by Ali Dean
“Are the ‘what-ifs’ about me? Do you think I’ll hurt you again?”
“That brings me to my other epiphany,” I say, turning to face him now. “See, I’ve always had this weird feeling about Clayton. He made me uneasy and I couldn’t pinpoint why, but I didn’t trust him. He’d never done anything specifically to me that would cause me to be wary of him. At least, nothing I was aware of. But it was just this feeling.”
Jace’s hand is squeezing mine hard, and I realize I need to get to the point to put him out of his misery. “And with you, it’s somehow the opposite. My gut feelings for you are good ones, and I get all happy when I’m with you even though I know I shouldn’t. Even though you’ve given me a lot of reasons not to trust you, I can’t help but trust you anyway.”
“You trust me?”
“Of course I do. Can’t you see that?”
“But you’ve been different with me. Not as open. And with Veronica – you believed her, didn’t you? Until Clayton told you he set it up.”
“No, I don’t think I ever believed her, Jace. And I’ve tried to keep you at a distance because I was afraid you’d hurt me, but I’ve always trusted you.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You’re saying you didn’t trust me not to hurt you.”
“Okay, yeah, maybe that part is right, but I trust you in every other way.”
Jace closes his eyes briefly, and he looks anguished, but I don’t understand why. Aren’t I delivering good news, the news he’s been hoping to hear?
“What will it take for you to trust me in every way?”
“I don’t know. Time, I guess. I suppose I’ve still been angry with you, and I think I’m letting that go, too, especially now that I think I actually want to let it go. It’s been a little bit of a protective armor, maybe, keeping me safe from you.” We both chuckle at that for some reason.
“You thought anger would protect you from me?” he teases, but I won’t let us get off track. I’ve got a point to make.
“What I’m saying is that I want to get there. It won’t happen right away, but it will eventually, and I’m willing to work through it. I don’t think we can go back to where we were before Annie left, but maybe if we work through it we’ll get to an even better place someday.”
And that’s enough for now, apparently, because Jace decides we’ve had enough talking for the night, and I’m right there with him.
Chapter Forty-One
Jace
She had said it would take time, but her epiphanies had definitely made her open up more, and Pepper was being honest with me about everything again. Her fears and hopes for upcoming Nationals, her hesitations about Bunny getting married, the developments in her friends’ relationships. She was happiest when her friends were happy, but I could tell she had been carrying some loneliness with her too. We both had, and now that she was “going for it” with our relationship again, I know I felt lighter and I think she was more carefree too.
That could’ve just been because the Clayton/Wolfe saga was resolved. Or at least resolving. Wolfe had shown up at the Denver police station the day after he told me about Clayton. Pepper didn’t recant her testimony, but when he said he’d been paid by Clayton to essentially act out the whole thing, he wasn’t charged with attempted kidnapping or sexual assault because he didn’t have the intent to actually do any of that. I didn’t end up turning over any of the other evidence I had on him because who knows, I might still need to use it someday. Wolfe pleaded guilty to assault and got some time, but Clayton’s case is still underway. It goes back to Savannah Hawkins’s case, and if he can’t work out a deal, there might be a trial. No one wants that. Not the Rockies, and definitely not me or Pepper. We’d have to testify and so would Frankie and possibly others. A lot of the story had been kept under wraps, but enough of it had leaked to get some media attention. If it went to trial, it would be the media story of the year, nationwide most likely.
But it was like Pepper said – shit would come our way, it always did, and we were going to roll with it, together, when it hit. In the past, it seemed like we were always wondering if we could make it, especially when shit hit the fan, but she was right when she said it was time to stop hesitating and second-guessing and just go for it. I was hoping she could do that today at Nationals on the course, and then again later, with me.
Chapter Forty-Two
Pepper
“I can’t believe I’m warming down with an All-American,” Jace says. We’re jogging around the course after the race, just the two of us. He showed up in running clothes, and insisted on jogging with me.
