Second Look (A New Beginning Book 3) (26 page)

“Freak.”

“Jerk.”

“Nag.”

“Assclown.”

“Weasel-face.”

Gina gasped. “Quit! I had enough when you were growing up, and it’s my birthday. No fighting. Now, who’s ready for cake?”

The rest of the dinner was spent without fighting.

For as much as Mandi complained about being set up he could tell she was excited by the way she kept looking at her phone and the kitchen wall clock.

*****

“So, who’s all coming again?” Jennifer asked.

Adam looked at her, and wondered if she had lost her mind. They were on their way to the haunted trails in town called “Trail of Terror” and they were meeting several friends.

“We’re meeting Kimberly, Peter, Cass, Noah, and obviously Mandi and then Jeremy from work,” Adam replied, looking over at her before continuing, “Just like I told you about five minutes ago?”

“Oh, right,” she told him, looking down at her hands. “I just forgot.”

He glanced over at her again. “Something wrong, Jenn?”

“No.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.”

Adam didn’t really believe her, but not sure how to handle it since she wouldn’t admit it.

“Yep. I’m sure.”

Adam smiled and asked, “Hey, you know what I’ve been thinking about lately?”

“What?”

“Do you still have your promise ring?”

Jennifer looked over at him and said, “Of course I do. Do you?”

Adam nodded and smiled. “I can’t believe you kept it all this time.”

She smiled back at him, and giggled. “Well, you did too, apparently.”

“It was sort of stupid, wasn’t it?”

“No way! It was sweet. I wish I’d handled things differently back then. I was the stupid one to let you go.”

Adam shrugged. “At least we found our way back together now, right?”

She nodded and smiled.

“Oh, hey, before I forget. I keep meaning to ask you. Do you know when we’re supposed to get the test results back?”

Chapter Eighteen

Jennifer

Time to face the music

“Um…no.”

Crap. What is wrong with me?

“Oh. I suppose it’ll be any day now,” he told her. “I just wondered.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it will,” she responded as they pulled into the parking lot.

“There’s Mandi.”

“Where?”

Jennifer pointed. “Right there, standing by her car. There’s a spot next to her.”

“Oh, I see her. That’s Jeremy, too, right next to her.”

“Oh really?” Jennifer strained to see him over the cars and finally got a good look. “He’s pretty cute!”

He had black hair and a five o’clock shadow. His skin was dark, even for how late it was in the year, and he was definitely Mandi’s type.

“Watch it,” he told her, “don’t get any ideas about Jeremy. You’re mine.”

Jennifer started to laugh, feeling a little better, hoping she could forget about that test for a little while. She waited a really long time to hear those words and he couldn’t say them enough.

Adam pulled into the spot, turned off the car. They grabbed their jackets, hats and gloves. It was a nice night, but still only about fifty degrees and getting colder by the minute. Minnesota in October.

“Hey Mandi. Been here long?”

“Just a few minutes. No one else is here yet.”

Adam put on his jacket as Jeremy walked over to join them. He stopped next to Mandi and smiled towards Adam.

“Hey, man.”

Mandi turned her head towards his voice and did a double take. Jennifer snorted, trying to hold in a laugh. He really was pretty cute and Mandi clearly agreed. Maybe she’d forget about her online boyfriend.

“Jeremy, this is my sister, Mandi.” Adam motioned towards her and then turned towards Jennifer. “And this is Jennifer.”

He nodded at Jennifer and then stared at Mandi. “Great to meet you both.”

Mandi inched towards him just a little and smiled. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“Here, come meet the rest of the gang,” Adam told them as Cassandra, Noah, Peter and Kimberly walked up to them.

“Noah! It’s been years!” Jennifer ran up to him and gave him a hug.

“It’s so good to see you. How’s Amber? I’d really like to meet her.” Noah kept his arm around her in half a hug.

