Nothing Really Matters

I felt invincible. Like nothing could ever bring me down to earth again. I was on cloud number nine. My own piece of heaven was sitting right next to me. Not even the grumpy older couple next to us could bring me down. I felt as close to comfortable as I would probably come, showing myself in public not fully covered up. His arms were wrapped around my shoulder, gently caressing me, while sipping on a glass of champagne. It had been just perfect. I had been nervous as hell at first, but when I saw him at the other end of the small chapel, everything had just gone away and all I could focus on was him. I wanted him to be mine. I wanted the world to know we belonged together. There was nothing holding me back anymore. I just wanted him, not giving a fuck what everyone else thought or would say. I had nothing to fear anymore. All the demons from my past were gone, at least physical. I know they would always be in my head, but at the moment I had managed to shut them away tight and safe. He had made them disappear. I had been forced to fight for everything in life and pretty much lost everything, up until that time. It would be hard getting use to not having to fight anymore. It was second nature to me, but now there was nothing left to fight for. I had everything I needed. I had him. Nothing really mattered besides that. I knew he loved me and I know we would always be together, until dead did us part. The ring on my finger felt strange, but I wore it proudly and when I glanced over at the arm around my shoulder, at the matching ring on his finger it, made me want to skip up and down. I was so ridiculously in love with him that I was impressed Andy and Mingus could stomach being at the same table as us.
“Can I tweet this?”

He leaned in and whispered to me. I know he was pretty active on all social media’s but as far as I knew, I had never been included. At least not so that anyone other than those closes to us knew what the hell he meant. He had a talent of always being so damn cryptic with tweets, photos or whatever it was he post.

“Tweet what exactly?”
“That we got married of course.”
“No.”
“Why not?”

He looked alarmed over my answer but I just smiled and kissed him lightly.

“Because you need to tell your mother and sister before we tell the world.”
“Oh… Good idea.”
“Yeah. I liked your mother, but I wouldn’t like to get on her wrong side, if you know what I mean?”
“She loves you…. I love you.”
“I love you too.”

The food was probably good, I didn’t pay much attention to what we ate. Not until desert there was. The waiter delivered the most delicious looking chocolate cake although none of us had actually ordered one.

“Congratulation on your marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Reedus.”

It would take a long time getting use to my new name. Mrs. London Reedus. At first I had no idea how they had figured out that we had got married, but then I remembered we had booked a suite and the waiter didn’t seem ether blind or stupid so I guess he must have seen both how happy we seemed and the actually physical evidence in from of the rings.

“You better call, grandma, dad.”

Mingus spoke from across the table. He had been on his phone for the past 10 minutes and I knew at once why. Good news travels fast…

“Why?”
“Cause it’s all over the place.”

He handed his phone to his father who quickly looked through at least three different tabloids with pictures of the four of us outside the chapel both before the ceremony and after. I had actually not noticed any photographers, but then I had been too occupied with what we were doing, to care what day of the week it was.

“Shit… I’ll be right back.”

He walked away towards the restrooms to call. Once he was gone, I turned to the cake to have a bit.

“Oh my god…! This is fucking amazing.”
“It was, wasn’t it? Have you even noticed what we have been eating?”
“Not until now. But I’m sure the other stuff was good too.”

Norman returned much sooner then I had expected, but he was still on the phone when he sat back down beside me.

“She wants to talk to you.”

At that moment, the whole Vegas thing didn’t seem like the smartest thing we could have done. His mother had been the sweetest women on the hospital, but I had a feeling she could be one tough bitch and according to her son, she was a force to be reckon with.

“Mrs. Reedus, hi.”
“London… My son’s just informed me that you got married earlier this evening.”
“Yes, ma’am we did.”
“And you both thought it was a good idea to go to Vegas without ether me or his sister?”
“Well… When you put it like that… “
“I’m messing with you, London, forgive me. I just wanted to congratulate you. I’m very happy for the both of you. I know my son, London, I know he made the right decision.”
“Oh…. Thank you. I’m sorry this happened a little quick…”
“A little quick? Honey, this had to be the quickest marriage in the history for this family. Just make it last.”
“Of course.”
“There’s something you could do for me though, seeing as you robe me the opportunity to be with my son on his wedding day.”
“Anything, Mrs. Reedus.”
“Dance with him.”
“Sorry?”
“Well, have you had your wedding dance yet?”
“No but… “
“Well, in that case, I want to see you dance with my son within the next 10 minutes.”

My mind went a little blank after her request. I didn’t know what to replay at all. It didn’t seem like a hard thing to do, but it just caught me completely off guard.

“I’m waiting, London.”

She said suddenly and I could just imagine her amused smile on the other line of the phone. I turned to him for some help and he looked just as nervous as I felt.

“She wants us to dance.”

I put my hand over the speaker. I could see both Andy and Mingus crack up at the other end of the table.

“Dance?”
“Yeah, like right now.”
“What…?”
“Come on, Norman, you can dance.”
“Fine… I’ll be right back”

He left the table again and I could hear her speak at the other line of the phone again.

“Sorry, Mrs. Reedus, what was that?”
“I said I would like to talk to my grandson and I want you to make sure Leslie is part of this as well.”
“Of course. Hold on… You figure out how to do this so that both granny and aunti can be part of this, ok?”

I handed over the phone to the teenage across the table. He rolled his eyes at me, but smiled. Andy actually started laughing. In the background I could hear Mingus start a conversation with his grandmother but I turned to Andy.

“What’s so damn funny?”
“You’re nervous.”
“She’s an intimidating woman, even at 2000 miles apart.”
“You should’ve thought about that before you decided to run away and get married.”
“Easy for you to say. You weren’t all wrapped up in that bed…”

I cut off before I could finish the sentence, realizing the last second that Mingus was actually seated right next to him and although he was on the phone, I know he would be listening.

“Oh, honey, if sex is all it takes, where the hell is this going to end?”
“Shut the fuck up, Andy… Besides, what else could happen? We’re already married.”
“I guess that’s true.”

His eyes wandered away from me and when I turned to see what had caught his attention, I found the surroundings disappear again. It was just him, no one else, around. He had a gorgeous, and little shy, smile on his face when he walked up to me.

“Want to dance, Mrs. Reedus?”

A little too hastily and eagerly I grabbed his hand. I think Andy giggled a little behind us and I could hear the restaurant go quite, but they were just bystanders, not important. My focus was all on the man in front of me, leading me towards a small open space only steps ahead from our table. I felt, rather than saw, Mingus and Andy stand to join us. The song that started to play was so familiar and perfect that I had to swallow back tears. We hadn’t even talked about a song, an our-song, but “Thinking out loud” by Ed Sheeran was a song that I had been playing frequently in Georgia. He pulled me close, grabbing one of my hands in his and wrapped the other around my waist. His hand gently caressed the naked part of my back and I leaned up for a second to kiss him. It was probably the best four minutes of my entire life, being closely wrapped in his arms, not taking our eyes of each other once. I didn’t want to let him go as the song faded away, but applause suddenly erupted and I got a bit confused at first. It had really felt like we were the only once there. His hands were on my face then, leaning down to kiss me and although there were tone of people around, I reached up and tangled my hands in his hair, kissing him long and passionate. For the first time ever, he was the one ending it, pulling away and placing a kiss on my forehead.

“Thank you for the dance, Mrs. Reedus.”
“Thank you, Mr. Reedus. I loved the song.”
“Yeah, I figured you would. It’s a good song. You realize this will become headline news tomorrow?”
“I don’t care. The world needs to know you’re taken.”
“Is that so, Mrs. Reedus?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Can I tweet about it then?”
“Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, whatever you want, baby.”