More Than Enough (More Than Series, Book 5) (54 page)

I pat his fur and lie down with them, my head on Dylan’s bicep.

“I was thinking,” I mumble.

“Uh oh, this can’t be good.”

I lick his face.

He pushes me away. “Gross.”

Bacon gets up on all fours and looks down at Dylan.

“Lick, Bacon!” I order.

“No!”

Bacon licks him.

Dylan picks him up and moves him between us. “You were thinking?” Dylan asks while we both pat Bacon.

I sigh. “I was just going to say that we’ve spent more of our relationship apart than we have together.”

“You just worked that out now, Hudson?”

I look up at him. “Babe, we’ve never really discussed you re-enlisting so…”

“There’s really nothing to discuss, Ry,” he says. “Not for a while, anyway. My job’s going okay. My family’s here, so are my friends and my fiancée. Until I’m ready to give that up again, I’m staying put.”

“But you might one day?”

He stares blankly at me. He won’t promise me a thing.

I drop my gaze. “Well, now that we’re getting married that means we can live on base, right? At least when you’re not deployed, it won’t be so bad.”

“You’ve thought about it a bit, huh?”

“I have to, Dylan. If we have kids—”

“Oh, we’re having kids, Hudson.” He smiles wide, showing his perfect teeth. “Lots of them.”

“You know, once we’re officially married, you’ll have to stop calling me Hudson.”

“Nah. You’ll always be Hudson to me,” he says, leaning forward and kissing me once. “Forever the girl next door.”

My phone rings and Sydney’s face appears on the screen. I reject the call and throw my phone across the room.

Dylan quirks an eye brow and without taking his eyes off me, says, “Bacon. Bed.”

Bacon jumps off our bed and moves to his in the kitchen. “What’s going on? You guys fighting?”

“No. She probably wants to talk bridesmaid dresses. The girls can’t agree between lavender, mauve and lilac.”

Another blank stare.

“Purple.”

He nods. “Right.”

From across the room, my phone rings again. He waits until it stops before opening his mouth. Then his phone rings. Sighing, he reaches into his pocket and glances at it quickly. “It’s your mom.”

I roll my eyes. “She probably wants to discuss the venue.”

“You want to take it?”

“Fuck no.”

He chuckles as he throws his phone near mine. “So you’re not enjoying the planning?”

I shake my head, resting my head on his chest. “It’s so strange babe. It’s not like I haven’t thought about my wedding before. Every girl does, right? But it’s been two months and I just don’t think I care about any of it.”

He starts stroking my hair. “You don’t care about getting married?”

“No. It’s the opposite. I just want to marry you, Dylan. I don’t care about the dresses or the venues or the music. I feel like it’s two separate things, you know? A marriage and wedding. The marriage is for us and the wedding is for everyone else.”

His hands freeze mid movement. “So let’s do that then.”

“Do what?”

“Give them the wedding they want, and we’ll have the marriage we want.”

I sit up and look down at him. “How?”

Dylan

We choose a
date two weeks away. Some may think it’s fast. But Riley and I—we’re not really ones for waiting. Besides, when you think about it, we kind of did things backwards, right? We had sex, fell deep, got the house, got the dog, had a pause, then got engaged.

When I say it like that, our journey seems easy. It was far from easy. But that makes it all the sweeter that we ended up here—holding hands under a gazebo in a park Holly had chosen.

We keep it casual—invite only our close friends and tell them to wear whatever they want.

Sydney, Mikayla, Amanda, Lucy and Heidi show up in five different shades of purple, and the guys wear orange mankinis—something Holly isn’t too pleased about but we did say to wear whatever they wanted. Besides, I’m not stupid. Retaliation had to occur, and what better day than the day of my wedding.

“Should I be nervous?” I ask Cameron, standing to my side between Logan and Jake.

“You’re not nervous?”

“I’m more nervous about not being nervous.”

“Why am I at the end of the line?” Eric whines. “I’m your damn brother!”

I smirk. “Because I’m a…”

“Don’t!”

I lower my voice. “…Devil Baby.”

“I fucking hate you!”

Riley walks down
the aisle to a song all too familiar; track nine of the
High School Musical
soundtrack; “We’re All in This Together.”

