COLTON
I was nervous as hell.
It wasn’t like the wedding was going to be real in the sense that we had actual licenses to sign or anything—but for me it was real. If she wanted to do it over again, I wouldn’t blame her. Didn’t all girls want a chance to plan their own wedding?
But to pass this up?
An opportunity to tell her how I felt, in front of her friends, her family, my family, everyone she’d ever grown up with, including some of Jayne’s angry friends, whom someone had clearly given alcohol to, if their loudness was any indication?
Somehow it just seemed right.
It also seemed right that we’d alter the ceremony a bit. I mean, it wasn’t like I was going to go all crazy and make Max dress up as a dragon I had to slay or something . . . First off, we wouldn’t have been able to find a costume in time, and second, the wooden sword wasn’t big enough to look impressive—according to Max.
“Colton,” Reid yelled. “How many lights you want up here?”
Reid was the only one who wasn’t afraid of heights; then again, his depth perception was suffering severely. I had no idea what was in those small pills but it was enough to keep Reid in flight mode while he hung lights in the tree.
“Don’t go too high,” I yelled up at him.
“No worries!” He climbed to another branch. “If I fall I probably won’t feel it anyway.”
“Truth,” Max said, suddenly by my side, handing me a glass of wine.
I took the wine and sipped. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”
“Finished.” He shrugged.
“No way.”
“Way. Though Jason was more of a hindrance, so I told him to go sit in the corner.”
I looked in the direction in which Max was pointing. Sure enough, Jason was in the corner, a bag of peas held to his head with his good arm, and a bottle of wine next to his feet.
A wave of sympathy washed over me, and I nodded. “Rough day for him.”
“Ha.” Max rolled his eyes. “Living with Milo, I’m surprised he made it through adolescence.”
“Hey.” I nudged him. “You’re her best friend, how do you make it?”
“My parents own a liquor franchise on top of the hotel chains, meaning I get free booze,” he said. “And I have these handy-dandy little earplugs I put in when she starts singing off-key or quoting Star Wars—they work wonders—and I’ve learned she has at least five different facial cues for when she’s asking me a question or merely filling the atmosphere with the sound of her own voice.”
I stared at him for a minute. “The things you say both terrify and enlighten me in so many ways.”
“Truth.” He clinked his wineglass with mine. “So guests should be pulling in. Should we get Reid down from his perch?”
“Yeah.”
“Reid!” Max yelled up at the tree. “You need to come down now.”
“It’s nice up here.”
“You’re not a bird,” Max said gently. “And you actually hate heights, so the minute those drugs wear off, which should be in about—”
“Holy shit!” Reid shouted. “Max, I’m in a tree.”
Jason came up behind me and looked up. “Someone should get him down.”
“I’m not going.” Max held up his hands. “I fell from a tree when I was five.”
“Well, I’m not going!” I shouted. “I have to get married!”
“Send Grandma,” Jason offered.
“Great.” I sneered. “Yes, let’s send your mentally unhinged grandmother up the tree. Surely that will get Reid to want to come down? If anything he’s going to keep going up until there’s nothing but air, say a prayer, and project his body from the highest branch in hopes of making it into the swimming pool without dying.”
Max looked at the tree, then at the pool. “To be fair, he’d probably make it.”
“Guys!” I yelled.
Mrs. Caro came running out of the house. “It’s almost time! Guests are arriving!”
“Aw, shit.” I looked at Reid as he clung to the tree branch. “Buddy, you think you can just slowly climb down?”
“Dude.” Reid shook his head. “I literally see five of you right now. I don’t even know where to put my hand, so even if you do climb up here to rescue me, I’m most likely going to grab ahold of something that doesn’t have fingers and we all know how uncomfortable that would be.”
Max choked on his laugh.
“You’re his brother.” I elbowed him.
“There are some things,” Max said in a sad voice, “that even brothers cannot help brothers with.”
