Forever Together (Forever Love #2) (17 page)

"Oh my God." I shoot up to my feet and cover my mouth, unable to take my eyes from the scene in front of me. The scene being Brian peeing up Bob's very expensive slacks in front of about a hundred people.

"Thank you fucking God." Brady laughs behind me. "I wish I had a video camera."

Bailey rushes to Brian, scooping him into her arms while Bob, I’m guessing finally realizes his leg feels kinda wet. He looks down at the dark haired little girl hugging the dog and then at his trousers, finally putting the pieces together. Everyone at this point is in hysterics, Brady especially. He's holding onto his sides with tears in his eyes as he laughs his ass off.

I rush towards Bailey, not able to meet eyes with Bob who's nervously chuckling. I guess this is one of those times that you either laugh or cry. If it was me, I'd be balling my eyes out and running as fast as my feet could take me.

"Come here, Bailey." I say, gently pulling her off the floor, Brian still in her arms.

I'd love to know how I somehow got lumbered with Bailey duty. As much as I love my baby sister, she’s not the easiest. Bob's soiled pants and the chuckling crowd are proof of that.

"Best. Day. Ever." Brady says, shooting Bob a smile.

"I thought I told you to keep that... dog on a leash Brady." Bob grinds out, a rigid smile on his face.

"What can I say? Those damn leashes are so slippery. Don’t worry, Bob," He slaps him on the back, a little hard if you ask me. "You can always go change. I'd take a shower too, you sure he only got your leg?"

I roll my eyes, taking Bailey's hand in mine. Bob steps up to the freestanding microphone again.

"I don’t think the dog liked my speech." He says with a smile and voice perfected for the crowd. Only the ticking of his jaw shows how truly pissed he is.

"I’m sorry Brady." Bailey says, her face buried in Brian’s soft fur.

"Don’t worry about it kiddo. Come on, I think you deserve some ice cream. And you Brian, I’m gonna get you the biggest damn bone you've ever seen." His smile is wide and I don’t miss the wink he throws Bob's way.

"Ice cream! You hear that Brian? You can have some of my ice cream because you don’t want no nasty bones." She scrunches her face up in disgust.

"Brian’s a man.
H
h
e’s gotta have man food." Brady clenches his fists and growls causing Bailey to let out an adorable giggle.

I follow behind them completely entranced, my stomach doing somersaults at the sight.

***

"The names Tucker, like fucker but with a T." The look on the very well dressed man’s face at Tucker’s introduction has me covering my mouth to stifle not just my laughter, but the mouthful of champagne threatening to make an escape.

"Um… That’s a very unusual name." He answers with wide eyes, looking around the table to see if anyone else is as surprised as him. Of course all of us, excluding Li
v
,
1
grew up with Tucker's ways. His I-don’t-give-a-fuck persona isn’t anything new to us.

"Uh huh. Ma always says that you can never trust someone who’s got a last name as a first name. She wanted the world to be prepared." Tucker nods, looking Mr. Well-dressed right in the eyes.

"Well, what a good idea. Anyway, I think I see my wife waving me over. Nice to meet you fu... I mean Tucker. Oh Margery!" He waves towards a group of people, none of which are even looking at him. "Coming dear!" He scuttles off as fast as his shoes, that probably cost about five thousand dollars, can take him.

The whole table bursts out laughing. Liv rolls her eyes, her head leaning on Noah’s shoulder but even she’s smiling.

"You guys are fucking idiots." She shakes her head.

"Hey, serves that fucker right, yeah Tuck?" Brady cheers, high five-ing Tucker.

"Hell yeah, shouldn’t have acted all hoity toity and like I was some white trash. Did you see his face?"

"Man, you two need to get a life." Noah stands up from his seat leaving a pouting Liv behind. "Who wants another drink?"

"I will in a sec. I need to find my Mom." I say, looking around the yard. I haven’t seen her in forever. She seemed a little tipsy last time I laid eyes on her. She was nattering on in Rachel’s ear while stroking a table cloth.

