No Cameras Here
Simon âGhostâ Riley x TikTok Influencer!Reader
Series Masterlist
What begins in soft pre-dawn nerves becomes a wedding day full of truth, joy, and people who love you, ending not in spectacle but in the quiet, perfect rightness of coming home as husband and wife.
44. Deeply Right
The wedding day starts in the dark.
Not dramatic dark. Not storm-cloud, cinematic dark. Just the soft kind that belongs to very early mornings when the rest of the world has not caught up yet and your life is about to change anyway.
You are awake before your alarm.
Of course you are.
You lie in bed for one quiet second, staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling of the little bridal suite at the venue, and feel your own heartbeat all the way down to your fingertips.
Today.
You are getting married today.
That sentence still feels a little impossible, even now. Even with the dress zipped in its garment bag by the wardrobe. Even with your ring sitting cool and familiar on your hand. Even with your phone already buzzing on the bedside table from Holly, who is somehow downstairs and caffeinated before sunrise.
You reach for it.
Holly:
Awake?
Then, immediately after:
Dumb question. Obviously you're awake. Open the door in 30 seconds or I'm kicking it in.
You laugh, because there is nothing else to do, and push yourself upright.
The room is warm. Quiet. Your things are everywhere. Makeup spread across the vanity. Shoes by the chair. Emergency pins and tissues and perfume and one lipstick tube laid out with the care of a field medic. In the corner, your phone tripod leans against the wall because yes, you are making content, but carefully. Respectfully. Little moments. Little breadcrumbs. Enough to remember. Not enough to turn the day into a production.
You swing your legs out of bed and stand.
For a second, it hits you so hard you have to put a hand on the dresser.
You once thought a life like this belonged to someone else.
Someone more settled. More certain. More simple.
Not a woman who built her world out of content calendars and flight confirmations and candle labels. Not a woman who crossed an ocean and somehow ended up in a Manchester flat with a man who had never expected to keep anything soft alive inside his life.
And yet.
Here you are.
A knock sounds.
Then Holly's voice, stage whispering through the wood.
"If you are standing in there crying alone, I'm going to be furious."
You laugh, wipe quickly under your eyes even though you are not actually crying yet, and open the door.
Holly sweeps in like weather. Robe. Coffee. Beauty bag the size of a carry-on. Layla close behind her in silk pajamas and perfect skin because, apparently, some women are simply chosen by God.
"There she is," Holly says, stopping short with one hand over her chest. "Oh. Oh no. I'm emotional already."
"You're emotional because you've had too much coffee," you say.
"Correct," she says. "Move. We've got a face to build."
Layla kisses your cheek. "Morning, bride."
Bride.
It slides into place easier now than it did at first. Bride. Wife. Your life.
You let them fuss because you love them and because this, too, is part of the reward. The women who watched the whole thing happen. The build. The move. The launch. The quiet little pieces of your life fitting together until this day made sense.
You film one little clip while Holly lays your makeup out.
Nothing dramatic. Just your hand smoothing over the front of the dress bag. The robe. The soft morning light. Your voice low as you whisper to the camera, "Today."
Then you turn it off and tuck the phone away.
The rest is for living first.
Across the venue, Simon is already dressed.
Of course he is.
Price finds him in the small room set aside for the groomsmen, standing at the window with his cuffs undone and a coffee in hand he has not touched.
He looks immaculate.
Dark suit cut close through the shoulders. White shirt. Tie hanging loose around his neck while he stares out into the gray-gold morning like if he thinks hard enough, the day might slow down for him.
Price shuts the door quietly behind him.
"Morning."
Simon grunts, not turning around. "Bit early for a performance review."
Price comes further into the room. "You're wound tight enough to snap. Thought I'd save the walls from it."
That gets Simon to glance over.
Price takes him in once, then nods. "You clean up well."
"MacTavish says I look like I'm goin' to court."
"MacTavish looks like he rents suits to himself."
As if summoned by disrespect, the door flies open and Johnny barrels in already talking.
"Price, I need you to settle this. Gaz says the pocket square should be white. I say black because I'm mysterious."
Gaz appears behind him, tie half done, looking deeply unsurprised by the nonsense. "He's not mysterious. He's loud."
"You wound me."
Gaz clocks Simon by the window and grins. "You alright, mate?"
Simon should say yes. Should mutter something dry and move on.
Instead he looks back out the window and says, "No."
The room goes briefly quiet.
