Pretty Amazing Grace {Ryan Blaney || Sequel to Sweet Caroline} ✔️

thirty-six

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"Are you ready?" Natalie poked her head into Lydia's bedroom.

Lydia let out a sigh, smoothing the chiffon over the bump that was just starting to round. Outside of Natalie and Chase, nobody knew that they were having another baby but after tonight, they would.

"You can't even tell." Natalie reassured her friend, reading her mind.

Natalie and Lydia had recently reconnected, but it was like they had never missed a moment and Lydia was thankful for that -- she had always been convinced that Natalie would be so angry with her for cutting her off and then disappearing. But seeing Ryan reconnect with so many friends gave her the confidence to do the same with Natalie.

To Lydia's surprise and delight when she called Natalie, she found out that Natalie had transferred to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department as a detective -- the only reason she had stayed in their hometown was to find her lost friend but now that she had, she had no reason to stay -- always destined for bigger and better things.

"I'm ready." Lydia flashed a smile at her friend, taking the bouquet of wildflowers from her. After Ryan had proposed, it hadn't really taken long to decide that they didn't really want to wait to get married and they didn't want a big wedding. So they had planned a backyard wedding for the first off weekend -- their closest friends and family gathered to watch them promise forever to each other.

"Mama!" Caroline greeted her once she had made it downstairs. She had been insistent on picking out her own flower girl dress -- so much tulle but Lydia didn't argue, this was Caroline's day as much as it was theirs. And if she wanted to drown in tulle, Lydia wouldn't stop her.

Lydia had been worried that Caroline would be overwhelmed by the change but she had been so thrilled to know that her parents were getting married and this morning, when they let her know that she was going to be a big sister — she was overjoyed, telling her parents that she had wanted a little sibling so bad.

Lydia lifted her eyes to the man leaning in the doorway of their kitchen, a wide grin of approval on his face. They had decided to forgo the tradition of not seeing each other before the wedding and they had decided to walk down the aisle as a family of three.

Because really, today was a formality, a legality so the law recognized what they had already known — that they were a family and they'd always be a family.

And even though Lydia knew the answer, she spun in front of Ryan. "Do you like the dress?"

"I was there when you picked it out." Ryan chuckled, pulling Lydia into him. "I liked it then but I love it now." He pulled Lydia into a long kiss until Caroline's voice interrupted them.

"Are you going to get married or what?"

Breaking the kiss with a laugh, the family of three headed out to the waiting family and friends.

Ryan's mom couldn't stop the tears as her son promised to love his wife forever, his eyes sparkled with happiness as he vowed to love her through anything life threw their way— good or bad.

She never thought she'd be crying happy tears at his wedding, she had been so worried that she'd cry tears of fear, fear that her son was committing to a life of unhappiness with Stacy. But today, he was committing himself to a lifetime of happiness and love.