She grinned and said, “She’s amazing, Noah. Just started Kindergarten and loves it. She can’t wait for snow.” Jennifer shivered and rolled her eyes. “I’m not really looking forward to that though.”

Damn. He really is handsome.
What the hell is wrong with Cassandra?

“Well, shall we? I hear the trail’s pretty scary,” Mandi said, glancing at Jeremy. “You’ll have to protect me.”

Jeremy winked and gave her a wide grin. “You bet.”

As they walked towards the line to get tickets, Adam suggested, “Why don’t you ladies head over to the fire to keep warm and we’ll meet you there?”

Mandi laughed and said, “You don’t have to tell us twice.”

Cass grabbed Jennifer’s hand, pulling her towards the fire. “Come on, Kimberly and Mandi, let’s go.”

Several minutes later, Jennifer saw the guys walking their way. She noticed they were each carrying steaming cups in both hands. As they got closer, she could smell the hot chocolate and almost drooled.

They stood around the fire, chatting and sipping hot chocolate, waiting for their group to be called. They didn’t have to wait long, and as soon as they heard their number announced, they headed towards the gate, throwing away their cups in the garbage on their way in.

Over the next half hour, the girls screamed their way through the trail, several times getting scared enough to grab on to the nearest guy. Jennifer held onto Adam’s hand as tight as necessary to keep him next to her and Mandi always somehow managed to be next to Jeremy.

The funniest part of the trail was when they turned a corner and these twin little girls came their way, pale skin, red lips and blood everywhere. Peter wasn’t prepared for them to come running up to him, trying to bite him with huge fangs. He started screaming and ran right into a guy with a chainsaw who growled at him and gunned it. He screamed again and ran away, right down the trail. Kimberly laughed so hard she couldn’t even talk and started jogging down the path to find him.

That left the rest of them to walk the remainder of the trail on their own.

At the end of the path, there was a tractor and wagon to bring them back to the main area, and they found Peter and Kimberly waiting for them. Peter was doing magic tricks for the others.

Jennifer laughed and shook her head. He was never without a deck of cards and coins.

They ended their night at the Whistling Pickle for happy hour.

Where there were people, there was magic, as Peter always said, so she begged, “Peter, do your salt trick for everyone. Please?”

“Alright, I’ll do it.”

He made it sound as if he didn’t really want to perform. Usually, you didn’t have to ask him twice.

Peter grabbed the shaker and said, “Apparently this one is Jennifer’s favorite, even though she’s seen it a hundred times.”

“Yep,” Jennifer said, nodding in agreement. “But you’ll see why.”

Peter waved his hand in the air, and then closed it into a fist, holding his thumb up and making a hole in his hand. He started to pour salt into the hole, and stopped after a few shakes.

“So, I poured salt into my fist,” he said and packed the salt in with a finger from his other hand, and then said, “and if I push it hard enough, it will disappear.”

He finally held up his fist in the air, opened his hand and all the salt was gone. Mandi gasped.

“That was pretty cool,” Jeremy said.

“Just wait,” Jennifer told him, smiling. “It’s not over yet.”

“Now, the real trick is making it reappear. Now, pick which hand.”

“Jeremy, you choose.”

“Alright.” He chose Peter’s right hand.

Peter swiftly made a fist with his right hand and turned it over. Not only did the salt start to pour out, but it was more than what he put into his fist to begin with plus it was sprinkled with pepper.

“Whoa, Peter! That was different! How’d you have more salt than you put into there? You only shook it a few times but that’s a ton! And there’s pepper in it?” Jennifer told him, surprised that he changed the trick.

“Well, I have to keep my favorite audience entertained.”

“Holy crap! That was awesome!” Jeremy told him. “You deserve a drink, man. I’ll get your next one.”

“Thanks,” Peter told him, “I’ll let you.”

As Peter continued to perform tricks, Jennifer stayed close to Adam and kept an eye on the others. She couldn’t help but notice that Noah moved his chair closer to Cass, staring down any guy who even glanced her way, and Jeremy kept eyeing up Mandi.

