Ready to Wed (17 page)

Grant’s eyes narrowed. “It’s that other guy, isn’t it?”

Something inside of me snapped. I’d tried to keep this civil, but I could feel angry heat traveling through me. He’d always had a tendency to blame things on everyone else, and I used to rub his back and tell him I understood. That so-and-so from his office was hard to work with. A hundred other excuses I’d provided trying to be supportive. See? Fixer. But that wasn’t my role anymore.

“Do we really need to replay how you were the one who stood me up at the altar? Who ran away instead of talking to me? That’s on you. Take some responsibility and live with your decisions.”

Grant stared, mouth slightly agape, as if he didn’t recognize me.

I rose from my seat, pride welling in my chest. It was time I take responsibility, too. I’d let him in again, lied to myself, and allowed his mother to influence me. Regaining control of my life had taken me longer than I’d thought it would, but I’d keep getting back up and trying, day after day, until I got it right.

The last part of my course today, right before Ron signed off on the form saying I’d completed it, had been on being assertive, but not attacking. I’d told Grant how I felt without swearing or yelling, and it was nice to get it out there.

“Good-bye, Grant,” I said. “Best of luck with the rest of your life.” I walked out of the restaurant and inhaled the fresh air. I had upcoming weddings to finish preparing. And for the first time in a long time, I was actually excited about it.

Part Four

Cautious Cobalt
–
Guarded

(General risk of odd behavior, family pressure, stress, and cold feet. Tears held at bay, but can quickly turn either way)

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

—
William Shakespeare

Chapter Twenty

Living with a hot guy who was willing to drag me into the bedroom whenever I was ready, but not taking advantage of it, was like walking by a table of beautiful slices of wedding cake and not taking a bite. Not even a little swipe of the finger to taste the icing.

In other words, so hard that I thought I must be mental for even attempting it.

I was starting to think that he was purposely parading around half naked, too, knowing he was slowly driving me crazy. A lazy grin spread across his face as he looked across the kitchen at me. His faded blue jeans hung low on his hips, his hair was still wet from his shower, and he hadn’t shaved today. “Hey.”

My heart took off on a high-speed chase, practically leaving the rest of me behind. I bit my lip as I took in his toned chest and the sexy vee of his obliques. I put down the peanut M&M’s I’d been snacking on, closed the distance between us, and wrapped my arms around his waist. The dampness from his skin soaked into mine. He slid his hand into my hair and lowered his mouth until our lips finally met. As we kissed, I ran my nails up his firm back muscles, smiling when he groaned. If he was going to drive me crazy with desire, I might as well not be the only one.

If we were in a normal relationship, I’d need several dates to see if we were compatible, and if he was more or less attractive the more time we spent together, before deciding if I was ready to add sex to the mix. Brendan and my compatibility was off the charts—we liked the same food, movies, sports. He was much messier than I was, but his attractive factor was growing exponentially by the day, so it negated the points I usually would’ve taken off a guy’s overall stick-aroundability score.

But jumping in too fast made it feel like a rebound relationship, and I didn’t want Brendan to be just a rebound. And while I knew we were way past that, I also didn’t want to move too quickly.

Every day, every kiss, was chipping away at my resistance, though. Making it harder to remember why I’d decided to go slow.

Brendan gripped my waist, lifted me onto the counter, and wedged himself between my legs. My breaths came faster and faster, and then he moved his lips to my neck, sending goose bumps across my skin. I hooked my feet behind him, unable to stop a moan from escaping and filling the crackling air between us.

The bowl of fruit on the counter got tipped over in the process, but as his mouth came over mine again, I hardly noticed the apples and oranges rolling across the counter and floor. Fire burned through me, hotter and wilder with every stroke of his tongue. I traced his muscles with my fingertips, going lower and lower, until they were brushing the top of his pants.

It sometimes felt like we were playing the dirtiest game of chicken ever. Testing the boundaries, seeing how far we could push it. Who’d crack first. If only frustration wasn’t the end result, it’d be the most fun game ever, too.

“Living together is a bad idea right now,” I said on a breath.

“Nuh-uh,” Brendan so articulately disagreed, his hands sliding up my thighs. If I’d been wearing my usual skirt outfit, I would’ve been a goner—I practically was anyway. His touch burned through my denim and left me wishing for a skirt.

“You know we need to leave in, like, five minutes.”

“Five minutes is all I need,” he said. I smacked his shoulder and he laughed. “I was kidding.” His gaze ran over me, burning everywhere it touched. “I’m gonna need
much
longer.”

