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Holly’s wedding dress spent almost four years hiding in a dust jacket, brought out into the light as pristine as the sunny Wednesday afternoon she bought it. Set her back a hundred dollars, then, but who could put a price tag on a lifetime of love? She supposed it ended up being a good investment in the long-run rather than a starry-eyed splurge, because she was just about the only woman she knew who wasn’t getting married in her Sunday best.
The billowy cream swallowed her body, her coppery hair almost pink in the soft light of her girlhood bedroom, a dewy-eyed pastry of a woman staring back at her from the full-length mirror on the wall. A weak sigh broke from between her dry lips when she glanced at her mother, who assured her the dress could be altered to accommodate the weight she lost since she left home and hadn’t quite managed to gain back yet—if it weren’t for that, her mother would’ve assumed she was pregnant with how quickly she and Bucky were getting married since arriving in DC less than two weeks prior.
She had let Stan see her in the dress, back then. Had to show off, hear him tell her how pretty and perfect she looked. Maybe that was the beginning of the end. Bad luck to let your fiance see you in the dress before getting to the altar. Bucky didn’t mind waiting, not when they stayed up half the night in her parents’ kitchen, poring over brightly illustrated brochures for hotels that promised newlywed bliss—swimming pools, heart-shaped beds, on-site entertainment. The hotel they settled on, nestled away in the Blue Ridge Mountains, offered quiet and seclusion and charged an extra $2 per night for weekends. The manager who answered the phone when Bucky called in the morning informed him that the place was booked out for the following two weeks, and rooms were going fast. Better to make a reservation than arrive without one and find no vacancies.
It left them with a little under a month to plan their wedding, and the list of people who couldn’t make it was longer than those who could. But Woody, her beloved best friend and maid-of-honor, would cut off her own arm to make it, with John Brady as her plus one. Gale’s RSVP had been written in Marge’s neat script, excitedly informing them they’d be in attendance. Bucky’s mother and sisters would be coming in from Wisconsin, which meant Holly would only be meeting her future in-laws the evening before she married into their family.
Every venue they called was regrettably booked up for even longer than the hotel had been. When they nearly decided to forget it and drag her parents along to the local courthouse, her father’s supervisor offered to let them use his house’s sprawling backyard in Arlington for the occasion if they ordered the wedding cake from his daughter-in-law, who was trying to get a bakery off the ground.
Her parents scrounged up tables and chairs for the guests, borrowing mismatched card tables and folding chairs from neighbors and relatives. Half of the decorations had been sitting in boxes for about as long as Holly’s dress had been in her closet. Having spent the better part of four years itching to decorate for her daughter’s wedding and absolutely taken with her future son-in-law, Cathy Dean took it upon herself to transform the unassuming backyard into a proper venue while they applied for their marriage license and Holly filed for a name change— Holly Dean Egan on her driver’s license, her social security card, her passport.
But wedding planning with Bucky was breezy otherwise, “I’d marry you on the side of the road,” he had said, and she knew he meant it despite the laughter in his voice, the corners of his eyes scrunching at his own joke. She almost couldn’t believe she was lucky enough to have him love her so much. Up until the day of the wedding, she expected some other shoe to drop, that she’d never get the happy ending she so desperately wanted, the one they deserved after everything.
The hazy evening with its peachy sky felt too much like a dream for her comfort, and when her father was supposed to walk her down the aisle, makeshift but nevertheless beautiful with her mother’s creative touch, she ran—her bouquet of Tiffany roses discarded on the ground as she bounded toward Bucky until he was within reach. She threw her arms around him, carding her fingers through his curls, her nose brushing one of the Oak Leaves on his collar. His soft reassurances drowned out the shocked and amused murmurs of the guests behind them.
With his steady hands on her waist, he pressed his lips against her forehead, holding her close until the officiant cleared his throat. Every vow, every promise they could have possibly given each other had already been said upon their reunion in England, and Holly couldn’t manage much more than “I do” through her tears when it was her turn to speak.
