dabs at the corners of her eyes, then she hands it back.
Lacing her fingers into mine, Hailey locks her gaze on me as she starts her vows. “Cole, we’re already life partners and best friends. Today, I promise that will never change. Today I pledge to be your wife for the rest of time. To love, honor, and obey you, unless I disagree with you, then I promise to tell you that you’re wrong.” She grins as everyone laughs. “I promise to trust you. To walk by your side on new journeys and have your back when you’re challenged.”
My girl is smart. She knows this is the only time I’ll ever let her say that and now pull my caveman routine of insisting that’s my job, not hers.
“And I commit my life to you,” she adds, an adorable hitch in her voice as she tacks on the last bit of my vows to hers.
I can return the favor. “I promise to listen when you tell me I’m wrong.” God, I love the way her face softens there. So I keep the rest of the thought in my head. But you’ll damn well obey me or there will be consequences.
Her eyes light up, and I realize I probably didn’t do a great job of keeping that off my face.
This is a forever kind of love—being able to read your partner, see their most frustrating, stubborn ticks, and still loving them hardcore. I wink at her and whisper how lucky I am.
When we’re done making moon eyes at each other, the judge asks for the rings. I pull the soft pouch from my inside pocket and hand them over. He tips them out into his hand and balances them carefully on top of the black velvet. Two platinum bands, mine plain and Hailey’s a sparkly channel-set diamond ring.
“May these symbols of your commitment, exchanged today, remind you of your solemn vows forever more.”
He hands me Hailey’s ring and quietly instructs me on how to hold her hand. We’re both shaking a little bit, and she giggles as I balance the band just past the tip of her ring finger.
He prompts me with the next lines, and I say them loud and clear. “I give you this ring as a token of my love and devotion, and with it, I thee wed.”
The ring glides right over her knuckle and nestles at the base of her finger. She’d switched her engagement ring over to the other hand last night, while we were cuddling in bed, and on a whim I reach for her other hand and tug it off, setting it back in its right place on her left ring finger, now tucked against the wedding band.
“And Hailey, it’s now your turn…” The judge gives her the same prompt in two parts, and she carefully slides my ring onto my finger.
“I give you this ring as a token of my love and devotion, and with it, I thee wed.”
I don’t need to be told what comes next. I cup the back of her neck with one hand and use the other to brace the small of her back as I dip her back, sealing our union with a scorcher of a kiss.
“Stand by Me” starts playing as I easer her back to standing, then I kiss her again, picking her up and spinning her around as she wraps her arms tight around my neck.
“Ready for whatever comes next?” she says quietly, her eyes bright and clear as everyone claps around us.
“With you as my wife?” I kiss her again. “Fuck yeah.”
THE END AGAIN
(for now…)
Stay tuned for more Horus Group stories by signing up for my newsletter at http://ainsleybooth.com/newsletter/
There will be four story arcs in this series:
Hate F*@k - Cole’s story
Love Hate - Tag’s story
Dirty Love - Wilson’s story
F*@k Dirty - Jason’s story
Each of them will be told in their own way. Coming in Fall 2015 is dirty, a prequel to Dirty Love. Look for Love Hate in early 2016, told in two parts—like Hate F*@k, that one is going to get worse before it gets better.
The rest? You’ll have to wait and see. The story of The Horus Group has really just begun.
~ Ainsley
—acknowledgments part one—
First of all, Sera Bright, for humoring me and understanding me and coaching me way more than she needed to as I blundered my way through writing in first person. Jules, Cher, and Nikki were also faithful first person cheerleaders. Thank you all for putting up with my grumping.
Elle Rush deserves all credit for the name of The Horus Group, and others in the TMI Room weighed in on the names for each of the guys—Kate, Amity, Melanie…thank you for helping to name Tag and Wilson.
Editing thanks to Rhonda Helms, the first person to read the entire thing from start to end, and flagged no less than a hundred things to make better. Be glad she did! Revision suggestions from Kate Willoughby, Annie Nicholas, Amity Lassiter, and Molly McLain were also much appreciated. Dana Waganer’s eagle eyes caught all the missing words, and the bonus u’s, and any that she missed can be blamed on Cole’s dirty mouth—so distracting.
A million thanks to all my Zoe fans for understanding that I wanted to take a break and try something different. Turns out that the cliffhanger was the biggest difference, so I’m sorry about that! But thank you (a million times thank you) for pointing out that Cole and Hailey’s love story isn’t that different from anything else that I’ve written…just a bit rockier, maybe. And the pussy-slapping…that’s new. Ahem.
(Wow, awkward segue…)
Final thanks go to my family. The Viking, who just looks at my covers and tells to go get it. No matter what else is going on with us, thank you for the unconditional support. My kids, who have no idea what I write but think it’s cool that I write. And everyone else: my sister, my in-laws, my close friends… I love you all beyond measure because you don’t blink when I tell you that I’m writing a book called Hate Fuck. I have the coolest, bestest, craziest peeps ever.
—acknowledgments part two—
All the early Goodreads reviewers who encouraged their friends to request part one on NetGalley. Thank you for taking a chance on me. Thank you for loving Cole and Hailey as much as I do.
Jessica A., Linsday B, and all the other Zoe fans who were early Ainsley fans and had to wait extra long for part two… thank you for your patience. Part three won’t be far behind.
The exploding Ainsley’s Angels group on FB. Thank you for being so excited about all the Horus Group guys!
My editing team: Rhonda Helms, Sadie Haller (ha! I know you won’t hang an editing shingle, but look, I’ve snuck you in here anyway), Dana Waganer. You guys rock. All remaining errors are mine, either from futzing or stubbornness or both.
The Chatzy crew. Elle Rush, Amity Lassiter, Kate Willoughby and others.
Other writer friends like Molly McLain, Gen Turner, Shari Slade…that list is endless!
All the LOL ladies who just got why I had to write this project and cheered me on so hard. Julia Kent, Daisy Prescott, Mimi Strong, Juliet Spenser, Harlow Nash, Deanna Roy, Melanie Marchande, Cassia Leo, Bria Quinlan, Brenna Aubrey.
YouTube, for delivering the awesomeness that Sylvia is to me — chapter twelve wouldn’t have been the same without the songs “If You Get The Notion” and “Sweet Stuff”. Probably iTunes deserves a nod on that front, too. And since I’m talking music, Nine Inch Nails…thank you for “Closer” and “Something I Can Never Have”, Kings of Leon for “Beautiful War”, and The Stone Foxes for “King Bee”.
And my family, always.
—acknowledgments part three—
Sadie Haller and her husband—Sadie because she finds all the little things that don’t make sense, and her husband because when one of those things was some kissing choreography, he helped her figure out where I went wrong. Three-dimensional fact checking, people! How amazing is that?
My Ainsley’s Angels Facebook group, w
ho held down the fort while I locked myself in the writing cave—thank you for all the entertaining memes and man candy pictures and polite reminders that it was April. I love you guys.
Friends, family, writing buddies all got nods in the last two instalments, so I guess the last thing I need to say is to you, the reader, especially if you’re one of those quiet people who isn’t on social media a lot, and you found my book and decided to give it a go. Thank you, seriously. You are are why I write books, you are me a few years ago, and I hope Cole and Hailey’s love story gave you the escape you were looking for.
There are more Horus Group stories to be told. Thanks to everyone who has asked about Wilson, Tag, and now finally Jason—still an asshole, but maybe there’s some hope for him, yes?
~ Ainsley
—copyright—
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2015 Ainsley Booth