Lovestruck Forever (2 page)

Thomas
slapped my dad’s shoulder in greeting and raised his eyebrows
at me. “I’m very familiar with the power of the pleading
look from a Medina woman.”

I
made a face at him, going back to my veggies.

“Abuelita!”
Sofia yelled, barreling into the room and wrapping her arms around
her grandmother. I saw my mom wince slightly as she brought her arms
up to hug her only granddaughter.

“Careful,”
Maria admonished her daughter, but the smile had returned to Mom’s
face.

“She’s
fine,” she said. “I’ve been needing one of your
hugs, little one.”

“Is
there any soccer on tonight, Thomas?” my dad asked. “And
I don’t mean any of that Premier League crap, either.”

Thomas
sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t know how someone can
claim to enjoy football and not see the superiority of the Premier
League.”

My
father laughed, slapping Thomas on the back. “Let’s go
see what we can find.”

Thomas
looked to me quickly, but I shooed him along. I didn’t mind him
not helping, particularly if it meant he was getting along with my
dad.

“What
can I do?” my mom asked as the guys headed to the living room.

“You
can relax,” Maria said, placing a mug of tea in front of her.

My
mother sighed, but didn’t argue, making me wonder how tired she
really was. “If you insist.”

As
we finished making dinner, the house slowly filled with people. My
twin brothers, Matias and Samuel, arrived first, followed by my older
brother Carlos and Maria’s husband, José, their son JJ
hanging off his shoulders. When Laura, my other sister, and her
husband, Frank, arrived, there was a commotion as everyone fussed
around her, rubbing her five-months-pregnant belly and offering her
cold beverages and chairs to get off her feet.

“This
family is insane,” she muttered to me as she sank into a
kitchen chair. “I’m pregnant, not an invalid.”

“You
know how they are,” I told her. “You’re adding to
the great Medina family dynasty. You’ve never been more
important than you are right now.”

She
laughed at me, but didn’t argue. I may have been joking, but
there was plenty of truth to it. There was nothing you could do in
this family that would get you more attention than having a baby.

Soon
the house was filled with noise and laughter. Maria brought out
tortilla chips and her homemade salsa as everyone crowded into the
kitchen, helping to set the table and generally getting in the way.
By the time my cousin Sofie arrived, Maria had spread the news of her
new boyfriend to everyone. As we crowded around the table to eat,
conversation danced around plans for the engagement party, questions
about Laura’s baby plans, and, of course, grilling Sofie for
information about the new boy. She was very closed lip about him,
making me think she might actually like him quite a bit. I didn’t
blame her—it was tough having the entire clan in your business
all the time.

I
watched Thomas arguing about soccer with Matias and José and
smiled to myself. They might be overbearing and nosey, but I had to
admit, I was much happier being back with them all again, than I had
been when we were estranged.

Even
if they did drive me crazy most of the time.

***

Of
course, it got awkward at the end of the night. My family had no idea
how to deal with the fact that I was living with my boyfriend before
we were married. My mom and Samuel, the younger of my twin brothers,
seemed to be of the opinion that it was no big deal. Just about
everyone else, however, was convinced that I was making a huge
mistake and shaming my family. We’d made progress, though. A
year ago, my father and Maria had stopped speaking to me when I moved
to London with Thomas. Now they just refused to acknowledge the fact
that we were living together, seeming to prefer to pretend that I
simply disappeared at the end of each evening. With the exception of
Sofie, none of them had even been to our place, despite the fact it
was only a twenty-minute drive away. I tried not to let it bother me,
focusing instead on the hope that they’d get over it once we
were married.

“Everyone
seems pretty stoked about the party,” Thomas said once we were
in his car. He held my hand over the gearshift, the way he always
did, and I squeezed it in the darkness.

“I
think they are. Who would have thought?”

“I
told you I could win them over,” he said easily. “Who
could object to us once faced with the overwhelming force of my
charm?”

I
snorted. “Should I bring out the tiara picture again?”

“Cruel
woman.”

