Faithful (19 page)

Josh was having a great time at his birthday party. He was talking and laughing with his friends. Elizabeth was moving around, being the perfect host. I smiled as I watched Josh talking to Gunner and a few friends from college. Victoria had been hanging around him for the last hour. He would talk to her every now and then, but every time he did, he would look at me and smile.

“Jesus…you know you should have been dead like forty minutes ago,” Ellie said.

“Huh?”

“You know, with the drop-dead looks Vict-bitch-ia is giving you.”

I let out a laugh and looked at Ellie. “Fuck her,” I said.

Ellis snapped her head at me and gasped. “Holy hell! Did you just say that?”

I winked at Ellie. “There’s no way in hell this girl is going to get anywhere near him. I’ll fight tooth and nail if I have to.”

When I looked back toward Josh, Victoria was whispering something in his ear. He shook his head before he started walking toward me.

Just then, Jason Aldean’s “Staring at the Sun” started playing. The smile that spread across his face caused my stomach to take a dive.

“Good Lord, do you see the way that boy is looking at you?” Ellie pushed my shoulder back.

My heart started racing. When he walked up to me, he held out his hand. I reached for it, and the moment I touched him, I sucked in a breath of air as he pulled me into him. He backed us up onto the dance floor, and we started to dance.

“Breathe, princess,” he whispered.

I grabbed on to his shirt and just held him as tightly as I could.
Oh god, I miss his touch so much.

He leaned into me and put his mouth right next to my ear. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

I slowly felt my legs going out from under me.

He held on to me tighter, and then he laughed. “I can’t take credit for that one. Gunner told me to tell you that!”

I pulled back and smiled as his eyes captured mine.

I love him so much it hurts.

He took the back of his hand and ran it down my face. “So beautiful.”

When he leaned down and kissed me, I poured as much love into that kiss as I could. I needed to show him that he was mine, and I’d wait an eternity for him.

He bit my lower lip before leaning back slightly. “I love you, Heather.”

“I love you more,” I barely whispered.

He laughed. “I love you more times infinity!”

I pulled back and looked at him. “What?”

“I love you more times infinity,” he said again as he looked at me with that smile.

When I grabbed his shirt, his smile faded.

“What’s wrong?”

“You said that to me the last night we made love. We made love in the lounge chair right over there, and you said that to me, Josh. We laughed about it, and then we said we were going to get infinity tattoos on our wrists.”

His face went white as a ghost. “Heather, I thought that was just a dream!”

“You remember that?”

He shook his head, and when he looked at me, he had tears in his eyes.

Oh. My. God. Is he starting to remember things?

“Yesterday, when I came out here…I saw you and me in one of these chairs, but I thought I was just daydreaming about you. So, you’re telling me that was a memory?”

I wanted to scream out,
Yes, it’s a memory!
Instead, I just smiled at him. “That was a memory indeed, baby.”

The smile that spread across his face made me giggle.

“By a river…you were reading a book, lying on a blanket—”

“That was the first time we ever made love. It was on Jeff and Ari’s property, next to the Llano River. It was the best day of my life.”

Grabbing the sides of my face, he kissed me. He kissed me as if he were never going to kiss me again.

“Can I leave my own party?” he said against my lips.

I let out a giggle. “I don’t think so.”

“I want it all back, Heather. I want back every single moment with you—every kiss, every laugh, every fight, and every time we ever made love. I want it back so fucking badly,” he said as a single tear rolled down his face.

At the sight of that one tear, my legs just about buckled underneath my body. “Josh…”

When I reached up and wiped his tear away, he took my hand and kissed my wrist.

As I glanced to the side, I could see Victoria walking up to us.

“Josh, your mom wants you to cut the cake now,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

I glared at her, and she removed it as quickly as she could.

He never took his eyes off of me. “Thanks, Tori. I’ll be there in a minute.” He took my hand, leading us over to the table where his parents were standing. “Tonight, we’re going for that drive,” he said with a wink.

Elizabeth and Greg talked about the accident for a few minutes before announcing that Josh was turning twenty-four. All the while, he kept squeezing my hand and looking at me.

Is this really happening? It feels like I’m falling in love with him all over again! It’s almost like a do-over.

After blowing out the candles, Josh leaned down and whispered in my ear, “I’ll be right back, baby.” He walked over to talk with Jack for a bit.

“So, Jeff and Ari took off, huh?” Gunner asked with a smirk on his face.

“Yep! As soon as Jeff heard Ari was pregnant, that was all she wrote,” Ellie said with a laugh.

I looked up only to see Victoria heading our way.
Fuck. Can she please just go away?

She looked like she was making a beeline right toward Gunner.

Oh hell.

Smitty stopped her and started talking to her.

God, I love that guy.

Jack asked for everyone’s attention, so we all turned to face him. When I looked, I saw Josh walking straight to me with a big smile on his face.

“The birthday boy would like to have this dance with his girl,” Jack said.

Oh. My. God. Could he be any more perfect?

Lifehouse’s “You and Me” began playing as Josh took my hands and brought me out to the dance floor. I glanced over at Elizabeth and Greg, and they were both smiling.

Josh pulled me in close to him just as the lyrics started. My heart was beating so hard that I was sure he could hear it. When he started singing the chorus to me, I melted on the spot. I buried my face in his chest as I tried to catch my breath.

God, please don’t let this be a dream.

“I love you, Heather. I’ll never stop loving you. My love for you is infinite.”

I looked up at him and smiled. Tears were running down my face, and he used his thumbs to wipe them away.

“I love you so much, Josh. There’s something I have to tell you—”

Just then, I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I turned to see Victoria standing there.

“Mind if I cut in?”

Oh no, she didn’t!