“I take back what I said about you,” I grumbled, walking toward the ladder that led up to the tree.
“About me being smart?”
“You’re an ass.”
“I just love a good donkey ride,” Grandma’s voice said to my right. I swear to all that is holy the woman appeared out of freaking thin air.
“Grandma,” I sputtered. “Didn’t see you.”
“Shall I fetch the ass for you?” She leaned in and whispered, “I can get him out of that tree in a jiffy.”
“There will be no jiffying of any kind!” Reid shouted from the branch.
“What the hell kind of life have you lived, squirt?” Grandma yelled right back. “Jiffy don’t mean that!”
“She called me squirt,” Reid whimpered. “She kissed me and wants to take advantage of me and she called me squirt. I think . . . I think I’m scared again.”
“No more drugs!” Max scolded.
“Course not!” Grandma agreed. “That man’s as virile as a cactus! He doesn’t need drugs to perform!”
“A squirty cactus!” Reid repeated. “Forget it, Colt, I’m just going to fall, maybe a concussion will give me amnesia!”
“No!” I gently pushed Grandma away and started climbing the ladder. “I’m coming to get you!”
“Fine.” Reid peered around the branch. “But hurry up, I think I see ants.”
“Ants suck,” Max said in a helpful voice.
“I’m allergic,” Jason joined in. “I wanted an ant farm so bad when I was little.”
“I had one,” Max said in a dreamy voice. “When I was ten, I named the farm Max’s Ant Oasis. Good times. Good times.”
“Glad you two would have been friends!” I snapped as I reached the top of the ladder. “Okay, Reid, you have to grab ahold of my hand and get on the ladder with me. It will hold us both but you can’t make any sudden movements, okay?”
He nodded and reached for my hands.
“Almost there,” I said encouragingly, when I felt a jolt from the bottom of the ladder. Holy shit, Grandma was climbing up behind me. “Jason, Max, do something!”
Max and Jason ran toward the ladder as Grandma started to gain speed. Great, not the best time for her to suddenly develop a second wind.
“Reid, hurry!” I stretched my arm farther just as Reid grabbed hold of it. He slammed against my body, causing the ladder to bang against the tree and the branch to shake all over the place. But hey, he was safe, so what were a few bruises?
“That was close!” Reid looked down and laughed nervously.
“Shit!” Jason screamed from the bottom of the ladder. “Shit! Shit!”
“Look!” Max pointed at Jason’s neck. “Now you have your own ant farm!”
“They’re biting me!” Jason started scratching his neck and arms, then went running, arms flailing, straight for the pool. He jumped in, still screaming.
“Allergic to ants,” Max called up, reminding us. “He’ll be fine, we’ll get him some cream. All right, come on down, I’ve got the ladder. You too, Grandma.”
“Ah phooey.” Grandma climbed down. “I wanted to rescue Reid.”
“Reid’s dead,” Reid mumbled, then hung his head against me.
“Well drat,” Grandma sighed as she reached the ground. “That’s another one with a weak heart. Can’t have a weak heart in the bedroom. Just causes problems when yo
u want to Kama Sutra.”
“That sentence is going to haunt me for the rest of my life,” Reid whispered, his eyes still closed. “Freaking haunt me.”
“I had so many good ideas. I earmarked the pages.” Grandma continued to talk as Max led her away from Reid, who was very much alive, but I’m sure he was second-guessing that decision.
Once we reached the bottom of the tree, more guests had piled into the front yard a good distance from where we were.
“Go get ready, man.” Reid shrugged away from me. “I’ll turn on the twinkle lights so the effect is perfect.”
“I feel like if I leave you, she’ll find you,” I said, hesitating between wanting to get ready and wanting to protect the poor guy’s virtue.
“I’ll be fine.” Reid nodded, his eyes watery. “I’m doing this for you, you know.”
I reached for his arm. “And if she finds you . . .”
