by McClung, Amy
When he opened the back room, my heart stopped as the people inside said, "Surprise, Gracie!" The room was decorated in beautiful white lights hanging from the ceiling.
My friends were all standing around, and in the middle of them was Ashton, in a suit. My breath caught in my throat at how handsome he looked. He stepped forward and motioned me inside. "What's going on?"
Ashton stepped forward. "Gracie Walker, this is the spot where we first met. The spot that I first laid eyes on my happily ever after. Since that evening, you've been in my thoughts, my dreams, my heart. There are no words to express the full worth of your love. There is only one thing you can do to make me even happier than I am right now."
He knelt down on one knee and took my hand in his. "Will you make me the happiest man on earth and marry me?" I began to cry.
Cameron snapped, "Girlfriend do not mess up that flawless face with tears!"
I laughed and bent down cupping Ashton's face in my palms. "There is nothing I want more in this life, than to be your wife."
The ring he slipped on my finger was white gold with a princess cut diamond. It was elegant but simple.
"This was my mother's engagement ring. She gave it to me to pass on to the woman I wanted to spend forever with."
He swept me up into his arms and spun me around. I held my arm straight out, gazing at my hand as we spun.
Ashton sat me down and said, "You look amazing tonight, Gracie. You always look amazing."
A slow song began to play. Cameron cleared his throat and motioned to the speakers so we understood our cue.
Ashton took me to the middle of the room; he wrapped his arms around me. The song To Make You Feel My Love played. "This is the song we danced to that day."
He grinned "Appropriate isn’t it?"
With his head leaning against mine, we swayed to the music. Ashton moved his hand to the middle of my back and slowly dipped me backwards. He leaned forward, trailing his lips along my skin as he pulled me back to him. I bit my lip and smiled when our eyes met. His mouth moved to mine, kissing me softly.
My arms tightened around his neck, pulling him into an embrace. He rested his head on my shoulder. I glanced over at Gavin and Cameron as they danced together.
I loved seeing them dancing together, without fear of being judged. That's why I especially enjoyed hanging out in this club; everyone was accepted here regardless of his or her sexual orientation.
After the dance, the four of us sat down to eat dinner. Angel agreed to take Mary Jane back to the hospital. "How long have you planned this day?" I asked Ash.
"We were going to all meet here tonight, then everything happened. Derrick wanted to be here. I was going to postpone, but he insisted I didn’t. Cameron and I planned it a few nights ago. There is something else we wanted to talk to you about."
Ashton and Cameron exchanged a brief look.
Cameron took my hand. "This is a good thing. I see that you have your freaked out face on, so I wanted to start with that."
I laughed. "I was freaked out. Go on." With his free hand, Cameron reached for Gavin.
"I agreed to move in with Gavin."
I squealed as Cameron finished his sentence. "That is fantastic!" I hugged him excitedly.
"That isn’t the best part. Gavin swayed my decision by proposing to me."
I gasped. "You mean?"
He nodded. "Yep, we're going to New York next month to get married."
I flung myself over both of them hugging them enthusiastically. "You guys! I'm so happy for you!"
"We want you and Ash to come with us, as our witnesses." I began to cry.
Cameron scoffed, "Gracie, you're gonna ruin your makeup on my big moment!"
I laughed. "Oh shut up!" I pulled his face to mine and kissed him.
Ashton spoke up next. "So, Gracie what would you think about getting married in New York as well?"
Cameron smiled. "Wouldn’t it be great? We could have a double wedding." It did sound amazing, but also expensive.
"A trip to New York will be expensive enough, but…"
Cameron covered my mouth. "My treat. No argument. Ashton and I have discussed this already." Angel walked in a few minutes later with a dress bag. She handed a card over to Ashton.
"What is that?" I asked.
Angel smiled. "Your dress."
I looked at Ash who was putting his credit card away. "You bought me a dress?"
