"It is," I say, emerging from the closet and shutting the door quickly behind me. "It is absolutely stunning. And I don"t look at it that much."
"Yeah right," he says with a little psh. "You look at that dress more than you look at me."
"That"s because it"s clean and smells good," I snap back.
"Ouch," he says, grabbing me by the waist. "Why you gotta be so mean?"
"You think I"m mean? I"ll show you mean." I grab the neckline of my tank top and pull it down low, squeezing my elbows together at the same time so it makes my cleavage burst out. "I bet you want to touch these," I tease, taking a step backward.
Jace"s eyes light up. "Touch them? I want to bury my face into them."
"Oh you do?" I say slowly, leaning forward just a bit, getting my b.r.e.a.s.t.s ever-so-close to Jace"s now outstretched hands. He nods and wiggles his eyebrows at me. Then I stand up straight and let my shirt rise back into place. "Too bad. We have to go to dinner now."
"Oh my G.o.d, you"re so mean to me," he groans, his voice raspy with desire.
"Told ya," I say, poking him in the stomach.
During dinner, Becca and I are a nonstop chatterbox of wedding talk. Jace doesn"t add much to the conversation. He doesn"t talk at all unless he"s asking the server for more root beer. I know he"s worried about Park, so I don"t call him out on being quiet. I just let him have time to himself to think. Besides, Becca and I have enough to talk about to keep us entertained all night.
"Okay, so," Becca says, setting down her fork and splaying out her hand. She points to her thumb as she begins listing things. "Invitations are done and replied to, Cupcake cake is ordered, food is ordered, music is done, we all have our dresses and tuxedos..." She trails off when she reaches her pinky.
I pick up where she left off. "We"re getting flowers the day of, from some apparently awesome floral shop that I"m not allowed to know. And decorations have been either stored at our apartment or Mom"s house and you guys will have it set up beforehand since I still can"t see the venue of my own wedding." I say that last part sarcastically enough to make Jace look up from his plate. He winks and then goes back to eating.
"Oh I almost forgot," Becca says. "We also have to make that ring box from Pinterest."
"What is Pinterest?" Jace asks.
We both look at him as if he"s missing a head or just sprouted a third eye. "You"re joking, right? We talk about it all the time."
He shakes his head. "Ya"ll talk about everything all the time. There"s no way I can keep up."
"Pinterest is that website with all the images in little squares. I"m constantly showing you stuff on it."
"Ahh, okay." Jace nods. "That"s a cool website."
"Yeah it is," Becca says. "We"ve pretty much planned her whole wedding with it."
Jace startles suddenly and slides his chair back from the table. He reaches into his pocket and takes out his phone, squinting when he sees the number calling him. "Nine sixteen. That"s a Sacramento area code," he says right before the swipes and answers the call.
Becca"s eyes widen and we stare at each other in hopeful antic.i.p.ation. My stomach crawls up into my throat as I listen to Jace"s end of the conversation.
"Hey, man. I"m glad you"re not dead."
Relief floods over me, followed by more dread. If Park is alive and well, then why didn"t he show up? What"s if it"s because for some reason he doesn"t want to be in our wedding?
Jace"s features darken. "No s.h.i.t. What the h.e.l.l? How many people?"
Becca and I glance at each other. The moments that stretch between Jace"s replies seem to take hours instead of seconds. "I"m so sorry, man. Take care of yourself, okay? Seriously, don"t worry about us, worry about yourself first and we"ll see how you feel in a week."
When he hangs up the call, Becca and I stare at him, but don"t dare ask him for information. Luckily, he tells us anyway. "Park was jumped on the way to the airport. A group of three guys. They stole his phone, his wallet, and his truck."
"Holy s.h.i.t," Becca says. "Is he okay?"
"They bashed him with a baseball bat, he said. But he said he was okay, just bruised. Said one of the guys had a gun so he didn"t really fight back." When Jace glances at me, I can tell he"s seeking support. Someone to tell him it"s going to be okay. And I wonder if this is what married life is likehaving each other"s back for every situation, and just knowing what the other person wants you to say.
I wrap my arm around his and lean my head on his shoulder. "The good news is that he"s okay. It"s better that his stuff got stolen than his life, you know? I"m sure he has insurance and stuff for his truck."