Soap recovers first, because of course he does. "Good. Means you've got blood in there somewhere."
Price pours himself a coffee from the tray on the sideboard and says nothing for a second. Then, very mildly, "Cold feet?"
Simon's jaw tightens. "No."
Gaz adjusts his cufflinks and leans against the dresser. "Then what."
A beat.
Simon looks down at the ring box-sized emptiness in his chest that had been there before the proposal and is now something different entirely. Not emptiness. Pressure. Weight. Love so big it feels almost like fear because of how badly it could hurt.
He says, "Just feels big."
Johnny's face changes. Less menace. More brother.
"Aye," he says softly. "That's because it is."
Back upstairs, your mother arrives just in time to make you cry.
She steps into the suite in a dress you helped pick months ago and stops dead when she sees you in the chair, half done, hair pinned up in sections, makeup soft and glowing, your whole face already carrying that bright, quiet thing it gets when you are overwhelmed and trying not to combust.
"Oh, sweetheart."
That's all she says.
You laugh with your hand over your mouth because if you do not laugh you will cry, and if you cry now Holly is going to make a noise no one deserves to hear at this hour.
Your mother kisses your forehead. "You look beautiful already."
"Don't say already," Holly says from behind you, waving a brush. "I've got contour to finish."
Your father knocks once and appears carefully at the door like he is approaching a sacred site.
He sees you, still only half ready, and just... stops.
For one second he looks wrecked by it. Not because of the makeup or the hair or the dress bag waiting in the corner.
Because this is real.
Because his little girl is getting married in a manor house in England to a man with a dangerous job and very careful eyes, and somehow all of it feels more right than strange.
"Well," he says, clearing his throat. "That happened fast."
You laugh, eyes wet. "Hi, Daddy."
He comes over and squeezes your shoulder gently because he knows if he hugs you now, your face is done for.
"I'm proud of you," he says quietly.
That one gets you anyway.
The dress goes on in pieces.
Undergarments. Shoes. Jewelry. One tiny thing at a time until finally Holly and your mother lift the gown and the room gets reverent.
Because there it is.
The dress.
The one that made you cry in a boutique. The one that made Simon stare at the receipt like he had just been mugged by fashion and then pull you into him with that half proud, half scandalized look in his eyes.
The fabric feels cool under your fingers.
You step in carefully. Holly zips and fastens. Your mother smooths the waist. Layla fusses with the fall of the skirt and steps back with a hand to her mouth.
For one suspended second, no one says anything.
Then Holly whispers, "Oh, you are going to ruin him."
You look in the mirror.
And there you are.
Not content girl. Not bride-to-be. Not someone planning. Not someone hoping.
Bride.
Wife.
You.
Your throat tightens.
The dress is everything you wanted. Elegant without trying too hard. Soft without losing shape. Romantic without fuss. You feel like yourself, only sharpened into the most honest version of it.
You lift one hand slowly. The engagement ring catches the light. Soon there will be another band beside it.
"Okay," you whisper to your own reflection.
Holly dabs at her eyes. "Can I cry now."
"Yes," you say, voice shaking.
"Thank God."
She immediately does.
You laugh and cry at the same time while Layla starts filming exactly three tasteful seconds for the private wedding reel and your mother hands you a tissue like she knew this would happen down to the minute.
Downstairs, Simon sees the room before he sees you.
The ceremony space is small and warm and exactly what you wanted. Candlelight already flickering along the mantle. Chairs filled but not packed. Family. Friends. Enough.
The soft sound of people settling.
The music starts.
Soap, beside him, mutters, "Right. I'm already emotional and I hate everyone."
"Be quiet," Price says.
Gaz straightens his tie and glances toward Simon. "You good."
Simon looks ahead and says, "No."
But his voice is almost gone because then you appear at the end of the aisle.
Everything in him goes still.
You in the dress.
You in white and softness and certainty and all the impossible beautiful things he had never thought would belong in his life, much less walk straight toward him with your father's hand under yours and tears already bright in your eyes.
He hears Johnny suck in a breath hard enough to qualify as a wound.
He hears nothing else after that.
Just you.
You moving toward him slow and radiant and so unmistakably his that it almost hurts.
He had seen the dress hanging in his room. Seen the bag. Seen the shape of it in his mind.
It did not prepare him for this.
You look like the answer to every prayer he had never known how to say.
By the time you reach him, his chest feels tight enough to crack.
Your father squeezes your hand once before placing it in Simon's.