Angel laughed. "Not just a dress..the dress. Gracie, this man is the best guy I've ever met. He set it up for me to take you shopping today so you'd find a dress you love. He gave me his credit card and said to buy it, no matter what it cost."
I moved to sit in Ashton's lap. "You…I have no words." I pressed my lips against his, his hands slid around my waist.
He said, "I like that better than words. Are you happy?"
I nodded. "Happy? No. I'm on top of the world."
Chapter Thirty
The next few weeks were full of revelations and announcements that would mean even more changes coming in the lives of myself and my friends.
The first announcement came during a girls day out with Mary Jane and Angel. When I arrived at the restaurant, the girls were seated and sipping from frozen two-for-one margaritas. "Hey bitches, where's mine?"
They smiled as the waitress came over. "I just need your ID and I will bring them right out for you." She glanced at my driver's license. Satisfied that I was of age, she brought my two-for-one drinks within a few minutes.
I took a long sip of my drink and sat back with a sigh. "Mmm, delish. So ladies, we haven’t done one of these days in a while!" They exchanged a glance. My bottom lip came out as I exhaled a large puff of air. "This isn’t just a fun day is it?"
Mary Jane shook her head. "I have an announcement." She handed me a letter.
After skimming the details I exclaimed, "MJ, this is awesome; it says you’ve been accepted into the engineering program for Disney. That is amazing! This is what you wanted!”
She nodded and sniffed. “Yep, it is. I move to Florida in two weeks to get started.”
I felt a pang in my chest at those words. “Two weeks?”
She nodded again. “I know, it’s fast. I’ll be there for two years.”
I felt tears sting my eyes. I swiped at my cheeks. “Well we’ll just have to come visit a lot.” She smiled sadly, and then it hit me. “Derrick?”
I placed my hand over hers on the table, “What happened when you told Derrick? Are you guys going to try the long distance thing?”
She shook her head. “No. I won’t ask him to wait for me, I broke things off.”
I glanced at Angel who nodded slightly. “What did he say?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t give him time to respond. I called him, broke the news, broke up with him, and came here.”
I sat back. "I see. Two weeks, I can't believe it. Wait…"
Mary Jane knew the realization I had come to before I finished. "I won't be at your wedding. My orientation is that week. Cameron promised he would have it videoed and sent to me, though. I hate that I will miss your weddings."
I slumped in my chair. "Me too. I'm happy for you, I really am. I'm going to miss you so very much, sweetie."
Turning to Angel, I said, "I guess that means you and I will need to plan trips to Florida! Hanging out on the beach, sipping margaritas, I can handle that."
Angel exchanged a look with Mary Jane. I sighed again. "Now what was that look about?"
Angel spoke up this time. "With Mary Jane moving away and you moving in with Ash, I can't afford the house on my own. MJ and I were talking, and I've decided to move to Florida with her. It's where I grew up, I kind of miss it, and I can use a change of scenery."
I rested my elbows on the table and put my head in my hands as I sighed sadly. "What am I gonna do without my girls?"
Angel smiled and patted my hand. "You still have Cameron, he's a better girlfriend than MJ and I combined!" We all laughed.
; "So you won't be at the wedding either?" I asked.
Angel smiled. "Sweetie, of course I will. Mary Jane has work; I'm going to wait till after the wedding to move down."
My phone beeped with a text from Ash.
Derrick is here, can you bring MJ by after lunch without being obvious? He really wants to see her and she won't return his calls.
I glanced at MJ as I thought about it a moment.
I texted back, Yeah, I'll figure out something.
"So how are you two going to get along down there without me?" I said, teasingly. I meant for the statement to make us laugh; instead, the three of us began to tear up.
Mary Jane and Angel scooted towards me and put their arms around me. We sat there for a few minutes and cried together.
"Looks like I got here just in time. You girls need some serious cheering up!" Cameron said as he bent to join the hug. He took the seat across from me and put his hand in the air, snapping for the waitress, as he shouted, "Garçon!"
I laughed and said, "That is french for a male waiter. Ours is female."