She hated crying, in general, but especially in front of other people. The pads of Bucky’s thumbs brushed her tears away before he kissed her, their first as a married couple, his lips soft against hers. She lifted a trembling hand to cradle his jaw, allowing herself to bask in his tenderness for a few more moments before pulling away to the gentle applause of their wedding guests.
The contingent of guests who’d been at Thorpe Abbotts with them were the life of the party—rowdy and excitable, as Holly and Bucky were among the first of them to get married and actually have a reception afterward. His mother covered half the cost of hiring a band for three hours, who were told by the best man that under no circumstances should they let the groom sing, but Bucky wouldn’t let himself be denied the pleasure on his wedding day, dedicating a warbled yet enthusiastic serenade to Holly, who blushed and giggled as if he were Frank Sinatra.
The two-tier strawberry shortcake towered over everything else on the head table when it was brought out—generous puffs of vanilla frosting and strawberries shaped into blossoming flowers that looked too beautiful to eat. Holly almost felt bad when Bucky cut into it, until he fed her a forkful of the spongy cake, its icing turned baby pink from the strawberry jam oozing between the layers.
Before she could wipe the excess frosting from her mouth, he leaned in for a kiss—passionate and sweet and so uniquely him, she’d know it with her eyes closed. His tongue brushed against her lips, so teasingly that she nearly retreated for decency until she remembered he was her husband—her husband, and she loved the way the mere whisper of the word felt, the promise it carried, till death do them part and even beyond it, she didn’t care how many people were watching them.
“I love you,” her voice a pleasant hum.
He kissed her again. “I love you too.”
As the sky grew darker, the paper lanterns her mother had hung from the branches of the big, shady trees lent a soft, starry glow to the reception as guests slowly filtered out, leaving Bucky and Holly with hugs and well-wishes. The band packed up around eight, signaling the end of the celebration for the dozen or so people who lingered.
They rushed inside to change out of their wedding attire before the drive, their suitcases already in her father’s car which he was letting them borrow for the week as a wedding gift. That much was specified on the invitations—no gifts—but a few guests took it upon themselves to slip them envelopes when they thought no one else was looking.
A little over two hours to the hotel, just outside of Shenandoah, if they didn’t stop. Bucky had scrawled the details of their reservation on the back of the brochure—who he’d spoken to, the length of their stay, what type of room they’d be staying in.
“Why’s this circled?” she asked. “The ‘Honeymoon Deluxe’?”
“That’s what I got us.”
Her eyes widened—an extra $20 on top of the cost of the hotel for the week. It included a dizzying list of offerings and amenities: a bottle of champagne, a chocolate-covered fruit platter, room service, and since the pool was closed for the season, two complimentary drinks for each of them in the cocktail lounge for every night of their stay.
“You didn’t have to.”
“Sure I did. You’ve been waiting a long time for this.”
“You were worth waiting for, every second.”
He reached over, intertwining their fingers, the gentle scrape of their wedding bands against each other as he brought her hand to his lips.
The car radio played low, and every now and then, when there was a lull in conversation, she’d look out the window at the blur of dark trees and road signs and let her mind wander.
‘I’ll have to ask my husband,’ she’d say when she returned home. Or even at the hotel, where she figured they’d be the most charming couple there, surely they’d get invited to have drinks, but ‘Me and my husband already have plans.’
My husband. My husband. My husband.
Bright red, neon-kissed letters proclaimed from the roadside, ‘Love Lives Here!’ as Bucky pulled into one of the parking spots in front of the lobby. A sign in the window indicated there was someone on duty behind the desk.
“Can I help you?”
Bucky smiled, squeezing Holly against his side, “Reservation for Mr. and Mrs. John Egan.”
Holly’s stomach flipped. It sounded so natural the way he said their names together, for her to be so intimately part of him.