Simon takes it with more care than he has ever taken anything in his life.
Your father looks at him with the sort of serious warmth only dads and officers seem capable of and says quietly, "Take care of her."
Simon nods once. "Always."
Then your father steps away and it is just you.
Your eyes meet.
You smile through the shine of tears.
He swallows hard.
"You look..." He stops, because the word beautiful is not enough and he knows it. "Christ."
You laugh softly, the sound trembling. "Hi."
"Hi."
That's all either of you have for a second.
But it is enough.
The vows are simple.
That matters more than poetry ever could.
The officiant keeps it warm and light and brief, because you asked for that. No performative declarations. No endless speeches. Just truth.
When it is your turn, your hands shake a little in Simon's.
You look at him, really look, and everything else in the room falls away.
"I didn't think life would look like this," you say, voice soft but steady. "I didn't think I'd cross an ocean and find home in a city that wasn't mine yet. I definitely didn't think I'd find it in you."
A little laugh ripples through the room.
Simon's thumbs brush over your knuckles.
"But you made room for me," you go on. "In your flat. In your mornings. In every guarded, quiet little piece of yourself you thought was easier to keep shut."
His jaw flexes once.
"And I promise to keep choosing this. Our life. Our home. The ordinary days and the hard ones. The coffee. The waiting. The coming back. The laughter. All of it." Your eyes sting. "I promise to love you in the softest ways and the loudest ones. To build with you. To fight for us. To keep making a home in every room we get."
By the time you finish, Holly is already crying again.
You hear it. It almost makes you smile.
Then it is Simon's turn.
And because he is Simon, he does not make a show of finding words.
He just looks at you for one long second and then says the truth.
"You came into my life and made it bigger."
The room goes still.
"You made my flat a home before I even realized that's what was happening. You made me want things I'd stopped expectin' to have."
Your breath catches.
"I'm not good at speeches," he says quietly, and the smallest smile touches your mouth because that is obvious and also somehow devastating. "But I'm good at this. At you."
His hand tightens slightly around yours.
"I'll come home to you for the rest of my life," he says. "I'll choose you every day I get. I'll protect what we build. I'll love you steady. Even when I'm bad at sayin' it. Especially then."
That one breaks you.
A tiny sound escapes your throat and you have to laugh so you do not fully fall apart at the altar.
Simon's mouth twitches. Just barely. Because he knows exactly what he's done to you.
The officiant says a few more words after that, but honestly, you barely hear them.
The rings are exchanged.
Your hand trembles as you slide his on. His is completely steady when he slides yours into place beside the engagement ring.
And then:
"I now pronounce you husband and wife."
The kiss is everything.
Not rushed. Not performative.
Deep and warm and full of relief and certainty and all the years that have not happened yet, somehow already alive between you.
His hand cups your jaw. Yours fist in his lapel. The room around you erupts in applause and laughter and probably crying, but all you know is his mouth on yours and the fact that when you pull back, he is smiling like a man who cannot quite believe he won.
You kind of feel the same.
The reception is exactly right.
Not huge. Not loud in the wrong ways. Just warm.
Candles everywhere. Long tables. Wine. The low hum of people who love you.
You manage the content carefully.
A few little clips. Details first. The tablescape. Your bouquet. The ring on your hand against his when you steal a shot under the table. One private little tripod clip of the two of you entering the room, him with his hand at your waist, your smile all bright and dazed.
Enough to remember.
Not enough to lose the day.
Soap's speech is, predictably, chaos.
He stands too quickly, nearly takes out his own chair, points at Simon with his drink and says, "Right. I had notes. I've lost them. So we're doin this from the heart, which is dangerous for everybody."
The room laughs.
Johnny paces for exactly three steps before Gaz physically guides him back toward the microphone.
"I've known this miserable bastard for years," Soap says, pointing again. "Long enough to know he was always doomed the second he met a woman who could outstare him and reorganize his flat without askin."
You laugh into your glass.
Simon mutters, "Jesus Christ," but there is no heat in it.
Johnny goes on, voice softening under the nonsense. "You make him better. More human, somehow. Don't tell him I said that because he'll deny it." He lifts his glass toward you. "And you, hen, somehow looked at this haunted tree and thought, yes, that one. Which means either you're the bravest woman alive or you've got worse taste than I thought."
The room explodes.
By the end of it, Johnny is emotional, you are emotional, and Simon looks like he wants to throttle him and hug him at the same time.
Gaz is better.
Of course he is.