We
drove in silence for a few moments, a welcome change after the noise
of my parents’ house. It was hard to adjust to the craziness of
so many people after spending so much time alone with Thomas over the
last year. Sometimes I found it hard to believe that I had grown up
in that chaos, that it was the norm for me until I turned twenty-two
and went to London for a study-abroad program.

“Speaking
of the party,” Thomas said, and I could hear the smile in his
voice. “I got some nice news today.”

“Yeah?”

“Sarra
can come after all.”

“She
can?” I released his hand to clap my own. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.
I booked her flight this afternoon.”

“Thomas!
Why didn’t you tell me?”

He
shrugged. “I was a little pre-occupied pretending to be a pony,
to be honest.”

I
laughed and grabbed his hand again. “That makes me so happy!”
Sarra was one of our friends from London. Along with her brother,
Charlie, boyfriend Mark, and friends, Meghan and Carter, Thomas’s
tight group of friends had accepted me with no reservations. They’d
become a little family to me in London, thousands of miles away from
home. Meghan, Carter, and Charlie had all made plans to attend the
engagement party as soon as we mentioned it. Sarra, however, had a
work commitment that she wasn’t sure she could get out of.

“So
she got out of work?”

“The
conference was rescheduled.” He made a scathing noise in the
back of his throat. “She did tell me that she was only coming
because I offered to buy her plane ticket.”

I
laughed. It was stuff like that that made me love Thomas’s
friends all the more. They took his job and his recent celebrity in
stride, refusing to let it change the way they treated him. Sarra, in
particular, took it as an excuse to tease him even more than she
usually would.

“I’m
so happy they’ll all be here,” I said, unable to wipe the
grin from my face. I hadn’t seen any of them since New Year’s
Eve, the last time Thomas and I had been in London.

“It
will be great,” he agreed, squeezing my hand. “Even
though I’m sure Meghan will be even more annoying about the
wedding plans in person.”

I
giggled. Meghan was definitely the stylish, sophisticated one in the
group—it sometimes seemed odd that she even hung out with the
rest of them. More than anything else, she loved party planning and
had been sending bi-weekly emails with ideas for the wedding. Our
protests that we had not even set a date yet fell on deaf ears.

“We
probably should be getting on with it,” Thomas said after a
moment. “The planning, I mean. It’s been two months.”

I
nodded in the darkness, knowing he was getting impatient. I hadn’t
wanted to commit to anything until my mom was better. Thomas had been
completely supportive, but I knew he was ready to get moving on our
plans. We’d been through a lot to get to where we were now, and
we both felt a strong urge to make it official, finally. To be
married and committed to each other.

There
was also the matter of Thomas’s career. When my mom was
hospitalized he had walked away from a huge opportunity to star in a
summer blockbuster. I had tried to urge him to take it, but it would
have meant a lot of time apart. I still couldn’t believe that
he’d been willing to walk away from it, for me. If I had ever
needed proof of the depth of his feelings for me, that had taken care
of it. But now, his career was somewhat on hold. For the time being,
he was performing at a local theater run by Jenner Collins, a
Hollywood mega-star who had produced Thomas’s last film—and
who just happened to make his home in Detroit. Thomas loved the
theater—probably even more than he enjoyed making movies, so I
knew the work wasn’t a hardship for him. Still, the ambiguity
of our situation made it difficult for him to make plans for the
future. His agent, and my former boss, Heidi had been getting
increasingly hysterical in all of her communication with him.
Opportunities were coming in, and he refused to even consider them.
She could barely speak to me anymore, blaming me, I was sure, for his
sudden lack of drive. I hadn’t told Thomas that detail, though.
The last thing I needed on my conscience was for him to fire her over
me.

“Let’s
set the date,” I said impulsively, hit by a familiar wave of
guilt over the current inertia of his career.

He
turned to look at me in the darkness of the car. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.
Seriously. I mean, we’ve been waiting all this time to see how
my mom was doing, and she’s clearly on the right track. Isn’t
that why they’re finally throwing the engagement party? Because
she’s made enough progress to be there and enjoy it?”

