by Emma Hart
“Why?” she crowed. “Aren’t you having sex?”
This was why I didn’t do speeches.
“Moving on swiftly,” I said, ignoring her. I caught Adam laughing into his hand and shot him a glare before focusing out on the crowd. “First, let me start this by saying the entire Dunn family should pat ourselves on the back. Why? Because we’re all together, and nobody has gotten injured—”
“Yet!” Aunt Blythe yelled.
“Or drunk—”
“Yet!” she shouted again, holding up an empty Bloody Mary glass.
“Yet. Thanks, Aunt Blythe.” I raised my glass in her direction, and she nodded, putting one wrinkled thumb in the air for me. “As I was saying. Nobody is injured, drunk, or fighting. Yet,” I added before she could do it for me. “So, we’re doing good. And as long as someone keeps an eye on Grandpa and Aunt Blythe near the bar, we should make it the whole night!”
Mild protests from Grandpa and Aunt Blythe rumbled through the laughter of everyone else.
“Anyway, to be serious, because apparently I have to do that, when Rosie asked me to be her maid of honor and she realized that meant I’d have to get up here and do this, she had three rules.” I caught my sister’s wide eyes. “The first was that I couldn’t get up here and tell you about the time she accidentally dropped her curling iron on the cat, and that’s why Sir Socks had a bald patch on his tail for the rest of his life.”
Rosie covered her face.
“The second rule was that I was not allowed to mention the time she snuck out after curfew and ripped her pants on the window which was, to my delight, the reason she got caught. She’d gotten dressed in the dark and was wearing Mom’s pants. After she tried to blame the rip on a honey badger, she had to ‘fess up.”
“I’m going to kill you!” Rosie shouted, wriggling against Mark’s hold.
I grinned. “You knew better than to make me do this.”
“What’s the third?” Uncle Dave yelled.
“The third rule was that I was absolutely, one-hundred percent not allowed to tell you all that her obsession with N-SYNC was so extensive that when she was sixteen, she came home drunk and slept with her life-size cardboard cut-out of Justin Timberlake.”
Now that drew laughs from everyone.
Everyone except my sister whose cheeks were the brightest shade of red I’d ever seen.
“And I was also told not to tell you there were rules, but I guess I really messed that one up,” I smirked at her. “Sorry, Ro. But this is my revenge for that time you told Darren Fowler that the cold sore on my lip was herpes.”
Rosie stopped, pursed her lips, then shrugged. “Fair enough.”
I laughed. “Okay, but, seriously, I’m up here for a reason and that isn’t to air all your secrets. I have to save some for your anniversaries, birthdays, and general sibling blackmail, after all.”
Another light laugh went through the crowd.
“So, Ro, Mark…” I turned to them. “I can honestly say that I never once doubted this day would come. Of all the people I’ve ever seen fall in love, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone love each other as much as the two of you do. So as much as I mess with you both, I know that nobody on this beach is happier for you than I am. You’re a true fairytale, and if I’m ever loved with half the passion you love each other, I’ll count myself very lucky. Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Perkins. May you be together forever. And, if not, I know how to hide a body. Lookin’ at you, Mark.”
I raised my glass to my brother-in-law and sister to toast them. They were both grinning, and Mark was laughing his ass off at me.
Well. That didn’t go too badly.
I stepped off the chair to the sound of people toasting them and cheering.
I did it. And I was still alive. And I hadn’t thrown up.
Bonus.
“Well, that wasn’t too bad,” Adam said, wrapping one arm around me and pulling me against his side. “You didn’t slip, fall, or make a complete fool out of yourself.”
“You could at least pretend to hide your surprise,” I muttered, sliding an arm around his back.
“I could, but then you’d call me out for lying.”
“Maybe. Maybe I would have pretended that I didn’t notice.” I shrugged and finished my drink.
“I think that’s a lie.”
I rolled my eyes because it totally was. There was no way I wouldn’t call him out. Mostly because I, too, was surprised I’d done it without screwing it up.
Mom climbed up onto the chair, mic in hand, and waved her hand to get everyone’s attention. “Hi, hi! Thank you, everyone. The beach has been cleared and the dance floor installed. It’s time for the first dance, so if everyone could head back down, that’d be perfect. Thank you.”
Adam took my glass and put it on the nearest table. “Come on. Your mom will have a cow if you aren’t there at the front.”
I watched as my dad guided my mom carefully down the dance floor. “I think the only thing my mom needs to have is a glass of water.”
She slipped and giggled, gripping onto Dad’s shirt.
Adam snorted. “That, too.”
***
I bit my lip and buried my face in Adam’s chest. His shoulders shook, and the rumble of his laugh in my ear sent chills down my spine.
“Really?” he asked. “You really hid a snake in her bed?”
“No, a snakeskin,” I corrected him. “And that was only because she’d put a rabbit’s foot in my bed.”
“Why would you do that?”
I pulled back from him and shrugged. “I don’t even remember how it started. I think it was with a dare that went wrong and we ended up trying to best the other.”
“Who won?”
“Me, obviously.” I rolled my eyes and rested my cheek against his chest.