“If I perish . . .” he whispered, closing his eyes, “I perish.”
“Good man.”
With a firm nod, he pulled me in for a hug and walked off toward the outlet.
CHAPTER FORTY
MILO
“This is a really pretty dress.” I turned around in front of the mirror and couldn’t help but smile as the sweetheart neckline seemed to make my boobs look bigger. The entire bodice was see-through white lace except for a few strips of material around the front where my very perky boobs were pushed together, creating more cleavage than I’d ever seen in my entire life. The bottom of the dress billowed down to my feet, with a small section drawn up over my leg like a slit. It was the dress I would have chosen had I been given an unlimited amount of money. It was also the type of dress a girl wore for a wedding—not a vow renewal. Mom had said it was just something she’d picked up for the wedding “just in case.” The receipt had today’s date on it, which made me wonder, but I wasn’t going to say no to something so pretty.
I was going to enjoy it.
“You look beautiful.” Jenna fastened more bobby pins into the back of my low bun and pulled some pieces of hair forward, laying them softly against my face. “Perfect.” She sniffled.
“Are you crying?”
“No.” She sniffled again and looked away. “Just have mascara in my eye.”
“Look, Jenna.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry about . . .” Wait, I’d never actually done anything to her, I’d just thought those nasty things. “I’m sorry for having a bad attitude, it’s just I saw you with Colt and I assumed—”
Okay, she was full-on crying now. Her shoulders shook as she cried into her hands.
“Um, Jenna?”
“He doesn’t even recognize me!”
“Colton?”
“Jason!” she wailed. “He doesn’t even remember!”
“Remember . . . your face?” I offered, patting her on the back. “Or did something happen?”
She flushed and looked down at the floor.
“Jenna?”
“He slept with me.”
Well, crap. I opened my mouth, but really, I couldn’t think of anything to say that would make her tears stop flowing or get her to forgive my jackass of a brother. On second thought . . . “I can give him another black eye if you want?”
Jenna laughed. “Yeah, well, he deserves it.”
“Are you sure he doesn’t remember? I mean, I know we’re talking about the same Jason who had a Spiderman lunch box throughout eighth grade, but . . .”
“Don’t you think he would have said something?” Jenna looked up at me, her green eyes blurred with tears. “I mean, it’s not like we kissed and that was it.”
“Were you drunk?” I blurted.
“No!” She bit down on her lip. “Well, okay, I wasn’t, but he may have been slightly . . . inebriated.”
“Jenna, he’s a man. He’s also an ass. He’s an ass and a man.” I sighed. “You can’t really expect him to remember things if he’s drunk. That’s like letting a dog loose in a park, hiding a piece of meat, and expecting him to come back to you rather than eating the meat. He’s gonna find the meat, he’s gonna eat it, then he’s going to get tired, go to the bathroom, and take a nap.”
She shook her head. “What?”
“Never mind.” Clearly my analogies only worked on Max and Colt. Either that or I was hanging out with Max too much.
Ah, yes. It was the Max effect. Suddenly explaining serious life situations by way of Finding Nemo and crapping dogs seemed like an intelligent idea. Damn Max.
“Look.” I held her hands. “Would it help if I talked to him?”
“No!” Jenna’s eyes widened with terror. “Don’t you dare say a word! Swear to me—”
“It may help.”
Her eyes narrowed. “No offense, Milo, but I would never use your name and the word help in the same story, let alone the same paragraph or sentence, you get the picture?”
“Harsh.”
“Sometimes the truth is.” She smiled through her tears.
“You girls ready?” Mom busted through the doorway, hands on hips and a few red marks on her arms.
“Mom, what happened?”
“Ants.” She said it like a curse word. “Everywhere. Apparently our tree is infested.”
“Right,” I said slowly. “But how did they get on you?”
“Jason,” she said in that same irritated voice. “He has them in his pants.”