"Um Cinders, I don’t think you're gonna find her." Brady purses his lips but his eyes are dancing with amusement.

"What, why?" I frown.

"Because I’m pretty sure I saw your Dad and Luke carrying her into the house like an hour ago. I think she had to go lay down." He snickers. "She was singing about going to Ibiza whatever the fuck that means. She got a vacation booked?"

I groan. She actually sung her signature drunk song in the middle of this classy party? My Mom doesn’t make a habit of drinking. I think I've only ever seen her drunk like three times in my entire life. Unfortunately, those were times when I so didn’t wanna see her like it. Namely, Luke’s graduation, which started as a sobbing fest and ended with her doing the rumba and my graduation which started much the same way and ended with her attempting to do the limbo with an uncomfortable Aiden and Brady holding either end of a scarf she forced them to hold straight while she shook her shoulders under it. The latest humiliation was Christmas when Brady and my Dad had to somehow wrestle her to bed when she started throwing flour around and s
creaming that
aying
it was snowing.

Me and my brothers and sisters definitely won’t let her forget this. Oh no, not the way she hounds us about binge drinking. Pot kettle anyone?

"So you want a drink, Cinders?" Brady asks, standing up to join Noah.

"Sure." I sigh, shoving all thoughts of my drunk ass mother down for now.

Him and Noah leave the table, leaving just me, Liv and Tucker, who's looking pretty uncomfortable.

"Yeah, I think I’m gonna go with them too." Tuckers adds. "Because you know, you two are chicks and you might start talking about tampons and shit. I get too much pussy to have that thought in my head."

"You’re a pig." Both Liv and I chime, each throwing the nearest thing at Tucker's head. 

"Just saying the truth ladies." He walks backwards, his hands up in surrender.

"Yo, Tucker get your ass over here and explain to Noah how Megan Fox was way better than Rosie whatever-the-fuck-she’s-called in Transformers!"

This time, Liv and I both roll our eyes.

"Men!" She says, throwing her hands up in the air.

"Well, you're gonna be tied to one for life soon." I smirk.

"Yeah." Envy shoots through me at the smile on her face. That just makes me feel like crap. "Part of me wants to jump for joy because it’s totally fucking awesome. That’s the grown up Liv. Childish Liv wants to hide under the bed in case she catches cooties."

"You sound like Bailey. Actually no, you sound like Avery." I laugh

"Well then you got some pretty kickass sisters, huh? You can keep them though. If I had sisters I'd have probably strangled them. Too much drama."

Definitely too much drama. I don’t know how I haven’t strangled one of them over the years, especially Bailey. Though the way she acted earlier when she was concerned over Brian makes me wonder if she’s not so bad after all.

Brady, Noah, and Tucker return to the table, each with flutes of champagne in their hands.

"Miss me Cinders?" Brady smiles, handing me a glass. I straight away take a gulp, the
fizzle and
bubbles running down my throat. "Hey, I was thinking we could get outta here."

"What about the fireworks? They’re gonna be on soon." I say all out of breath from the drinking.

"We'll be back in time for the fireworks. We're not gonna be long. I just wanna take you somewhere quickly."

I look at him for a few seconds debating whether or not this is a good idea. What harm could it do though? It’s not like I’m with a stranger, although Brady's probably much more dangerous to me than any axe murderer or crazy psycho.

"What about everyone else?"

"They'll stay here. Like I said, we won’t be long."

"Can I finish my drink first?"

"You can bring it with you if you want. Though if you’re gonna get drunk and shit at least wait till I can get you out the truck before you go jumping out." He grins.
H
h
e’s got no worries. No way am I going through that embarrassment again.

"Ok." I nod, gripping my champagne and standing up.

***

"Where are we?" I ask, looking out of the window of Brady’s truck.

When he said he wanted to take me some place, I thought we'd be walking there. It seems our destination was a little further than I expected. As the truck finally parks up in the middle of nowhere, Brady stays silent.