“Well, technically I already warmed down with my teammates and I’m just humoring you.”
“I wanted to see what it was like to run the course,” he insists. When we get to the top of a hill in the woods, he tugs me to the side of the trail behind a tree for a kiss. “I’m so proud of you, Pepper.”
“It’s a good feeling, and I’m so glad you were able to come watch. I can hear you when you’re cheering. Did you know that?”
“Yeah, because you always get this real determined look on your face and start passing people,” he says smugly.
I roll my eyes. “You’re so full of yourself. Come on, I don’t want to miss the award ceremony.” I’d only needed to place in the top twenty-five to get All-American, but I’d finished third. Next year, I’d go for the win.
“Hang on, I’ve just got to ask you one thing first, but you can answer whenever you want, okay?”
“Okaaay,” I say uncertainly, wondering what game he’s playing. But then he bends down on one knee and I think he’s going to fix his shoelace or something until he reaches into his waistband and holds out a ring.
I’m frowning, confused. Did he just find that somewhere, or…? Wait, no way.
“Will you marry me, Pepper Jones?”
“What, now?” I’m incredulous. We’re so young, and he’s graduating, and we’re only just figuring things out again.
He doesn’t waver though. “I’d do it today, if you wanted, but I’ll wait as long as you want. Just don’t make me wait too long, okay?”
“You’re proposing to me,” I stammer stupidly.
He smiles, still on one knee, holding the ring between his fingers. “You need to know you’re it for me. You have been for a really long time, and that’s not going to change. Whether you start wearing this ring now or in ten years, or twenty, but I hope not, I’m going to be in love with everything about you. I want all the crazy that comes our way to be together. I want you by my side no matter how my football career pans out, and I want to be there for you when you chase your dreams racing. I know what I want and I know it’s you.”
“Did you practice that?” I murmur. “It’s really nice.” Eloquent, even, and I want to etch each word into my memory. I’m trying to memorize this image of him on one knee in a patch of leaves, the wind swirling around us, but my emotions take hold and I throw myself at him, knocking him on his back. I grab the ring from him and slide it onto my finger and then hold his head in my hands and say, “Yes.”
I’m grinning like a maniac when I accept my third place finish and All-American award thirty minutes later. I want to wave a flag in the air that announces my newly engaged status, but I settle for telling my teammates, who react quite appropriately, jumping and squealing and tackling me in their excitement.
Gran was definitely in the know because she’s beaming when I find her after the award ceremony. “You don’t really have to share your wedding day with me, dear, I just wanted to get you thinking on the right track,” she says.
“We’ll see.” This summer sounds good to me. “I think we’d look pretty awesome walking down the aisle together though, Bunny Barker.”
“Stop calling me that! I’ll always be a Jones.”
“I won’t. This time next year, I’ll be Pepper Wilder.”
Jace comes up to me then and lifts me in the air. “Pepper Wilder. That sounds like trouble to me,” he says
, but his voice is gentle and filled with awe when he sets me back down, and for the briefest moment, I see the future Jace and Pepper, chasing kids around Shadow Lane. I’d never let my imagination go that far before, but now, I’m able to see every bit of my happily ever after with clarity.
Gran throws together an engagement party as soon as the semester ends. She’s been a whirlwind of energy since Nationals, talking nonstop about wedding dresses, wedding cakes, wedding shoes, and, well, weddings. My wedding, to be exact. I’m hoping after she throws this engagement party she’ll settle down a bit, but I think I’d better have this wedding sooner rather than later or Gran will have way too much time to plan, which might not be a good thing.
Jace and I finish getting dressed and leave his bedroom to head over to the party with Frankie and Lizzie, who jump up from the couch when they see us.
“Veronica got kicked out!” Lizzie exclaims.
Frankie’s smiling and shaking his head. “You’d think Lizzie would be satisfied with her getting kicked off the team, but I guess the girl deserved expulsion too.”