I leaned in and whispered to Jenna, “How’s that for karma?” Then I cleared my throat. “His balls are probably the size of watermelons, you must be so proud.”
“That child is a walking disaster. Oh, and I gave him Benadryl. Though I wasn’t aware he’d consumed so much alcohol. Max is absolutely certain Jason’s still breathing, so there’s that.”
I raised my hand. “Max isn’t a doctor.”
“No?” Mom asked. “Oh, well, he seemed so informed on the topic of allergic reactions.”
“One time Max shaved his head, took a vow of silence, and told people he was a Tibetan monk. Believe me, he can make anyone believe anything.”
Mom looked behind her, then back at me. “Should I be worried?”
“Did you get Colt? He’s a paramedic, you know.”
“Well, he was helping Reid out of the tree!” Mom threw her hands into the air. “What was I supposed to do?”
“The tree?” I repeated. “Why was Reid in the tree again?” Hadn’t that already happened?
“And that woman,” Mom spit, “will be the death of me!”
“Wait.” I shook my head. “I thought Jayne was gone!”
“Your grandmother,” Mom said crisply, “is either high on blood pressure pills or smoking hallucinogenic materials.”
“Mom.” I exhaled. “Calm down. It’s not like Grandma’s growing pot or something.” I laughed nervously, then made a mental note to check my grandma’s basement—the same basement she spent all her time in because, she claimed, it was temperature-controlled. Well, crap.
“I don’t have time to worry about this.” Mom smiled as she walked around me. “You look beautiful, and we can’t wait any longer. Let’s go.”
She grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hall. My dress swished as I moved with her. Where was Dad anyway? Maybe at the end of the aisle? I wasn’t really sure how a vow renewal ceremony went but—
My thoughts froze.
Lights. There were hundreds of lights in the giant oak trees; they looked like fireflies.
And the aisle? It had lanterns lining the white cloth runner as it led all the way up to Max and Colt.
Wait! Max and Colt?
Colt was beaming. Next to him were pillars with lights wrapped around them and then tulle wrapped above that, causing a canopy effect under the tree—it looked like a fairy book castle.
The music started.
I looked to my left.
With a wink my dad took my arm in his and whispered, “You look beautiful. I’m so proud to be giving you away.”
I opened my m
outh—but the wedding march started. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want answers.
I wanted to walk down the aisle.
Toward Colton.
Because if this was a dream—I never wanted to wake up.
And if it was real—I was going to enjoy it. Because the little boy who had slain all my dragons when I was little—had grown into a man.
And I loved him.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
COLTON
In all the years I’d played dragon slayer with her, in all those stolen moments when I’d pretended to be injured as I threw myself down onto the ground and my wooden sword clattered down the stairs—I’d always secretly wondered what it would be like to be kissed by the fair maiden.
To be rescued by her.
It’s funny: as a little boy I’d always had it in my mind that my job—my responsibility—was to run toward danger, show I was tough enough to withstand it, and then earn my reward.
But now, as I watched Milo emerge from the house and start walking toward me with her father, everything became so ridiculously clear that I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit and then smile at my bride.
Just because we’d stopped playing together when we were kids, didn’t mean I gave up my job of protecting her, of fighting danger.
There was the time her date abandoned her at her first dance and I stayed with her the entire night.
The moment she accidently crashed the car and I helped her fix everything before her parents found out.
The summer she almost drowned and I gave her mouth-to-mouth—only to find out later—when I was done freaking out—that I loved the feel of her lips against mine.
All her life—I’d been there. Sure, I’d hung up my sword and cape. She’d put her princess hat away.
But our relationship had never changed. The dynamics of who we were as friends had slowly been molded into what we would become as a couple.
A partnership where I imagined I was rescuing her—when in the end, she rescued me.
Just by smiling.
By breathing.
By trusting me.
By kissing me back.
She was mine as much as I was hers.
The music faded as Milo stopped in front of me, tears blurring her eyes, making them look that much more beautiful.