If Holly was a cartoon character, she’d have smoke coming out of her ears. Dad wears a tux as he walks Riley down the petal scattered grass toward me. She stops in front of me, two dead flowers in an empty bottle of Boons Farm wine in her hand. She’s barefoot, wearing a plain white summer dress. The very first dress I ever saw her in.

“You look beautiful,” I tell her.

She smiles and curtsies and then runs her hand along my crisp white dress shirt. “And you’re more handsome than I remember you.”

“You saw me a half hour ago.”

She smiles wider.

The “celebrant” says, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

Holly squeals, “That’s not—”

“I do,” Riley and I say at the same time. We kiss without being told to and then duck the glitter thrown at us.

“Best wedding ever!” Lucy shouts, and we all cheer.

So… maybe it
wasn’t the wedding
everyone
wanted because Holly gives Riley and I an earful as soon as it’s over. Riley and I take it like champs, holding hands, heads bowed, trying not to laugh.

Holly huffs. “At least behave at the reception,” she says, then turns swiftly away from us and into the arms of Dr. Matthews. They’d been dating a while now. Apparently, it’s pretty serious considering Logan told us he walked into the house unannounced one morning and witnessed way more than he needed to. According to the sounds Logan heard and the moans of “Oh, Doctor. Just like that!” Dr. Matthews is a goddamn boss.

Who’d have thought?

In my truck, Riley cackles the entire way to the reception lunch, one hand on my leg, the other on her stomach. “Mankinis!” she shouts.

“Retaliation.” I shrug.

“Did you care?”

“Why would I?”

After twenty minutes
of driving around, per Holly’s request, Riley navigates me to the address Holly had given us for the reception. We start getting confused when we hit an industrial area with nothing around but warehouses and factories.

“That’s it,” she says, glancing up from her phone and toward the large concrete building. The sign out front says “Banks Wedding” so I switch off the truck.

“What is this?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Mayhem?”

“From your mom?” I say incredulously.

“Yeah. You’re right.”

I face her. “You ready, Hudson?”

“Let’s do this.”

Apart from the
seating areas and the table containing the buffet of catered food, the place is empty. Floor to ceiling concrete. More glitter gets thrown when we walk in, followed by a pie at my face—one that Riley licks off.

“Riley!” Holly squeals.

Riley rolls her eyes. “Oh Doctor!” she moans.

Holly’s eyes bug out of her head.

I’ll make it up to her
, I promise myself. Maybe with a grandkid or ten.

We sit, we
eat, we laugh, and we love, surrounded by the people closest to us.

The wedding cake is comprised of individual cupcakes with single candles on them. And just like the time I gave her twenty wishes, she takes her time, her gaze lifting before each blow, thinking hard about every wish.

I remember watching her the first time and thinking she was amazing—that after everything she’d been through she still managed to have something to look forward to. But now I look at her—into her clear gray eyes and I see everything.
Everything
. Hopes, dreams, plans for our future. I take her hand and motion to the last candle. She smiles, right before her eyes drift shut. Her chest rises with her intake of breath, and she makes her wish. When she’s done, she looks up at me. “I wished for you,” she says.

“You already have me. Heart and soul, remember?”

She winks. “Yes, I do.”

“So what do you think?” Holly says, her hands flipping through the air.

“It’s a beautiful reception, Mom,” Riley tells her.

Holly laughs, shaking her head. “You haven’t worked it out yet?” she asks, spinning a slow circle.

I stand tall next to Riley, my hand on the small of her back and my ears and eyes taking in everything at once. I look for the guys and do a quick head count—just in case one of them is off creating some mayhem. They’re all here. So are the girls. So are all the other guests.

“I’m confused,” I mumble.

Logan laughs. “You look it, too.”

I scowl.

Another pie in my face.

“Quit it with the fucking pies!” I snap, wiping my face.

Lucy chuckles as she high fives Jake. “Those pitching lessons came in handy!”

Dad grunts.

Silence fills the room.

He and Holly step toward us, almost in sync. I cover my face. “What’s wrong with you?” Dad murmurs.

“Pie.”

“No Pie,” he says.

I drop my hands. “So?”

He lifts a set of keys, dangling them in front of me.