Right before soccer playoffs, the coaches received an anonymous email with videos and photos of Veronica snorting cocaine, and a suggestion that she should be tested before representing the school in varsity athletics. She was kicked off the team a few days later.
“She was expelled for using cocaine?” I ask. That seems a bit harsh, given that a lot of college students do drugs.
“No, for cheating in not one, but two different classes,” Lizzie says. “She used to brag about it. It was bound to catch up with her.”
“Did you have any reason to dislike her before she pretended to hook up with Jace?” I ask Lizzie, who’s never seemed particularly malicious before, though I can’t say I’m disappointed that Veronica got kicked out for doing something that she deserved to get kicked out for.
“She’s always trying to hook up with the guys on campus with serious girlfriends.” Lizzie pauses. “You thought I didn’t know, Franklin, but she was always throwing herself at you, and you were sick of it. You can thank me now, sweetie.” She reaches up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek, and when he blushes, I smile. That girl can always make Frankie melt, and seeing a guy that large turn beet red is priceless.
“I knew I’d put the right girl on the job.” Jace leans forward to fist-bump with Lizzie.
“Wait, Lizzie, I never asked you about what you meant when you saw Veronica leaving the apartment back in late October. Do you remember that?”
Lizzie’s eyes narrow. “Hell, yes. I’d left the apartment open for a minute to switch a load of laundry in the basement and she must have been watching or something, waiting for an opportunity. I thought she was after Frankie, and I didn’t find out about her evil plot with Clayton until after the two of you got back together. I’m sorry about that. I totally could have helped explain those shenanigans if I’d known.”
“It was stupid. I never really believed it, to be honest,” I admit. Jace wraps his arms around my waist and lifts me in the air. “Hang on,” I say through giggles. “I want to know what you meant when you asked her what she was up to ‘this time.’ Had she tried getting into the apartment before?”
Frankie and Lizzie nod in unison. “Yep,” Frankie says. “Once before, Lizzie and I were coming out of my room and caught her coming in the front door, which we’d left open. The girl had been hitting on me, man,” Frankie says to Jace, “so I didn’t tell you. Didn’t think it was about you. Sorry.”
“Forgiven,” Jace says with an ease that still seems uncharacteristic. But he’s gotten his revenge, and he’s got me, so really, what is there to be upset about anymore? Our past is just that: the past.
I tug Jace’s hand. “We’re going to be late for our own party.”
Gran’s throwing our engagement party at the Brockton senior center, where she has “connections” and was able to rent out the auditorium. She told me the other day that it’s not easy finding a place that can hold over a hundred guests, and when she saw my reaction, she quickly backtracked, pretending like she’d only invited “twenty people or so.” Right. Whatever, if Gran wants to invite every person I’ve ever known in Brockton, that’s cool with me. Jace doesn’t seem to mind either. Though it does make me wonder how many people she’s planning to invite to the actual wedding.
“I think the last time I was here was with you, Jace,” I comment as we pull into the parking lot.
“Uh, yeah, that was a traumatizing experience. You mean when Gran and Lulu dragged us to Bingo with them, right?”
“Well, it was really you who they wanted to bring. They’d promised some of their friends they could meet you,” I remind him. “Didn’t one woman in her nineties give you her phone number?”
“Two, actually. Dottie and Marge. They said I should call if I was looking for any work fixing stuff. But they were winking. It was really disturbing.”
Lizzie and Frankie burst out laughing. “You remember their names, though!” Lizzie teases.
Jace shakes his head. “Those two were hard to forget.”
We’re still laughing about Dottie and Marge hitting on Jace when we step inside the auditorium. I pause in the entryway, and Jace takes my hand. The Bingo room has been transformed. Red and orange paper lanterns hang from the ceiling, and the tables are covered with matching polka-dotted tablecloths. The place looks amazing, and I find myself twirling around as I walk forward, taking it all in.