He keeps his speech short. Warm. Honest.
He talks about watching Simon change in all the quiet ways that matter. How you did not soften him into someone else, just gave him a place to put all the parts of himself he usually kept locked up.
"And that," Gaz says, looking between you both, "is a rare thing. To be fully yourself and still be chosen. You've both got it. So hold on to it."
Price does not make a speech.
That is somehow more moving.
He just comes to you both later, after dinner, while the room hums around you and Holly is trying to teach your mother some dance from the internet.
He shakes your hand first, then Simon's.
"Well done," he says.
You smile. "You already said that."
Price's eyes soften a fraction. "Worth saying twice."
He looks at Simon then, and whatever passes between them is old and deep and not really yours to fully understand.
But you get enough.
Pride. Approval. Relief.
And maybe a quiet kind of gratitude that someone finally got his best man to stay still long enough to be happy.
There is a moment later, after the first dance and before the cake, when you slip away for air.
Just for a second.
The manor house hallway is quiet compared to the warmth and noise of the reception room. The windows are black mirrors now, reflecting soft candlelight and your own white silhouette moving through it.
You kick your shoes off and carry them for exactly six seconds before Simon appears at the end of the hall like he was always going to find you.
"You alright," he asks.
You smile. "Yeah. Just needed one minute where no one's looking at me."
He comes closer, gaze moving over you slowly.
This is not the first time he has seen you in the dress today.
But it is the first quiet time.
No guests. No music. No officiant. No applause.
Just him and you in the golden hush of the venue you picked together.
He stops right in front of you.
And for one suspended second, he just looks.
Really looks.
Like maybe the whole day has been moving too fast for him to properly take you in, and now, finally, he can.
His hand comes up and skims the line of your shoulder, the fabric there. His throat works around something.
"What," you whisper.
He shakes his head once, but there is too much in his face for that to mean nothing.
"You're my wife," he says quietly.
And there it is.
The break.
The little crack in the composure.
Not dramatic. Not a speech.
Just the raw, astonished wonder of it.
Your chest aches so hard you have to step into him.
He catches you instantly, his hands settling around your waist, your arms looping around his neck.
"You looked like you were gonna cry when I came down the aisle," you murmur.
He huffs a breath that is almost a laugh. "Didn't."
"You absolutely did."
He tips his forehead against yours. "Maybe a bit."
You smile, kissing him once, softly. "Good."
He kisses you back slower. Deeper. The kind of kiss that belongs in hallways away from everyone else, with your shoes in one hand and your husband holding you like this moment is not one he ever intends to waste.
"Come on," you whisper eventually. "We should go back."
"In a minute."
You grin. "You're trying to skip our own reception."
"I'm trying to steal my wife."
The words send a thrill right down your spine.
You laugh and kiss him again anyway.
By the time the night ends, you are exhausted in the happiest way.
Your hair is a little looser. Your lipstick long gone. Your feet sore. Your cheeks aching from smiling.
The room has softened into late-night warmth. Half empty glasses. Guests hugging their goodbyes. Holly crying into Layla's shoulder while insisting she is fine.
Soap hugs you like a brother. Gaz squeezes your shoulder and says quietly, "You look happy." Price kisses your cheek in that old-school gentleman way and tells Simon to get you home before you fall asleep on a chair.
You very nearly do.
So leaving is not glamorous.
It is better.
You in your coat over the dress. Shoes in your hand again. Bouquet left behind in a vase because honestly you cannot carry one more thing. Simon beside you in his suit, tie long gone, shirt unbuttoned at the throat, looking a little wrecked and very, very yours.
The car ride is quiet.
Not because there is nothing to say.
Because everything that matters already happened.
Your head rests on his shoulder in the backseat. His hand covers yours, wedding bands warm together.
When you get home, he unlocks the flat and lets you in first.
The sight of it hits you unexpectedly.
Your home.
Not the venue. Not the dress. Not the candlelight or the applause.
This.
The hallway hook with your coat beside his. Your mugs. Your slippers. The little content corner by the window. The life waiting exactly where you left it.
You turn to him in the doorway.
He closes the door behind you.
And just like that, it is quiet.
You smile up at him, tired and glowing and full.
"We did it."
He looks at you, really looks, and smiles in that small real way that means everything.
"Yeah," he says. "We did."
Then he bends, slips your shoes from your hand, sets them neatly by the door, and kisses you in the warm dim hallway of your own flat.
Not glamorous.
Just deeply right.
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