"Yeah, he does," Jace says. "He"s not worried about all of that. He said he can"t get on an airplane without identification and he"s not sure how quickly the DMV can get him a new driver"s license."
"Oh..." I say as chills creep over my arms. "I"m so sorry, babe."
Jace runs a hand through his hair. "It"s okay. I"m just..." He trails off, shaking his head.
"You just want your best friend at your wedding," Becca says for him. "I know I would."
Chapter 18.
Three days before the wedding Jace has always been really great at keeping secrets and surprises from me. Like that time he arranged to buy me a car, he had spent weeks figuring out the details and I hadn"t noticed a thing. And then when he was having my engagement ring custom designed for me, I hadn"t noticed a change in his demeanor. He even claimed he figured out my ring size in my sleep, and I didn"t even wake up. He"s always been great at keeping a normal face around me, despite having other things going on in his mind.
Until now.
Park was only able to get a temporary paper license from the DMV. They had to order a real driver"s license and said it would be two weeks before it was mailed to him. He couldn"t find his pa.s.sport and without a valid photo identification, there"s no way he"s getting on an airplane. Jace keeps saying he"s okay, but I know he"s not. I"ve never seen him so distraught.
"He could drive here if he had a car," Jace had said earlier this morning. "But he doesn"t because some a.s.sholes stole it. The cops still haven"t recovered it."
"Do you think his parents could rent him a car or something?" I asked. Jace shook his head. "They"re out of the country. On a second honeymoon of all things."
"We can always have a party later and invite him. Then we can all hang out." Jace had smiled at my idea and told me he would love that. Then he promptly stood up, announced he was taking a nap and slunk off. Before he went into our bedroom, he called back, "If Park calls my phone, make sure you answer it!"
That was two hours ago. Becca and I are giving ourselves practice manicures for the wedding while Jace naps and I"m trying really hard not to worry about him. Becca"s nails are painted a shiny purple with a faint sprinkle of tiny turquoise glitter. I am trying, very unsuccessfully I might add, to paint my nails the same turquoise-purple ombre as my wedding invitations. The technique involves two nail polishes, a sponge, nail polish remover on a Q-tip and a whole lot of cursing.
I think we"re both taken aback when Jace"s phone, which is on the coffee table, starts ringing. It has been silent ever since Jace left the room. I glance over at the screen and my eyes burst open. "It"s Park! Get it!"
"Why do I have to answer it?" Becca says. "I don"t even know him."
"I don"t know him either," I say, nudging the phone toward her with the back of my hand. "My nails are wet. I can"t answer it."
She sighs and picks up the phone. "Um, h.e.l.lo? No...this isn"t Bayleigh. It"s Becca, the Maid of Honor."
I don"t know why b.u.t.terflies dance around my stomach. It"s practically impossible for Park to get here for the wedding. Unless he knows someone who owns a private jet and would happily waste thousands of dollars in jet fuel to get him here, all of our hope is pretty much wasted.
They chat for a few more minutes, but I get so involved in sponging nail polish onto my index finger that I stop paying attention until Becca gasps and says, "Oh my G.o.d, I have a great idea! Hold on a second." She holds the phone away from her ear and turns toward me. "Can we keep a secret from Jace?"
"Totally," I say. New waves of excitement roll through me as Becca and I talk with Park on the phone, keeping our voices low in case Jace wakes up. Park just took out a short term lease on a truck so he"d have something to drive until the police found his old truck and the insurance money came through for him to get a new one. It"s a seventeen hundred mile trip from Sacramento to Texas, but he"s going to spend the next two days driving here. He should arrive the night before the wedding and he"ll get a hotel near the venue (which was still kept a secret from me) and then show up in the morning when we"re all getting ready.
It"s the perfect wedding surprise for my future husband and we"re all really excited about it. Now I just have to play it cool like Jace and act as if everything is normal for the next two and a half days. It"ll be hard seeing Jace mope around, missing his best friend, but it"ll make the surprise all the more worth it if I don"t spill the secret before our wedding day.
Becca gives Park her number so he can call her with any questions he has before the wedding. "Drive safely," I tell him before we hang up.
"Trust me," Park says with a laugh. "I will."
Chapter 19.
One day before the wedding I can"t sleep. It"s four-thirty in the morning and my body absolutely refuses to sleep. After a day spent packing and organizing yesterday, I had pa.s.sed out fairly quickly last night, but now just a few hours later, I am wide awake. Jace breathes deeply, sound asleep next to me in bed. I stare at the ceiling.
