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“Do you think he’s here?”
“Who, Sonic?”
“Mm.”
“I don’t know. He didn’t know what a wedding was, so that kind of implies he’s never watched one.”
Maddie slipped her arms further around Tom’s shoulders and leaned into him, her eyes absently roaming the crowd until they landed on the bride and groom taking a quick second to try and actually eat something. Mick and Jodie had been engaged for well over a year, so by now the whole town had been joking that it was never going to happen – today was a big day. But it was an important one for Tom and Maddie, too. It was their first night out alone since bringing Sonic into their lives.
When they’d told him about the wedding, and that he couldn’t come with them, Sonic hadn’t been upset. He’d just been curious, because he didn’t recognise the word ‘wedding’ in a practical sense. They had to give him the context of ‘marriage’ and ‘white dress, black suit’ and ‘I do’ before he knew exactly what they were talking about. He waved them goodbye early in the afternoon and sped into the woods.
But even that had felt painful for Maddie. Yes, he was probably just going for a walk and would come back when he was done, but it had felt like he was leaving. Like they’d abandoned him for twelve hours and so he would never come back to them.
Tom had told her she was being ridiculous and then called Wade after the ceremony to ask if anyone had seen Sonic so far that afternoon.
(No one had, but he’d offered to swing by their house and check if Sonic had come home yet. They’d declined, but now it was sundown and they were seriously considering it)
But they were grown-ups, they were adults, they had lived perfectly normal lives before Sonic, and they had been perfectly capable of having a night out without worrying about their adopted alien kid who had lived ten years alone and didn’t need a babysitter. It was fine.
So they kept telling themselves.
Still, the slow dance was helping. Just being able to relax into each other’s arms and sway to some sleepy Michael Buble cover, worrying or not as the moments went… it was calming.
She should have thought of it sooner. They’d always been like this.
Maddie smiled at the thought and looked back into Tom’s face. He tilted his head back the better to raise an eyebrow. “What’s that look?”
“Nothing, just… thinkin’ about us.”
“Us?”
“Yeah… you always calm me down,” she said, and leaned in to press their lips together, a light kiss.
He smiled softly. “Dunno what you’re talking about. You’re the calm one.”
“Only with you.”
It was true. It really was. When Tom wasn’t around, Maddie knew she had an incredible temper. It was always worst around her sister of course—she always knew it wouldn’t be a big deal, but then Rachael would start in on her or Tom or her and Tom and it would literally only be JoJo’s presence keeping Maddie from stabbing her darling sister with a crayon—but she was normally impatient and irritable. Tom made her snarky. Tom made her laugh.
In turn, she knew, she made Tom a bit more decisive. It was a strange trait for a man who had been elected to protect their town, but the truth was Tom was only straight-forward and capable when it came to other people. On his own, in his personal life, Tom was a waffler. He’d procrastinate and dither and find excuses not to make decisions, and Maddie was well aware that her pushing him was the only reason he ever made up his mind.
“You ever think about how we got together?” he asked quietly, and she chuckled.
“Which time?”
He rolled his eyes, letting her have the joke because they both knew he deserved the mockery.
They’d been friends first. For a long time – much, much too long, really. They’d met in high school, and stupid politics and assumptions meant that they needed to ignore any spark of attraction that might have happened. They were just friends. Just friends, they’d insisted to anyone who asked why Tom would go over to Maddie’s house for hours of study, or they bought each other stuff without keeping track of who owed who what, or shared lunches without thinking. Just friends, they insisted as Tom hated Maddie’s boyfriends for no particular reason and Maddie sulked every time Tom so much as looked at girls. Just friends who made sure they went to college in the same town. Just friends who would call each other at midnight. Just friends who were so careful not to get drunk together until the one night they did and realised exactly why they’d always been so careful not to get drunk together.
They hadn’t talked for days afterward. Maddie ended up deciding it was a catalyst and was prepared to talk about it – naturally Tom avoided her like the plague and when she finally cornered him he tried to insist it was all his fault and he was a terrible person and shouldn’t have led her on and blah, blah, blah…
Maddie let him have it. They agreed to just be friends, even though they absolutely weren’t. Neither of them dated in the next few months. Maddie considered herself to already be in a committed relationship, and Tom didn’t know why he couldn’t bring himself to consider any other potential dates. They ‘went out’, they weren’t ‘going out’.
He got over himself at college graduation. Maddie had already assumed they’d go out with their friends to celebrate, but when he came to pick her up, he made this big deal of it. He bought her flowers, sat her down at her kitchen table, and formally asked if she would be his girlfriend.
“No, she will not!” Rachael had yelled from the living room. “She is dumping your ass!”
“I would love to. Date you, I mean. Ignore her,” Maddie had said flicking a hand toward the disgruntled noises they could still hear, but Tom had still looked nervous.
He lowered his voice. “This – this isn’t a… spite the cow thing, is it? Because… I – I don’t think I uh…”
“No, Tom,” she said. “I would very much like to be your girlfriend. Can I kiss you now?”
“Uh – well, yeah,” he said, and honestly, things didn’t change a lot.
He was still her best friend. They still did everything together. Still teased and played and talked. They just also kissed and made love and got very drunk together, with predictable results. Tom made big productions of what seemed, in hindsight, to be little things – he was all awkward and stumbling about buying her a (non-engagement) ring for the first time, and asking her to move in with him was a huge thing when Maddie just considered it to be good economic sense considering they rarely spent a night apart. But he didn’t think anything of getting a second and third job to support her veterinary studies or ditching everything to just be there when her dog died. When Rachael got pregnant, his first question was how they were going to be there when the baby was born.
When a full week went by with Tom all flustered and awkward, she began to suspect he was going to propose. She debated confronting him over breakfast, just to stop the awkwardness, but ended up letting him have his big date. It was beautiful. There were fairy lights. He spilt garlic butter all over his suit. She loved him so much.
Their wedding should have been amazing. Tom and their families made such wonderful, detailed plans. But Tom was late to the ceremony because George’s tractor broke down in the middle of main street. The reception was interrupted because Adi’s horse went into labour early. Maddie’s dad made a scene, and Tom’s uncle sobbed loudly through the speeches. She still giggled when she thought about it.
They hadn’t ever talked about having kids. They’d kind of done it obliquely, in the sense that they knew Tom would be a great dad, but Maddie didn’t think she’d be a good mom. She’d do okay, but not good. And Jojo, god love her, had been so much work, even when they were just the aunt and uncle babysitting. And they were so busy, both of them. Time was starting to get away from them, and it didn’t feel like a big deal.
Now they had a little alien child living in their attic. That felt pretty okay. It was probably enough.
Maddie pulled one hand back from Tom’s neck to instead hold his face, even as he leaned in to kiss her again.
“I love you,” he murmured, and she hummed.
“I guess you’re alright,” she mumbled back, and they both laughed, Maddie leaning her head on his shoulder as they curled in tight against each other. She smiled into the lapel of his suit. “I love you.”
The song finished up, transitioning into something a little less suited to a waltz, but they stayed as they were. Even as everyone around them sped up, moving faster and louder, they stayed together, dancing slowly into the night.