“You say hash rounds, I say tater tots,” Cameron said with a nonchalant wave of his hand. He noticed my look of confusion and clarified, “It’s the same thing.”
Still confused I said, “Like po-tay-to, po-tah-to?”
He scoffed, “Yeah, but really who says po-tah-to? Can I have a baked po-tah-to? Would you like gravy on your mashed po-tah-tos? What kind of pretentious shit says that?” Cameron shrugged. "So, Garçona?”
I shook my head. "Try calling her by her name."
The waitress stepped over to Cameron. "Hey sweetie, I'm Cara What can I get you?"
Cameron turned to her and said, "So, bring me two Piña Coladas."
Immediately following his response, the four of us chimed in. "I want one for each hand. Let's set sail with Captain Morgan. Oh and never leave dry land."
The waitress shook her head laughing at us. Most people in Nashville recognized a Garth Brooks song when it was referenced.
"How did you bitches think you were going to have a girls day without me?" Cameron asked.
"Ridiculous idea, I don’t know what we were thinking," I replied sardonically.
He turned to MJ. "So what is this mess I hear about you dumping that hot hunk of man?" Mary Jane's face drooped and she became sad.
Cameron put his arm around her. "Oh, baby girl, I'm sorry." He kissed her forehead.
Angel chided, "Way to go, Cam." Cameron lifted his hand long enough to flip her off.
Angel chuckled. "Enough of this crying! I want to plan something fun for us to do for our last few weeks together."
Cameron chimed in. "A Camloozafantastico?"
"Everything cannot be about Cam!" I said. His hand pressed to his chest as his mouth fell open in shock.
"What? That is sacrilege! Off with your head!" he shouted as he gave a wave of his arm.
When the waitress returned at the end of our meal, she asked, "Is this all separate?"
We all pointed to Cameron. "He's buying."
He spouted, "What a bunch of cunning stunts you are! Feel free to rearrange the letters for what I really think of you! You're lucky I like you ladies."
On the way out, I pulled Mary Jane aside. "Throughout the meal, I was trying to figure out a sneaky way to get you to come back to my house with me, but I can't trick you into something that could be potentially devastating for you. Derrick wants to see you." Mary Jane fidgeted with her purse as she thought about my request.
"I'll go. Thanks for the heads up though, I don’t think I could handle that kind of surprise right now."
Cameron plunked his arms around our shoulders. "Ladies, I am escorting you home. MJ, you mind coming to Ash and Gracie's for a bit to hang out?"
Mary Jane smiled. "Nice job Cam, Gracie told me Derrick wants to talk."
Cameron glanced at me. "Smooth Gracie, real smooth."
Mary Jane interjected, "I'm coming, don't worry."
Cameron kissed her cheek. "Alright then, way to go Gracie!"
"Angel, you wanna come back to the house with us? We can play pool, have a few drinks…um…a few more drinks." The four of us loaded ourselves into a cab to head to the home I shared with Ashton.
Chapter Thirty-one
When we arrived at the house, Mary Jane lagged behind a moment. I stopped to check on her. "You don’t have to do this. No one will force you to talk to him if you don’t want to."
Mary Jane took a deep breath. "He deserves to have his say. I didn’t give him that opportunity before."
The door opened behind us, Derrick's voice said, "Mary Jane…can we talk?" Her face lit up when she saw him.
It broke my heart. It was easy to see, she was crazy about him and I hated that they couldn’t see this thing through.
"I'm going to head inside."
As I passed Derrick, I whispered, "Be easy on her, this is tearing her up inside to have to choose."
He nodded slightly, never taking his eyes off MJ. As I went inside, I turned and watched as he embraced her.
Once inside, I heard the commotion from downstairs. I approached the door to the basement. A hand covered my mouth, an arm went around my waist and I was pulled away from the door to be pressed against the wall.
I smiled as my eyes focused on Ashton. His lips captured mine in a scorching kiss. One hand moved through my hair. The other hand reached under my knee and lifted my leg around his waist.
