All She Wanted (2) (5 page)

Briggs

“Did you get my birthday invitation,
Uncle B?” Cody asked.

“Sure did—hey, are you calling to un-invite
me?” I teased.

My nephew laughed. “No way! You’re the
only one who knows the rules for water wars.”

I had made the game up three years ago
at Cody’s fourth birthday. Each year I threw in a new twist to make it more
exciting than the year before, thus insuring my indisputable place-hold at the
birthday party.

“Ha, right! And don’t you forget it,” I
said.

“Okay, Mom says I
gotta
go do my homework now—I really
hate
homework!”

“Yeah, well, she used to get on my case
about that too, bud, but she’s right,” I countered.

“I know, I know. Bye Uncle B.”

I hung up the phone, shaking my head and
chuckling to myself. I loved that kid more than my life, and I missed seeing
him like I used to.

I closed the hood of my truck, wiping
my hands on an old towel scrap I’d shoved into my back pocket.
 

Up until a year ago, Angie and Cody had
lived five minutes from me. I saw them several times a week, but when Angie was
offered a job as a floral shop manager, she convinced me that moving was the
right decision for them. My anxiety over the distance between us had not
lessened with time. An hour drive was likely insignificant to most people, but Angie
was not most people to me. With the horror I’d watched her live through, an
hour felt like a continent away some days.

I had warned her not to marry
Dirk—begged her even, but she was blinded by desperation. Marriage wasn’t the
rescue plan she had hoped for—instead, it became the thing she needed to be
rescued from the most. Her lies, excuses, and avoidance could only last for so
long before the truth finally surfaced, just like her bruises had.

Angie’s pregnancy was the reason we
left Colorado, to leave the demons of our past behind us. But when Cody was
nearly three, Angie’s ex-husband found her again. If I hadn’t gone back to the
house that night to grab my wallet, she wouldn’t have survived.

I
probably wouldn’t have either.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

Kai
: What time tonight?

Me
: 6?

Kai
: Sure.
Tori’s off
today. Pizza?

Me
: Sure, thx. I’ll buy drinks.

Kai
: K

I smiled then, thinking about what Kai
would say if I texted back my new vocab word of the week—the one I’d learned
from Charlie:
Perf
.
I was pretty sure in order for me to
pull that off though I would have to look and smell like a sorority girl. Not
gonna happen.

Why was
I even thinking about her?

After taking a shower, I left to go
grab a few more things from my old apartment before hitting up the store. I thought
about telling Charlie I was leaving, but I hadn’t seen her all day. She
probably wouldn’t even notice I was gone.

Charlie

As I cleaned the kitchen, I heard him
leave.
Where was he going?

Wait—why
do I care? I don’t.

I scrubbed the sink and pretended not
to feel his absence. Though we hadn’t talked since yesterday in the office, I
had seen him this afternoon working on his truck in the driveway. I had also
seen him talking on the phone.

Did he
have a girlfriend?

If he did, she had better be pretty
secure in herself—he was a flirt, yet even as I thought it, there was a dramatic
difference between his kind of
charm
and the charm that Alex possessed. Manny—
Briggs,
was light-hearted,
fun-loving and a pain in my side, while Alex breathed seduction.

I glanced at the clock after vacuuming.
It was 5:15. Briggs had failed to communicate a time to me for when this
game extravaganza
would commence, but I
figured since he was still gone, that it would be a bit.

Time had never passed as slowly as it
had since I’d been a shut-in. I had a whole new appreciation for those with
agoraphobia. I grabbed my zip-up and walked out to the back deck. I made a
mental note to tell Manny that I wanted to go to the bookstore soon since this
was to be my life for the next few weeks. I hadn’t read a good fiction
masterpiece for a while—music theory hadn’t really allowed for much pleasure
reading.

I leaned back and let the cool April
breeze float across my face. I closed my eyes, letting the smell of pine needles
take me away.

**********

I had
seen Jenny’s dad carrying a small pokey tree with funny branches into their
apartment once. She had lived next door to us. The smell of it was strong, and
I wondered what he was going to do with it once he brought it inside. Jenny
said it was for Christmas.

I didn’t
know what they meant.

Mama was
awake on the bed when I went back into our apartment. She glanced at me briefly
before rolling back over onto her side. I approached her quietly—curiosity at
the forefront of my mind.

“Mama,
what’s Christmas?”

“Where’d
ya hear that word?”

“From
Jenny—she lives next door.”

“It’s a
holiday.”

“What
does holiday mean?”

“It’s just
something for rich people.”

I thought
about that for a second, wanting it to mean something to my four-year-old brain.

“Are we
rich, Mama?”

She
laughed, but there was nothing happy about it.

“Hardly.
Now stop asking me questions, Charlotte. Can’t you see I’m trying to sleep?”

“Sorry,
Mama.”

I left
the room, and never asked about it again.

**********

I opened my eyes and searched the sky.

When I came to live with Max and Julie
Lexington, my life had been drastically altered. The paperwork for my adoption
took less than nine months to finalize, and I had lived with them under the guidelines
of foster care until the courts deemed us an official family.