I
thought he might attempt to argue with me, to remind me that there
was no rush and we could take it as slow as I was comfortable with,
so I was a little surprised when he sighed in relief. “I would
love to set the date.”

I
squeezed his hand over the console. “Then let’s do it.”

From
the corner of my eye, I saw the ghost of a grin on his mouth, giving
him a very mischievous air. “What?” I demanded. “What’s
that smile for?”

“I
was just wondering,” he said, and I could tell he was trying
not to laugh, “if this means you’re going to show me your
secret Pinterest wedding board.”

My
mouth dropped open. “How do you know about that?”

He
did laugh then. “Oh, come on. I’ve known about it for
ages.”

I
tried and failed to keep from blushing as I wondered what exactly he
meant by ages. Did he, for instance, know that I had started the
board long before he ever proposed? Like, before I even left London?
It had been my favorite daydream for months, pinning little pictures
and articles about my dream wedding to Thomas. But I thought it was
just that—a dream. A
secret
dream.

“Oh,
don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “I think it’s
cute that you’ve been planning our wedding since you met me.”

“It
has not been since I met you,” I said, my voice defiant, before
adding in a mumble. “It was a few months after that.”

He
laughed, bringing the hand he still held up to his mouth to kiss my
knuckles. “See? Totally cute.”

“Whatever.”

“So
how ‘bout it? Do I get to see?”

I
gave him my sternest look, though I doubted he could really see it in
the darkness. “Only if you promise not to tease me.”

“I
would never tease you,” he said, sounding genuinely hurt. “This
is our wedding, Lizzie. I want it to be everything that you want it
to be. I’m happy that you’ve been thinking about it. That
means you’re as excited as I am.”

I
felt that familiar rush of happiness. “I think I’m more
excited than you, mister.”

“How
do you know? You haven’t seen
my
secret Pinterest board yet.”

I
burst out laughing at the thought of Thomas pinning flower
arrangements, or something. “God, I hope you’re not
joking.”

He
gave me a rueful smile. “Sorry, I was. But that doesn’t
mean I haven’t been thinking about the wedding all the time.”

I
raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were more excited about the
honeymoon.”

He
turned his gaze from the road for a moment to waggle his eyebrows at
me. “You’re onto me.”

I
realized I was sitting on the edge of my seat, nearly bouncing up and
down. Now that we were actually free to talk about it, I was
practically beside myself with excitement. I hadn’t given a ton
of thought to my wedding when I was growing up. While my sisters and
cousins had been fond of playing “bride” with dress up
clothes, I was more than happy to daydream about the weddings of the
heroines in the novels I loved. When Thomas proposed, I had tried to
convince him to take me to Vegas immediately—to get married
right away. Not really caring much about the fanfare that went along
with the wedding—I just wanted
him
.
But now I was thankful that he’d declined the Vegas idea. I
guess I had a bride gene after all.

As
Thomas pulled off the freeway toward our temporary home, I wished he
would hurry. We had a wedding to plan, and suddenly I didn’t
want to waste another minute.

Our
house in Detroit, much like the beach house in Malibu, was far too
big for just the two of us. When Thomas had decided to come home with
me, instead of staying in L.A. to start a new movie, he had enlisted
the help of Jenner Collins in finding a rental not too far from my
parents. Jenner had hooked us up with a real estate agent who had
experience working with the rich and famous. I had found the entire
thing silly—I had lived here my whole life here and knew the
area as well as anyone. Plus, the houses Jenner’s agent was
showing us were enormous, comically large for two people, most of
them secluded on large tracts of land out away from the suburbs. I’d
bugged Thomas about it until he finally admitted that his management
team was concerned about security.

“What
do you mean, security?” I had asked. “We never had to
worry about security in London or Malibu. We just lived in regular
neighborhoods.” I paused. “Well, I guess you couldn’t
call that mansion on the beach a ‘regular’ neighborhood,
but we weren’t as secluded.”