Faith, Hope & Gloria--The Wedding

When February rolled around and we decided to post something romantic we'd written I was a little hard pressed to find something. While I do write romance, mine is not traditional at all. I tend to lean more to the outrageous and comedic. So, with that warning, I hope you enjoy this wedding scene between Gloria and her hunky fireman, J.D..

Cast: Faith, Hope & Gloria are sisters. Kitty and Wyatt are their parents. Derby is in love with Hope. Pastor Monroe is in love with Faith. Delores is J.D.'s mom and Zoe is his daughter. The Elvis impersonators are attending the wedding because the Hotel at the end of Lonely Street burnt down and they had no where else to stay. :)

“Keep going,” Gloria snapped at Pastor Gray Monroe—but didn’t dare turn around. This was a nightmare—a soap opera in the making.
“Gloria?” J.D.’s confused gaze darted between her and the imposing presence interrupting their wedding.
“This can not be happening to me,” Kitty wailed. Clutching her lace hanky to her chest, she stood and promptly fainted, warranting a chorus of gasps from the sequined, jumpsuited Elvis crowd and bringing her husband to his knees over her panic-stricken body.
“Gloria.” Hector’s thick accented voice raked down her back like fingernails on a chalkboard.
“Continue.” She prodded the minister with a sharp nudge from her bouquet to the bottom of his bible, nearly upsetting the good book in the process.
Gray looked a little more than confused. Apparently bound by some unspoken wedding law, he kept his mouth shut, waiting for the mess to clear up. One way or another.
J.D. took off his suit jacket and tossed it into the crowd a good six rows back. Unbuttoning the sleeves on his shirt, he pushed them up to his elbows and then doubled his fists. “Do you know this man?”
Was he preparing to protect her honor? Or was he just going to beat the crap out of Hector and then desert her? Was getting left at the altar always going to be her fate?
With an impatient huff, Gloria twisted at the waist to look behind her. It was time to put an end to this. Her future rested on this very moment. “Hector, what are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.” Hector stepped closer. His smudged sneakers pounded the carpet of the so-quiet-you-could-hear-a-pin-drop and not-miss-an-ounce-of-gossip church.
“I’m kinda in the middle of something. Can you come back in say . . . fifty or sixty years?”
Hector shook his head.
Cupping J.D.’s cheek with her palm, she turned his face to meet her wounded gaze. She loved him more than anything in the world, but his were her mess to fix. “J.D., do you trust me?”
Her heart stopped beating until he nodded and his lids fluttered shut, covering the hurt in his blue eyes. Hurt she’d caused. Hurt she’d spend the rest of her life trying to erase.
“I’ll be right back.” Kissing his clenched lips, she shoved her bouquet into her sister Hope’s chest, gathered the length of her dress with one hand, stepped over her mother and marched down the rose petal adorned aisle.
As if he’d won Olympic gold, Hector puffed his chest and grinned.
She stopped three pews shy of his outstretched arms. One of the 1968 come-back Elvises, decked out in black leather, leaned out of the last pew for a better listen. Gloria felt everyone’s eyes boring into her. Well, all those except for her mother’s. They’d rolled back in her head right before she passed out.
“Hector, what are you doing here?”
“I’m ready to get married now.”
“You what?” J.D. yelled from his place at the altar.
“My green card expired. I need to get married right away or they send me back to Mexico.”
“I’m marrying him. I love him.” She pointed over her shoulder at her intended.
J.D. must have mistaken this gesture for an invitation to join her, because he stepped over Kitty and stalked down the aisle to tower over Hector prompting almost all of the Elvis impersonators to stand in anticipation of the mid-wedding brawl. In a fair fight, Hector’s fast food cooking body would be no match for J.D.’s fire fighting physique.
Hector smartly took a step to the rear. “Willie Wong say I have to get married soon or his wife call immigration.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because I make love to her daughter.”
“Lynn Wynn Wong? She’s only seventeen.”
Pursing his lips together, Hector lifted both shoulders. “So, you marry me, then I won’t have to go to Mexico and I could sleep with you too.”
“You’re in love with me?”
“I love the girls that, how you say, put out. Since I never got laid with you, I no love you.”
J.D.’s fist came out of nowhere, connecting with the left side of Hector’s face, sending him spiraling backwards to land at the feet of one of the many Hawaiian kings in attendance.
“There, now you got laid.” J.D. shook the pain from his hand, stepping over Hector on his way out the door. “Gloria, maybe we should call this whole thing off.”
She too, stepped over the newly laid man lying on the floor of her church. There was no way she was going to let J.D. go. He was more important than all the Hectors in the world.
“No. Please wait.” She placed a hand on his forearm and felt the muscles tighten beneath her grip. “I love you. I’ve loved you since the first day I met you. More than anything in the world I want to be your wife and Zoe’s mother. I never loved him. I’ve never had feelings for another man like the ones I have for you.”
J.D. stopped but didn’t turn around. His massive shoulders slumped.
“I made a mistake. But, you and I were made for each other. We belong together.”
He slowly turned around. A smile lit up his face. “I love you.”
“Ahhh,” the Elvises sang in perfect harmony.
J.D. lifted her into his arms and kissed her hard. Cradling her to his chest, they stepped across Hector, past pews of Elvises, over the now-awake Kitty and came to a standstill at the altar bathed in fragrant rose petals.
J.D. kissed Gloria again and set on her feet.
Hope handed her the bouquet as Derby stood to hug her from behind.
Zoe clapped her hands and squealed in delight.
Delores patted her son on the back.
Aurora stroked her Mason jar.
Wyatt wiped away a tear and helped Kitty back onto her seat.
And Faith winked at Pastor Gray. “I think we’re ready for a wedding now.”

Hugs,
Reese