My heart beat even faster, somewhere around hummingbird speed now. “You’re evil, you know that?” His whiskers tickled my fingertips as I brushed them across his jaw and over the indention in his chin. “You knew we needed to leave, and you had to stand all half naked and wet in the kitchen.”

Mischief danced in his eyes. “I never said I was a good boy.” He kissed me hard on the mouth, then turned and strode to the fridge, the muscles in his back and shoulders tight. He opened the door and stood there for a moment, taking deep breaths. I fanned myself with my hand, trying to get control of my hormones as well. Here we were about to go hang out with my dad, and my head was nowhere near where it needed to be.

Brendan grabbed two bottles of water. He took a generous swig of one, and then offered me the other—we’d been going through a lot more water lately. “Need help with the apples and oranges?” he asked.

“No, go finish getting dressed so we’ll be on time. I might just leave them till later, anyway.”

One corner of his mouth twisted up, the skepticism in his expression clear. “Mm-hmm.”

After downing half my water bottle in one gulp, I turned my attention to the fruit scattered across the floor. Part of me wanted to leave them to prove I could. The other part of me was screaming louder, though. I mean, who leaves food on the floor like that?

I gathered the apples and oranges and stacked them neatly in the bowl, thinking of how he used to just leave them on the counter. They probably wouldn’t have scattered everywhere with his old method, but the bowl looked nicer, and I liked that we did the kind of kissing that knocked things over.

Picking up my purse, I wandered into the living room and glanced at the time again. I was about to call for Brendan when he came out of his room. Along with his jeans, he was now wearing a baseball tee and his faded black Niners cap.
He’s just as irresistible clothed, too.
Fortunate and unfortunate all at the same time. He raised his eyebrows in a way that said he’d caught me ogling him, and I gave him my most innocent smile with plenty of batting my eyes.

I’d never felt so…silly in love. I’d gotten butterflies, and there’d been desire and attraction, sure. But when I was with Brendan, I sorta felt like Cupid—bouncing around, jumping whenever he came into the room, and a whole lot of panting.

It was a total how-did-this-amazing-thing-happen-to-me feeling. But I didn’t quite trust it, either. My relationship with Grant was more serious, but I’d loved him with everything in me, and I wasn’t sure I could do that again, which also seemed unfair to Brendan.

Although he’d made it clear he wasn’t big on long-term commitments, and at the time I’d been experiencing enough angst over relationships to stupidly agree, not realizing it might come back to bite me.

“Don’t worry.” Using his thumb, Brendan smoothed the spot between my eyebrows and then cupped my cheek. “We got this.”

I wasn’t sure if he meant hanging out with my dad, or more—like all the things I worried about. But then he kissed me again, and it didn’t really seem to matter.

…

“This is a trip,” Brendan said as he pulled up to my dad’s tan ranch-style house. The yard was rocky, with a few stumpy, short palm trees, and the red door with the fancy window Mom had insisted on stood out in the game of “which one of these things was not quite like the others.”

“Not much has changed.” I climbed out of the truck and waited for Brendan to round the hood. Besides the door, the tiny two-bedroom home hadn’t been updated since it was built in the seventies. It seemed like the entire neighborhood had upgraded, but not Dad. He was of the if-it’s-not-broke-don’t-fix-it mind-set. Apparently “in need of serious update” was not “broke.”

I reached over the chain-link fence and opened the gate. When Dad answered the door, it took him all of two seconds to give a pointed look to Brendan’s hand on my waist.

“Hi, Dad.” I stepped forward to hug him and whispered, “Remember to be nice.”

Dad made a
phfft
noise that didn’t give me a whole lot of confidence. But he pulled out a smile when he turned to Brendan and shook his hand. “Brendan. Been a long time.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You still play ball?”

“Just a pickup game here and there whenever I can.”

Dad nodded, assessing him the way he did his players, as if he could tell everything about him with a good once-over. “You had a good arm. I remember that.”

“So did D.J.,” Brendan said.

Dad patted me on the shoulder. “That she did.”

“I came by it naturally,” I added, thinking I might as well keep the happy mood going.

We headed inside, and Dad jerked a thumb at the cardboard boxes on the coffee table. “I got pizza. Hope that’s okay.”

“Pizza sounds great.” I sat on the couch next to Brendan and grabbed a slice of pepperoni, and Dad set up in his trusty recliner with all the fancy compartments that hid remotes and held his drinks. It was a lot like Brendan’s couch, actually.

Dad eyed us again, and I fought the urge to scoot away from Brendan—I was a grown-up in a relationship I was excited about; no reason to hide it. I even smiled to show everything was A-okay.

The lines in Dad’s forehead deepened as the corners of his mouth pulled down. “When Dakota mentioned bringing you, I didn’t realize she was already dating someone new.”