I didn’t question their love for me,
but I did wonder at times…

They had been so
desperate
for a child, the same way I had been desperate for a
home. They would have loved any kid in need that was brought to them. It wasn’t
like they had asked for me specifically; I was just next on the list of broken,
rejected children.

They were good parents though, no
matter how I treated them.

I knew I had hurt them when I accepted
the proposal without their blessing, but I also knew that they would ultimately
forgive me. They were, after all, the ones who had taught me that
family forgave.

The risk had seemed so minimal when I
chose Alex over them—but now? Now, I didn’t even know how to start to repair
the damage I’d done. All I knew was that it was there, like a piece of glass
that had been smashed by a rock. One tiny movement in any direction could
shatter it completely.

The disappointment I saw in their eyes
when they looked at me was almost as painful as the isolation I felt from them.

“That’s minus three to you, Shortcake.”

I spun around in my chair. Manny was walking
across the deck in jeans and a red fleece pullover. My insides squirmed as he
approached. I didn’t want to admit, even just to myself, how good he looked in
red.

“I don’t think you understand how the
point system works.” I rolled my eyes at him before turning back toward the
yard.

“It would have been plus three if you
had stayed in the house, but since it took me a good ten minutes to find
you…it’s a minus.” He pulled out a chair for himself. I could feel his eyes on
my face, but purposefully avoided them.

“So when does this shindig start
tonight, anyway?” I asked.

“Any minute. Just
waitin
’
on our guests—consequently, they have our dinner, too.” He laughed, leaning
back in his seat and kicking his legs out in front of him.

Our
guests?

What
would it be like to be an “our” with Briggs?
I
shook the thought away quickly.

“Please tell me it’s not fast food.”

“Nope…even better, pizza!”

I couldn’t help but laugh then, his child-like
enthusiasm was catchy.

Briggs

A gnawing feeling in my gut overwhelmed
me the second I saw her sitting outside.

I’ve never been good at guessing emotions.
They were messy, uncomfortable and complicated to boot.
But a
woman’s emotions?
Forget it. That was the kind of jigsaw puzzle that was
missing pieces before it ever left the factory.
 

But still, something about the look on
her face
called
to me.

I studied her for several seconds, and
for whatever reason, I was reminded that I needed her number—in case of an
emergency. I grabbed her phone off the patio table and scrolled over to her
contacts. She looked at me incredulously, but didn’t make a move for it.

Hmm…does
she trust me?

“If you wanted my number, you could
have just asked me for it.”

“Nah, this way is better,” I said,
grinning.

“Whatever, just bring it inside with
you—it’s cold out here.” She stood and walked toward the house, leaving me
alone with her phone in my hand.

The snoop in me wanted to do a little
investigation work, but she had just taken all the fun out of that. If she
didn’t care what I might find, then there was probably not much to find.

I plugged my contact info into her
phone and then texted myself so that I could save her info in mine. The purple,
glittered phone buzzed in my hand then. I looked down as a calendar reminder
flashed on the screen.

April 7
^th
- 6pm
Wedding Countdown…21 days!
Call Tux Shop- confirm fitting time.

What?

Today is
April 7
^th
—but what is this about?

A twenty-one day countdown?

I closed the reminder and went into her
calendar, ignoring any feeling of wrong-doing. There, in the square for April
28
^th
were the words that deflated my airway like a popped-balloon.

My Wedding Day!!!

The doorbell rang.

Charlie

I reached the front door as Briggs came
inside the house, sliding the back door closed with a bang. He flew past me at
a pace that could have won a gold medal, and handed me my phone. There was
nothing gentle about the hand-off. I looked at him, but he wouldn’t make eye
contact with me. Instead, he opened the door, which consequently pushed me
behind it.

“Hey bro!” Kai said as he walked
inside.

“Hey,” Briggs replied.

I peeked out from my place in the
corner as a very pretty women walked in after Kai. I assumed it was his fiancé,
Tori. She looked at me and smiled, reaching her hand out.
 

“Hi, you must be Charlie—I’m Tori. It’s
nice to meet you,” she said sweetly.

“You too,” I replied. I was still trapped
behind Briggs, who seemed to be in some sort of trance-like state. He hadn’t
budged an inch, which made my handshake with Tori quite awkward.

“Briggs? Earth to Briggs?” Tori said,
hitting his shoulder while Kai carried the pizzas into the kitchen.

Briggs jerked a bit, eyes finally
focusing on her before pulling her in for a hug.

“Sorry, I was just thinking about
something,” he said quietly.

She furrowed her brows, “Well, don’t
hurt yourself. Maybe you need to do that in smaller doses.”

Yep, I
like her already.

Once in the kitchen, I took out the plates
and napkins. Tori and I chatted about her job as a trauma nurse, and how long she
and Kai had been together. Her wedding was only five weeks away.

Wow…weird
to think that I would have already been married.

The thought surprised me. It had only
been recently that I had started thinking in terms of a wedding time-line again.
The date had only been set for two weeks before Alex had left me. There were no
invitations to recall, no caterers to cancel, and no photographers to get
deposits back from. The only proof that I had even held the title of
fiancé
,
was the
ring in my sock drawer, and a digital date on my iPhone calendar. Oh, and those
stupid calendar reminders that Sasha had put on my phone from some unknown
wedding website.

Those started a week ago—exactly thirty
days out.