I wonder if he"s ever spent the night staring at this same ceiling while I slept peacefully next to him. Probably not. Jace doesn"t fret or freak out. He"s just calm. I draw in a slow breath, hold it a beat and then slowly exhale, trying to channel some of Jace"s everyday calm demeanor. It doesn"t really help.
I try to ask myself what I"m worrying about exactly, as if there"s some kind of specific thing my mind can"t quite grasp and that"s why I"m wide awake the night before my wedding. It isn"t the wedding. It"s not the venue mystery or the fact that we"re going to be officially married soon. None of that bothers me.
I"m just...bothered.
The room grows quiet and I realize that Jace"s deep breathing has stopped. "You awake?" he asks, rolling on his side.
"Sort of," is my reply.
"Are you getting morning sickness in the middle of the night again?"
"No, it"s nothing like that. I"m fine."
"Hmm," Jace says, leaning closer to me. I can just see his features in the soft glow of moonlight filtering in through our window. "Not getting cold feet now, are ya?"
"Ha," I say sarcastically. "No way. Are you?"
He shakes his head. I can"t really see him but I can hear the sound of his head squishing against the pillow. "Never. But you seem like something is bothering you and you should talk to me."
"Nothing"s bothering me..." I mumble, trying to roll over to face the opposite direction, but Jace slips an arm around me and that kind of puts a stop to my plan.
"Talk to me, babe."
I sigh. "It"s just that once we"re married, all the antic.i.p.ation over the wedding will be over. Then we"ll have to focus on the hard stuff."
"The hard stuff?"
"The baby."
"The baby won"t be hard," he says, snuggling up against my shoulder. I snort. "Really? What makes you so confident in that?"
"You are a super beautiful, super smart woman, Bay. I wouldn"t trust anyone else to raise my kid."
"What does being beautiful have to do with raising kids?"
He shrugs and kisses my collarbone. "Nothing, I guess. I just felt like saying it."
Maybe it"s just the sleep finally catching up with me. Maybe it"s just hearing his words and the way that he says them. But my nerves disappear and I feel great enough to finally fall asleep.
My phone bursts to life at seven in the morning. Squinting my eyes shut against the bright sunlight filtering in through the windows, I flop my hand over onto the nightstand, aiming for my phone. When I find it, I mash the screen with my fingers until the alarm shuts off. Only, the sound merely dims. I open my eyes and realize the alarm sound is now coming from the opposite side of the bed. Jace"s alarm went off at the same time.
"Wake up, hot stuff," I say, shoving him. He groans and rolls over, trying to ignore me and continue to sleep.
I crawl on top of him, straddling his stomach so I can lean over to his nightstand and turn off his alarm. While I"m at it, I go ahead and slide my hands up his bare chest, leaning forward to nuzzle my face in his neck. "Wake up Mr. Adams," I whisper in his ear.
When his hands slide up my thighs and grab ahold of my b.u.t.t, I know he"s awake even though he hasn"t opened his eyes yet. His lips form a sly smile and I bend down to kiss them.
"It"s time to go," I say. "We"re driving for a quite a while, I"ve been told."
"Yup," he says, finally opening his eyes. "Are you ready?"
"I just want to brush my teeth real fast, otherwise all my stuff is already in your truck."
"Awesome," he says. He makes a big show about removing his hands from my a.s.s, whimpering and everything, and then we climb out of bed.
Before I know it, we"re on the road. I can"t help grinning as I ride shotgun, staring at the man who will soon be my husband.
Chapter 20.
The day of the wedding "It"s a beautiful day," I say, leaning my forehead against the gla.s.s and staring up at the sky. "A perfect day for a wedding," I add with a smile. Jace nods. We"re just outside of Mixon, pulling onto the interstate. I glance at Jace from the corner of my eyes. "I wonder if the weather will still be good when we get to wherever we"re going...I mean, it could be hours and hours away from here for all I know..."
He gives me a look that says he"s not buying my excuse to get more information out of him. "Okay, I"ll give you this." Jace says. "A tiny hint...of course you might figure it out but I hope not."
"What is it?"
He bites his bottom lip and then says, "We"ll be there in about two hours."
I lift an eyebrow. "That doesn"t tell me anything. There"s like...five million places that are two hours away."