The night manager looked down at the ledger in front of him, grunting in affirmation before sliding it across the counter to Bucky. “Sign here.”
Bucky and Holly exchanged a glance before he picked up the pen to sign his name next to the reservation.
“You want two sets of room keys?”
“Yes, please,” Holly said.
“There’s a fee if you lose ‘em.”
Bucky slid the ledger back over, his jaw clenched, giving his smile a disconcerting edge. “Then we won’t lose ‘em.” He took the keys and a matchbook. “Is there anything else?”
“Your room’s on the other side of the building, so you should move your car over there.”
“Thanks, have a good night.”
“Sure, you too.”
“Some hospitality,” Bucky mumbled when they got outside. He pulled a loose cigarette from his shirt pocket, lighting it with one of the matches, housed inside the small red matchbook with the hotel’s name in a heart. “I mean, not even a ‘congratulations’?”
“Maybe the daytime people are nicer,” she said.
“Don’t plan on finding out so soon.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means I’m gonna make sure you’re sick of the wallpaper before we even think about leaving that room.”
“Promise?”
“As your husband,” he said, emphasizing the word with a kiss, “I promise.”
“As your wife, I’d like to see the room now.”
The entrance on the other side of the hotel was next to the closed pool, which Holly glanced at it for a wistful moment while Bucky brought their suitcases inside. A quick elevator ride up, then a left down a dimly lit hallway that smelled of snuffed out cigarettes and fresh roses until they reached room 348.
“Here we are, heaven on earth,” he said with a wink.
He unlocked the door to reveal the room, as if they’d been transported to a perfumed, powder blue Neptune—save for a clear vase packed with pink roses on the table in the corner, next to a bottle of champagne, two glasses, and an empty ice bucket. On this planet of their own, an exorbitant cost for a corner of the universe, he lifted her off of her feet to set her on the edge of the bed, her weight creasing the neat satin bedspread.
Each article of clothing removed, each part of her body exposed to their honeymoon suite was welcomed with the caress of his fingertips, his mustache tickling ever so slightly as he brushed his lips against her bare skin, taking his time with her as if she wouldn’t go insane in the eternity he seemed to take before finally undressing himself.
She tugged at the pin holding up what was left of her bridal hairdo, throwing it aside with misplaced aggression.
‘Something wild,’ he had called her the first time he saw her curly, unstyled hair cascade over her bare shoulders and down to the middle of her back. She didn’t deny it, not when she could finally feel her heart beating behind her rib cage again, brought back to life like a cheap imitation of Snow White the first time they made love.
She could have lived on the heat in his eyes as he stared her down, filling her with a lycanthropic urge to mark, to maim, to devour. His pulse thrummed beneath her tongue until she sank her teeth into his neck, soft like saltwater taffy in her sun-bleached summer memories—not hard enough to break skin, but to pull a syrupy moan from his throat that she could practically taste on her greedy lips.
Her need achingly difficult to ignore between her legs, she steadied herself, hands splayed across his chest as it rose and fell beneath her manicured nails, the ring that caught the low light in the room. Straddling his hips, she reached for his cock, stroking it until he begged for her with a whine that rang in her ears more sweetly than if the wedding bells had chimed for them.
Guiding him inside her, she trembled at how he filled her, close to too much but never enough. She wanted all of him, slow and deep and completely hers with an intensity that made it all flash behind her eyes as she rode him—pictured herself there so clearly, certain he’d give her rosy cheeks and a round belly and a big window to see powder blue out of while his hands squeezed her tender breasts on their way to her hips.
His thighs tensed against her own. He groaned her name in worship and warning before coming inside her, and the sight of his parted lips, his eyelids fluttering shut in ecstasy, made her guts twist at how deliciously obscene her husband could be. Her husband. Her breath caught in her throat as she came with a cry, throwing her head back, digging her nails into his chest because he was hers. All hers.