The sun was almost completely set now. The sky was a mix of inky blue and deep red, but the beach and surrounding area was lit up by lanterns. The dance floor itself was alight, changing colors every few seconds. Adam and I had long given up trying to get onto it, so now we were on the outside of the dancing group, slowly swaying to the music.
“Want to go sit somewhere?” he asked me softly.
I nodded. I’d been able to ignore the fact this was our last night thanks to the hectic nature of getting to the wedding, and then the actual wedding itself, but now, dancing with him…I couldn’t.
And there was this little hollow pit in my stomach that wouldn’t let me forget it now, either.
Adam slipped his fingers between mine and led me down the beach. We walked until we could barely hear the music from the speakers at the bar and we were in almost total darkness. It was amazingly peaceful, and I was thankful for it. The low hum of the wedding in the background served as little more than white noise when it was combined with the gentle crashing of waves against the sand.
We dropped down to the sand, and I leaned back on my arms. Adam loosened his tie until he was able to pull it over his head and toss it to the side. Neither of us said a word for a minute, and when he leaned back on his arms, too, his fingers brushed mine.
“So you pranked each other all the time?” he asked.
I nodded, looking out at the ocean that was now starting to be illuminated by the almost-full moon. “As long as I can remember. They weren’t cruel pranks—”
“I dunno. The snakeskin thing is pretty cruel.”
“She did the rabbit foot first. When you up the stakes, don’t be annoyed when someone else does the same.” I shrug a shoulder. “It wasn’t my fault I broke her curling iron.”
“I feel like all the fights you had as teens were based on curling irons.”
“Pretty much. Didn’t your sisters fight over stuff like that?”
He tilted his head to the side. “I don’t know. I ignored them for most of the time. They usually argued over clothes or boys or who used all the hot water in the shower. It took them two years to realize it was me, because while they were fighting
over who got to use the main bathroom first, I was using it.”
I laughed. “Been there, done that. Bathroom time is no joke. Once, I got in there before Rosie did when she had a date, so she turned the hot water off halfway through my shower. I had to get out with shampoo still in my hair because she refused to turn it on.”
“Oh no. I think I know where this is going.”
“She didn’t count on the fact that, if she’d just let me finish in the shower, she’d have had hot water, too.”
Adam shook his head. “How did you two survive your teen years? Seriously?”
“She moved out at eighteen to go to college.” I snorted. “And I got the bathroom all to myself.”
“How are you so close now?”
“We don’t live anywhere near each other. It works. We talk all the time, and I always take Rory for weekends to go to Disney and Universal, but we don’t actually see each other all the time.” I turned my head to look at him. “Are you close to your sisters?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s kind of the same as you. They’re scattered all over the country, so we make time to see each other if I’m in town for a game. That’s about it, except for Christmas when the entire family drops back in at my parents’ house and I end up with houseguests.”
“Ouch. I’d hate it if my sister had to stay with me. Partly because I don’t have a spare room, and partly because, well, I’d hate to share my apartment with her.”
He laughed. “I don’t mind it. I get to hang out with the kids and have fun. I don’t get to do that often.”
“Because you travel so much?”
He nodded. “It’s hard. Why do you think I’m single?”
“I dunno. I assumed you had a really bad habit. Like biting your toenails or something.”
His lips twisted to the side.
“But the traveling thing does make more sense,” I agreed.
It was also the perfect explanation for ending this, both in real life and in our fake relationship.
“Not everyone can deal with it. It’s hard. If I’m in a city where one of my sisters lives, I might not go home for two or three weeks.” He dropped back to his elbows and sighed. “My team is my family. Most women aren’t ready to deal with what is, for a good seven months of the year, a long-distance relationship. The stress and the trust… Not everyone wants to find a way to cope with it.”
The way he said it almost sounded like a warning. Like he wanted me to know just how hard it was, and while the idea that he was warning me made my heart skip, it also made my stomach sink.
I wasn’t that person. I knew that. I was impatient, and I could be needy. I couldn’t even have a long-distance relationship with my bed, never mind a human being I cared for.
And trust—he said that like he had experience with it. Like he’d either been hurt, or someone hadn’t trusted him.
The sad thing was I doubted Adam would ever be a person to break trust.
It would be women around him.
Let’s face it. I didn’t trust women. Women were bitches. And, since I was a woman, I had that fact on very good authority.
“Do you ever get lonely?” I asked him, sitting up and turning to face him.
“Lonely-lonely or…”
“Like, feelings. Relationship lonely.”
“Sometimes. Some of the other guys are married, or their girlfriends or whatever fly out to see them. If we have a break where we can go home, it sucks sometimes knowing I’m going home to an empty house.”
“Do you wish you could change it?”
“Sure. I wish there was someone who liked me for who I am and could deal with me being away as much as I am.” His eyes met mine. “But that’s harder to find than you’d think.”
I swallowed, glancing away quickly. “I bet.”
“It’s not so bad. I tend to meet someone every now and then, but it never goes anywhere. I think of them like diamonds in the rough. Of course, I’m still looking for the diamond this summer, but…”
I smacked his leg, laughing. “You’re a dick. Seriously.”