I sit in the warm leather seat, mirroring him, not sure exactly what’s going on. All I can see outside are trees, hundreds and hundreds of trees in all kinds of twisted shapes.

"We're here." He says, shooting me a panty dropping smile that has my stomach doing somersaults.

He throws the driver’s side door open and hops out while I unclip my seatbelt. Just as I reach for the door handle, it’s pulled open and my wrist is gripped in Brady’s hand.

"Woah!" I squeal as I’m pulled out right into his waiting arms.

"Now, what is it I've always told ya huh? I'll always catch you." Brady’s deep voice rolls over me, goosebumps raising on my skin at the heat it seems to send through my body.

Once I've pulled myself together, I take in our surroundings. The sun is setting, bathing the sky in a warm orange glow. It’s my favorite time of day, when the sky is covered in all those Autumn colors no matter the season and the air starts to get a little cooler. This is Georgia, southern Georgia no less, so any air that doesn’t hit you like it’s being blown out of a furnace is a good thing.

"Are we in a field?" I frown, looking at my feet where my heels have sunk into the ground that has little tufts of grass poking through the earth.

"Not just any field Cinders."

"A really muddy field." I lift my foot up to see the heel caked in mud. Looks like that’s another shoe for the dumpster.

"Look around." He whispers near my neck. I scrunch my shoulder up at the sensation of his breath tickling my skin.

I do as he says, trying to look around despite almost being buried in Brady’s body. I squint my eyes as if I'll suddenly recognize where we are. I pull away out of Brady
's
arms and spin around, taking in the twisted trees covered in green leaves in all different shades.

"It looks a little different because it’s summer." Brady explains. "Plus, it has been a while."

The smile on Brady’s face, as if I should know exactly where we are, is starting to make me nervous and kinda guilty.

"I don’t-" My voice trails off on Brady’s next words, right near my ear.

"You're the most beautiful girl in the world Cindy Martin. One day I’m gonna make you my wife. I've waited too long, watched you for too long not to tell you exactly how I feel."

I gasp loudly and spin around.

"I... You... FUCK!" I curse. My eyes are wide and my cheeks feel hot. My smug looking ex stands in front of me, a grin on his face as if he knows he's struck me completely speechless. "What?... How?" I splutter.

"I know I’m an idiot Cinders, but did you seriously think I'd forget that?"

"Even I forgot it." My voice comes out impossibly high as I turn around again, taking everything in with new eyes.

              "You forgot our first date?" His eyebrows are nearly at his hairline but the smirk on his face tells me he’s not pissed.

"Of course I didn’t forget. It was years ago though. It looks so different here now."

It does look different. Back then, the branches of the trees were almost bare and the ground was littered with orange and yellow leaves. The mud under our feet was yellow grass, the sun having dried it out from beaming down on it all Summer long.

We'd been to a diner just outside of town, Deb's Diner it was called. The name was a mystery considering it was owned and run by some middle aged guy called Bubba. It was sixties style with red leather booths and aluminum tables. It even had one of those old school jukeboxes that played all the classics like Elvis and Dusty Springfield. The diner was notorious for being one of the worst places to eat any kind of cooked food in Georgia. You could catch food poisoning just from looking at one of their greasy burgers. Their cheesecake though? That was notorious for an entirely different reason. Damn, my mouth waters just thinking about the biscuit base that melted in your mouth.

After our date where we spent the whole time making moony eyes at each other and giggling over our Chocolate milkshakes, Brady brought me here. It was almost sunset then too. The sky matched the ground, the oranges and reds covering the landscape.

We sit on our jackets on the hard ground. My stomach's on some kind of rollercoaster ride. I love the feel of Brady’s arms being around me, it makes me feel so safe. He tips my chin up with his fingers and I look into his eyes. I feel as though I’m gonna be sick with how nervous I am. The way he’s looking at me is something else entirely. It’s the way my Dad looks at my Mom. It’s complete devotion, like a date with me is now ticked off his bucket list.