“Whoa,” Lizzie says what we’re all thinking. “If Bunny did all this for the engagement party, I can’t even imagine what she’s got in store for the wedding day.”
“I knew the woman liked to party, but damn, she really knows how to plan one, too, huh?” Frankie says, eyeing a table in the far corner that appears to be adorned with cupcakes.
“Where is everyone?” Jace asks, and I realize for the first time that it’s empty. We were told the party started at seven, and it’s almost eight.
Just then, Gran storms in from the other end of the auditorium, and I blink several times as I take in her dress. Really, it’s a gown. A red polka-dotted one with ruffles. She and I have always shared a love for polka dots, but wow, this dress is bold, even for Gran.
“You could have told me about the plan to coordinate outfits with the decorations!” I call out to her as she skips our way.
“About time!” she squeals. “People will be here any minute!”
“About that,” I begin.
“Well, here’s the thing,” Gran jumps in. “This isn’t just your engagement party. See, it’s also my wedding.”
“What?!” all four of us exclaim in unison.
“I didn’t want you fussing about it, and I want your wedding day to be your own,” Gran says defensively, clearly having prepared herself for an outburst.
“Bernadette Jones! You planned your wedding to Wallace without telling me! You tricked me!” I’m not sure why I’m angry with her, probably because she didn’t let me help her at all.
“You had Nationals, and then finals, and really, I had so much fun. It’s like a warm-up for your wedding! I’ve got so many great ideas. You know, cupcakes are really in these days, instead of a traditional wedding cake. And if you want to go with a polka-dotted theme, you can find all kinds of things on the internet without using the same stuff I did,” she babbles.
“Gran.” I try for a serious voice. “I’m mad at you.”
“You can’t be mad at me! It’s my wedding day!” she declares, throwing up her hands dramatically.
“You’re getting married on a Friday night?” Jace asks.
“Yep. Just a five-minute ceremony and then on to the party. Did you know that Wallace has friends in a rock band? We got special permission from the senior center to stay open until midnight. Hope you’ve got some energy for dancing!” Gran giggles like a little girl, and it’s contagious. “I’ve got my dancing shoes on!” She pulls up her gown to reveal polka-dotted high top sneakers and ruffled socks.
“Bunny, you’ve got some serious style. You could probably start your own fashion line,” Lizzie says, and as far as I can tell, she’s dead serious about it.
“Yeah.” Gran points her toe as she displays her shoes. “I’ve thought about that. Maybe I’ll start with one of those pinned or poked interest pages. Lulu’s got one of them.”
“Are you talking about me?” Lulu, Gran’s equally zany best friend, bustles in, her hair a blazing orange with a red stripe in the front. It changes colors monthly these days.
“Sure am,” Gran says happily.
“All right, let’s do this!” Lulu shouts, throwing a fist in the air, like we’re about to start a football game or something.
“Lulu’s marrying us,” Gran explains. “We just need Wally.”
“Right now?” I ask, suddenly inexplicably anxious. Gran’s getting married! I didn’t even get to prepare myself emotionally, or write a speech, or get them a gift.
“I’m here!” calls Wallace, entering from the door at the other end of the gym.
“I got my license to marry you, and the party’s starting in four minutes,” Lulu says with a glance at her watch. “Get your booty over here.”
Wallace is also dressed for the occasion, with a cowboy hat, polka-dotted suspenders and a bow tie. “Check out his shoes,” Gran murmurs with a nudge. “He wanted to wear his cowboy boots but I convinced him we should match.” Sure enough, Wallace’s high tops are the same as Gran’s, minus the ruffled socks.
As soon as Wallace reaches us, Lulu is asking questions that she reads off a sheet, Gran is bouncing on her toes and answering them, while Wallace holds her hands and repeats his vows dutifully. The rings are exchanged, there’s a sweet kiss, and just like that, I’ve got a new grandfather. I briefly wonder what I should call him now, but then people are arriving, and I’ve got no time to process that boom, bang, Gran is a married woman again.