He lay down flat on the sand and motioned for me to lie down with him. I did, resting my head on his chest. I could feel the beating of his heart beneath my cheek, and I briefly closed my eyes.
“Is it crazy,” he said softly, “If I said that a part of me wished we didn’t agree this was only for this weekend?”
“Absolutely,” I said in a voice that was stronger than my own conviction.
No. It wasn’t crazy.
A part of me damn well wished it, too.
“You think?”
“Yeah. It’s all perfect here, isn’t it? When there’s structure to the days and things to do. Honestly, in real life, I’d probably bore you. My life is terribly unexciting.”
“You. Poppy Dunn. Boring? I don’t believe you.”
“Seriously. I’d frustrate the crap out of you,” I insisted. “I’m awful at going to bed at a decent hour thanks to a minor addiction to murder shows on Netflix. I have a long-standing battle with Avery’s asshole cat whenever he decides to show up. I’m late for just about everything, including work, which is why I’m scheduled to start fifteen minutes before my actual shift does.”
His upper body shook as he laughed quietly.
“I have a standing order to pay the rent to Avery the day after I get paid or I’d forget. I’m not allowed to touch the vacuum because I break them all the time. I don’t even think I know how to use the dishwasher correctly. I just kind of jab at buttons and hope for the best.”
More laughter.
“So, really, I’m a dreadful adult. That’s why I’m single. I’m not the put-together girl everyone wants to take home to their mom. Suzy Homemaker I am not.”
He tightened his arm around my waist, still laughing. “See, now it begs the question how I can be so damn attracted to someone who is, literally, my total opposite.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Perfect.”
“Hey, I have my faults, too. They just don’t make me look anywhere near as cute as yours do.”
“My faults don’t make me cute.”
“No, but the way you list them off as reasons not to like you makes you cute.”
“Ugh. Whatever.” I rolled my eyes. “What are your faults?”
“All right.” He moved his hand and played with my hair. “I have to pay someone to do my laundry because I can never do it correctly. I can’t remember anyone’s birthdays, ever. My mom set up a Google calendar for me, so I’ll get a notification three days before any birthday or anniversary.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. That was cute.
“I work too much. I’m the first one in the gym and the last one out, even if it’s supposed to be a day off. I worry too much about the other guys on my team. I don’t know how to switch my brain off. I’m determined to be the best, even though one day it could cost me.”
“See, the calendar thing? That’s cute. I’d pay someone to do my laundry if I could.” I tilted my head back. “And working hard isn’t exactly a bad thing. Maybe you do need to slow down, but you’ll do that when you’re ready. You’re determined, and that’s not really a fault.”
“Depends how you look at it. I wouldn’t say having a long-standing feud with your roommate’s cat is a fault, because, let’s face it, cats are fucking assholes.”
“And Spike is the biggest asshole of them all,” I agreed. “I guess you’re right. I don’t see you being determined as a fault. I really don’t. And you will slow down one day. You’ll have to.”
“Mm. Maybe I’ll slow down when I find someone worth slowing down for.” He kissed the top of my head. “You wanna go for a swim?”
“Now?”
“No, next week. Of course now.”
“I don’t have a suit with me.”
“Do I look like I’m wearing swimming shorts under these pants?”
“Adam, I’m not even wearing a bra.” I sat up and gave him a stern look. “Just panties.”
“Red,” he sighed, sitting up. “If you’re trying to convince me that swimming in our underwear is a bad idea, you’re failing miserably.”
Jesus, Poppy. Live a little. Go swimming in your panties with the hot guy.
CHAPTER NINETEEN – POPPY
Seaweed and Sharkbait
I rolled my eyes. “Do you think they can see us?”
Adam looked over at the party. “I don’t think they even know we disappeared.”
“Aunt Blythe is probably halfway to hammered and dancing,” I said, noticing a lot of people around the dance floor.
“Sorry to miss that.”
“No, really, you’re not,” I assured him. “It’s scarring. I’ll never recover from the time she flashed everyone her thong.”
“I take it back. I’m not sorry at all.” Laughing, he undid the buttons of his shirt and shrugged it off his shoulders.
Carefully, I removed my beach shoes as he kicked his shiny ones off. I turned away from him and twisted my arm to undo the zip at the back of my dress.
Why were dresses made like this? Not only were we denied pockets, but you had to be a freaking contortionist to get the damn things off.
You wouldn’t give a man a shirt with buttons on the back, would you?
No, you wouldn’t.
Equality my ass.
Adam chuckled, stepping behind me. “I got it.”
“Thanks.” I pulled down the thin straps and immediately used my arm to cover my boobs.
Adam snorted, but he didn’t say anything as he took my free hand and led us down to the water. It didn’t take us long to get down there, and I gasped as the water rolled over my feet. It wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t anywhere near as warm as I was expecting it to be.
“It’s not cold,” Adam said, stepping in front of me and dragging me into the water.
“Slow! Slow! Oh my God.”
“It’s not cold.” He let go of me and walked farther back into the water. “It’s nice.”
Tentatively, I took a few steps forward.
“Stop being a wimp, or I’ll throw you in the water,” he threatened me.