I wiped my mouth with a napkin. “When I mentioned it, Brendan and I weren’t dating.”

“Just living together,” Dad said as his eyebrows shot up—they were starting to turn gray and a bit out of control, giving the motion more emphasis.

“But we’re not even—” I cut myself off. So not going there. “We’re dating. Taking it slow. I just got out of a serious relationship and—”

“You almost got married. First you decide to go get hitched on some distant shore, where I can’t even give you away. Then that dinklewad doesn’t bother to show up. Don’t you think you should take some time before you get another boyfriend? You were always like that, in love one minute, out the next. I could hardly keep up.”

An ache rose, the same one I used to get when he asked how I could let my feelings get hurt so easily, or when he told me to just suck it up and get out there again. Always the coach, emotions were something to shove away. A weakness.

Was it any wonder I constantly held them in, and would nearly kill myself instead of asking for help?

Brendan put his hand on my knee. “D.J. and I are taking things a step at a time. I know she’s worried about moving too fast, and that dinklewad, as you so accurately put it, hurt her. I care a lot about your daughter. I always have. I’ll take care of her, I swear.”

Dad pressed his lips together. Tension hung in the air as he deliberated his decision about Brendan’s statement, mouth moving one way then the other. I held my breath, feeling like a little girl again, waiting for my daddy to tell Brendan sleepovers weren’t allowed anymore.

Dad leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Suppose it’s none of my business. I’m just her father. She keeps insisting she can make her own decisions.”

“And I can, though I appreciate the concern,” I said.

The rest of the meal went slightly better—I mean, when you start at Awkwardsville, there’s not a whole lot of places to go but up. We kept to safe topics, talk of NFL and who we thought had good potential for the Super Bowl. (Always the Niners, of course.)

After we’d eaten, I left Brendan on the couch and followed Dad into the kitchen. I cornered him as he pulled a soda out of the fridge. Unlike him, I was better at filtering emotions through what was or wasn’t said now. “I didn’t realize you were upset about not being able to walk me down the aisle. You said you didn’t care, but I should’ve known that you’d want to.”

He shrugged and popped the top of his orange Crush. “I don’t care. I was just making a point. You were going to get married, and you were happy, so I was happy for you. He seemed like a nice guy there till the end.”

“I just don’t think we were quite right for each other. Maybe he did me a favor. But it still hurt me pretty badly.”

Dad reached into the fridge and handed me an orange soda, as if it was all that was needed to fix everything. When I was a little kid it seemed to. Scraped knees? Homework neither one of us could figure out? Have an orange Crush. I probably drank a six-pack the few days after Brendan moved—every time I’d teared up, Dad had just passed me another one.

I popped open the top and took a swig, enjoying the familiar fizz of the bubbles in my throat—with my coffee addiction demanding my attention all the time, I forgot how satisfying an orange soda could be. “I didn’t expect to start dating again so soon. But he makes me happy, Dad, and I didn’t even think that was possible a month ago.”

Dad scuffed the faded linoleum with his shoe, and I could tell he was having a hard time figuring out how to say what he wanted to. “I know I wasn’t any good with the mushy stuff. You probably could’ve used a female around. But I don’t want you hurt, kid. Like I said, you always jump in so fast. One minute you love a guy, the next the fire department’s coming to undo the damage of your séance.”

I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t a séance. Just a…cleansing. And that was a long time ago.”

“Then there was the guy after that, and the one in college, and that gambling addi—”

“I get your point, Dad. No need to rehash the dating hall of shame.”

“Go slow. Think things through.”

“I’m trying.”
But sometimes love doesn’t make logical sense
. I knew that better than anyone. I’d seen mismatched couples that somehow worked and heard love stories that went against everything you’d normally call romantic. But I kept that in, because he’d call it nonsense. And despite what he said, I could tell his not being at my wedding, even though it didn’t happen,
had
bothered him. He was too stubborn to say it, of course. A trait I’d probably gotten from him, though in his eyes I was a soft girlie girl.

After growing older, I understood better why he and Mom couldn’t make it work. Yes, she’d left for her career, but she needed understanding, and Dad didn’t do that, just like she didn’t take the time to see that he had feelings if you looked hard enough.

“You’ll always be my little girl,” Dad said.

“And you’ll always be my old man.”

Dad chuckled at that, then glanced into the other room at Brendan, who was still on the couch, giving us space. “He was always a good kid. And I appreciate what he said about taking care of you.” Dad cracked his knuckles, as if even that admission needed a total guy gesture to bring it back to an acceptable level of manliness. “Gotta get my gear together, then we can go to the field. Unless you changed your mind about the game?”