It was love all around; she was sure of it.

*****

It was a little known fact that Anoka, Minnesota was the Halloween capital of the world. Each year, Anoka was decorated to the hilt. Huge displays of scary graveyards, ghosts and goblins decorated the front yards of Anoka residents and the city streets were lined with orange lights, pumpkins and cornstalks.

You could go up and down the streets and find that almost every single house had decorations, some scary as hell and some that were geared more for children. It was similar to Christmas in other towns, but for Anoka, Halloween was the biggest holiday of the year.

It all led up to the biggest event of the season - the Anoka Halloween parade. It always fell on the Saturday before Halloween and it was a tradition for families all around the Twin Cities to attend or in some cases be involved in the parade.

The streets were lined with chairs, blankets and tents as early as Friday night to save spots for families and friends to watch the three-hour long parade.

Adam asked Jennifer if she and Amber would want to go and it immediately brought her back in time. Jennifer remembered the parade from when she was a little girl. Her grandparents owned a home right on the corner of the parade route on Adams Street, which was really close to Hans Bakery and right across the street from the middle school.

Each year, they’d head over to her grandparents’ house for a Halloween party and a place to stay while waiting for the parade to begin. They’d get there a few hours before the parade would start to be sure to save their spots right on the corner, but usually her grandparents tied off an entire section of the street for all of the family members that would camp out at their house.

Thinking back, Jennifer realized how much work her grandparents put into that party each year, and appreciated them even more for that now that she was grown.

“Adam, we’re never going to find a spot to sit in this crowd,” Jennifer said, worried as they drove down the streets to find a parking spot.

“Don’t worry, Jenn. I’ve got this.”

“I don’t think you understand, Adam. My grandparents used to live down here and it was so crowded, we’d have to get spots the night before.”

“Mommy, aren’t we going to be able to go?” Amber asked, her little chin quivering.

“Of course we are, Amber. We’re just finding a parking spot and then we’ll head over to the parade. I have it all handled,” Adam said before Jennifer could answer her.

Jennifer’s knee was bouncing up and down, a habit she was trying to break but always appeared when she was nervous.

“Get your little plastic pumpkin ready, Amber, because you’re about to have it filled with candy,” Adam told Amber as he expertly parallel parked. Jennifer never attempted parallel parking ever since her drivers test about 15 years ago and was impressed with his skill.

“Let’s hurry so we can find a good spot,” Jennifer said as they got out of the car.

Adam gave her a quick hug and whispered in her ear, “It was going to be a surprise, Jenn, but you’re so nervous I’ll tell you. I came down last night and got us a spot. I think it’s right by where you said your grandparents used to live, right by Adams Street?”

As Adam let her go from the hug, she tried to hide the fact that she had tears in her eyes.

She loved him. How could she not when he did things like this?

“I love you. Thank you for doing this.”

Adam nodded and said, “I love you, too, Jenn.” He grabbed Amber’s hand and they headed down towards the parade route.

She couldn’t believe it as they walked right down Adams Street, which hadn’t changed much since the last time was there a many years before.

Amber was dressed in her costume and was excited to learn she could wear it three times that year; once for school, once for the parade and then again for the day of Halloween. She carried her little pumpkin and she wore her fairy princess costume.

Jennifer thought Amber looked adorable with the wings sticking out of her back over her heavy pink sweatshirt. She also wore a headband with springs that held little sparkly hearts and sparkly pink tights with a pink skirt. Jennifer brought a bag with a blanket and a thermos of hot chocolate just in case they got cold.

They finally got down the street to the parade route and Jennifer looked over at Adam with wide eyes as he led them to their chairs.

“This is exactly where we used to sit when I was little. This couldn’t be more perfect.”

Adam’s response was a quick kiss on her lips. She was pretty sure he was perfect too.