“Another car?” Eric yells. “
Giraffe
, Dad! I got a frickin’
giraffe
.”

“Shut up,” Dad yells over his shoulder. “It’s not a car.”

“We have a house,” Riley says, and I look down at her. She looks as confused as I feel.

“It’s not a house,” Holly tells her.

“I’m so confused,” I say again and duck the pie just in time.

“Dammit!” Mikayla huffs.

“It’s the building,” Holly says. “It’s your wedding gift from Mal, Eric and I.”

“The building?” Riley says, looking around.

“I’m so—”

“For your dang garage!” Dad yells, his patience fading. He takes a breath. “For you to open your own garage, son. Holly, Eric and I—we covered the first year’s lease on the building and all the equipment and machines you need to get started.”

“Oh my god,” Riley whispers, taking the keys from him. She looks up at me, her eyes wide and her lips parted. “Babe.”

I switch my gaze from her to Eric, now smiling like a mankini-wearing Cheshire cat.

“But I have a job,” I mumble, because I don’t know what else to say.

“
Had
a job,” Lucy’s dad’s deep voice booms.

I look at him.

“Now you’ll be contracted for maintenance on the forty-five trucks in my fleet.”

“And all the trade-ins we get,” Mark, Cameron’s step dad, says.

Jake’s dad laughs. “And every time my wife’s car decides to be a chicken, we’ll be taking it in.”

Riley hands me the keys. “
Riley’s House of Fixing Cars
! What a great name,” she sings.

I shake my head, a little in disbelief and a little in
hell fucking no
.

“So what are you going to call it?” Holly asks.

Another
fucking pie in my face.

I wipe my mouth, a smile forming as I look up at Jake—his arm around Mikayla’s shoulders. He’s the only one who knows that owning a garage was a dream of mine. And until today, that’s all it was. An unreachable dream. He smiles wider, matching mine, and nods once. I look at my dad, standing in front of me, his eyes proud. Then I clear my throat. “Mayhem Motors.”

I tap Dr.
Matthews on the shoulder. “May I?” I ask him.

He nods, then kisses Holly on the cheek.

I take Holly’s hand in mine and settle the other on her waist, bringing her closer to me. I’d never really been one for dancing, especially slow dancing, so our movements are more swaying from left to right than anything. She doesn’t seem to mind. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly, my mouth to her ear. I’m sure this wedding was not at all what Holly had in mind the night I asked for Riley’s hand in marriage—the same night I bled my heart out to her and admitted to still seeing Dave. She’s kept all my secrets. Always has. Always will.

She pulls back slightly, her hand on my chest as she looks up at me. “This is what you and Riley wanted?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“If you’re happy, then I’m happy. But I’m also not stupid,
son
,” she says, smiling wider as the last word leaves her.

“I don’t know what you mean,
Mom.
”

Her eyes instantly fill with tears, her head slowly shaking from side to side. Her smile falters, so do her movements. “I’m proud of you, Dylan.”

“I know, Ma’am.”

“You do?”

“You wouldn’t trust me with your daughter if you didn’t believe I was worthy of it. And I can’t tell you how much that means to me.” I reach up, wiping the tears flowing down her cheek. “I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For many things. For looking at me the way you do. For getting me when no-one else did. For creating a girl so flawed and so perfect.”

“Well,” she says, rolling her eyes and sniffing back her sob. She makes light of the moment, because anything else would make her fall apart. “It wasn’t easy. But like you told Riley. Sometimes you need to have nightmares to appreciate the dreams.”

“You helped make both our dreams a reality, Ms. Hudson. Without you—”

“When?” she cuts in.

“When what?”

“When did you get married?”

My shoulders tense, just for a moment. “Two days ago.”

Three days earlier

Riley

I
keep my
eyes on Dylan while I strip out of my clothes.

He stands in front of me, already free of his, and steps forward, taking one of my hands in his, the other holding a glass jar with a single letter inside it. “You ready?”

I grip his hand tighter and inhale deeply, switching my gaze from his clear blue eyes—the same blue as the lake—to the edge of the cliff. “I don’t know.”

“We don’t have to do this,” he murmurs, his finger on my chin forcing me to look at him. “If you’re not ready, we can wait… or we don’t
ever
have to do this.”