I glanced over to Ellie. She had her hands on her hips, mouthing,
No
, to me. When I turned back to Victoria, she wasn’t even looking at me. She was staring at Josh. I quickly looked at Josh, and he had his eyes on me.

“Yes, actually, I do mind, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to finish dancing with my boyfriend.”

She snapped her head to me before looking to Josh. “Josh, I’m leaving soon. I thought we could have just one dance together for old times’ sake,” she said, putting her hand on his arm.

Josh pulled his eyes away from me and looked down at her.

She smiled. “Listen, Heather, I just want—”

Taking a step closer to her, I got in her face. “No, you listen. I’ve been patient with your ass, but now, I’m just gonna come out and tell you what I’ve wanted to tell you from the first day I met you.”

She smirked. “What’s that?”

Just as Miranda Lambert’s “Only Prettier” started to play, I smiled. Looking right into her eyes, I said, “Fuck off, Tori!”

Victoria’s face dropped.

“Now, if you’ll excuse us, my man is gonna twirl me around the dance floor.”

Josh started laughing and grabbed me as we took off two-stepping. My whole face felt like it was on fire, and my heart was pounding so hard.

“Jesus H. Christ, Heather. Why do I get the feeling, baby, that you don’t say the word
fuck
too often?”

My hands were shaking, so I grabbed on to him tighter. I looked at him and started laughing. “I reached deep inside and pulled out my inner Ari!”

He threw his head back and laughed as he pulled me in closer. The closer he pulled me into him, the more I felt his hard-on.

I looked up at him and raised my eyebrows.

He smiled that damn smile at me and winked. “I fucking love two-steppin’, but I think we need to find a way to leave!”

“I agree,” I said.

I glanced over at Gunner and Ellie cutting it up on the dance floor. I smiled at how happy they looked. Then, I couldn’t help but notice Victoria’s eyes following them.

I have a really bad feeling we haven’t seen or heard the last from Victoria.

Every time I tried to sneak away with Heather, we’d get stopped by someone. I was beginning to think it wouldn’t happen again tonight.

She was standing near the door, talking to my mother and Ellie, and I couldn’t pull my eyes away from her. She must have felt me staring because she looked over at me. The blush that crept up on her cheeks turned me on so fucking much. I smiled, knowing she wanted me as much as I wanted her.

“She’s a very beautiful girl,” my father said from behind me. “Inside and out.”

I let out a small laugh. “I wish I knew more about her, Dad. I want to know everything about her,” I said as I turned to him.

“Take your time, son. It’ll come back. You seem to be getting bits and pieces, so just let it come back on its own.”

“I know, Dad. I’m trying not to push it, but…”

Just then, Heather glanced back over at me, and my heart started pounding.

I looked at my dad. “Dad, did I love her this much? I mean…am I just feeling what I felt before? Or is this all new? I feel like I can’t breathe without her near me. Can you really fall in love with someone so damn fast?”

My dad cleared his throat and smiled at me. “Josh, when you came to your mother and me and told us you were planning on asking Heather to marry you, we were beyond happy. Not only do we love that girl like she’s our own, but you also love her with your whole heart. When I asked you if you were one hundred percent sure about asking her, you looked me dead in the eyes and smiled. Then, you said to us, ‘I know that I don’t want to live a single day in this life without her in it. I want to wake up every morning to her beautiful smile and go to sleep to that same smile. I want to have kids with her and grow old with her. I want everything with her and only her.’ Son, a love like that is too strong to be broken…by anything! A love like that will remain faithful until the very end.”

“I said all that, huh?” I asked with a shit-eating grin on my face.

He let out laugh and grabbed me by my shoulder. “Yep, you must have gotten that from Gunner ’cause you sure as hell didn’t learn it from me!”

When we both laughed, Heather glanced over again.

“Don’t rush it. I know how much you want to be with her, and it’s not like y’all haven’t been together before. I just don’t want you rushing into this.”

“Oh god. Really, Dad? You’re gonna go there?” I rolled my eyes. “I believe you gave me the sex talk when I was twelve years old.”

My dad laughed and shook his head. “No, I’m not gonna give you the sex talk, you little bastard. I’m just telling you…take your time. Make it special for both of you. Make it a night she’ll always remember. That’s all I’m saying. Now, I’m going to find your Uncle Pete. He owes me an arm-wrestling rematch.”

Make it special. How the fuck am I going to make it special?

I looked around for Gunner and found him making his way over toward where Heather was talking. I walked as fast as I could and grabbed him by the arm.

“I need to talk to you right now!” I said as I pulled him past Ellie, my mom, and Heather.

“Um…okay.”

I dragged him upstairs and into my room, and then I shut the door. I felt like I was about to hyperventilate.

“Shit, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Gunner asked.

I shook my head. I couldn’t talk.
I’m gonna fuck it up! Did I fuck up our first time?
“I’m gonna fuck it up, dude. I know I am.” I gasped for air.

“Fuck what up?”

“The first time with Heather…I just know I’m gonna fuck it up.”

Gunner threw his head back and laughed. “First off, you stupid bastard, you’ve already had sex with her. From what Ellie has shared, even though I begged her not to, it was the most romantic moment of Heather’s life.”

“Oh fucking great! I don’t remember that, Gunner. So, I’m really gonna fuck it up now ’cause I have nothing to compare it to. Ah shit!” I started pacing back and forth as I ran my hands through my hair.

“Jesus, Josh, calm the hell down. Is it going to be tonight?”

I stopped and looked at Gunner. “I thought I wanted it to be, but now, I’m not so sure. I think I need to wait, but…I don’t think I can wait. I just want to rip off her clothes and devour her. I want to see and touch every inch of her body.”