His mouth moved to my neck and I breathed out. "As much as I'm enjoying this, our friends are all downstairs waiting on us."
He mumbled, "I know." Instead of stopping, he lifted my other leg around his waist and moved us to the bedroom, kicking the door shut with his foot.
As he laid me on the bed, I started chuckling. "Baby, we can't do this right now."
He lifted my hand to his mouth. "You're right, we can’t do this…" His tongue made circles along the sensitive spot of my wrist. "We can't do this either.." He moved the hem of my shirt up and kissed my stomach softly.
"You're so bad, Ashton Collins."
There was a banging on the door, "Get out here and hang with us you big horn-dogs! You'll have plenty of time for that later! Now is the time for you to be with friends! So, zip it up, tell Ash Jr he'll get his moment later, and get the hell out here!"
Cameron had such a way with words. Ashton was laughing as he helped me up. "You knew he'd be up here shortly."
Ashton nodded. "I was hopeful that we'd have a second."
I gasped. "Oooh, a second, I'm really sorry I'm missing that!"
He growled low in my ear and said, "You know I last way longer than a second."
The banging started again. "Don’t make me stand out here and talk about things that will ruin the mood. I'll do it. You just…"
His voice cut off into a mumble. Ashton opened the door to see Gavin covering Cameron's mouth with his hand.
"Thanks Gavin."
Gavin smiled at Ash. "My pleasure."
As I stepped from the room, I stopped when I looked and noticed Derrick on the couch. I patted Ash's shoulder. "I'll be down in a moment."
I sat next to Derrick. "Hey. Where's MJ?"
He took a swig from the beer bottle in his hand. "She left."
I turned to face him, pulling my leg up beneath me. "You want to talk about it?"
He took another drink, "Not much to say. She wants to follow her dreams and said that it's the obvious choice because she isn't in love with me."
I sighed. "You know that isn’t true."
He sneered, "Do I? She made it pretty clear to me that she doesn’t feel anything for me. She said she is attracted to me and we had fun, but it wasn’t going anywhere."
"She lied, doofus. She's trying to protect you so that you move on."
He sighed. "I know. I can't make her stay though and give up everything she's worked for and I can't make her tell me that she's falling for me, too."
I patted his shoulder. "Come downstairs and hang o
ut with everyone."
When we made it downstairs, Ash and Cameron were playing an intense game of pool. The moment my feet reached the bottom step, the doorbell rang. I figured it was Mary Jane coming back. "You go enjoy yourself, Derrick. I'm going to see who that is."
On my way to the door, I had no idea of the next revelation I would discover. The door opened and my mouth fell agape. "What the hell are you doing here?"
The man standing at the door was the one I had seen that day with Hudson. "Gracie, I'd like to come in and talk for a moment. I have some explaining to do."
I lifted my cell phone and dialed Ash. "I need you up here now."
Within less than a minute, Ash was beside me. "Can I help you?" he asked the man in front of me.
"My name is Jackson Simms. I'm one of the officers that worked Gracie's case against Hudson James."
Ashton extended his hand. "Ashton Collins, Gracie's fiancé. Come in please." He motioned the man to the couch.
"Ashton, this would be the officer I saw at the coffee shop that day with Hudson."
Ashton was shocked at this admission and he turned to the officer angrily. "I hope you're here to explain yourself."
Jackson replied, "Yes, I am. I came here to apologize to Gracie as well. Hudson is my brother, half-brother. We have the same father different mothers."
My body tensed and I began to shake. Ashton quickly took my hand to comfort me. "I can speak to him for now if you'd rather go downstairs."
I shook my head. "I'm fine. I want to hear what he has to say."
"Hudson and I didn’t grow up together. I'm about ten years older than he is…well, was. Our father was…"
I interjected with, "An abusive arrogant ass? That's how Hudson put it at least."
He nodded. "That's a perfect description. I always felt it was my job to look out for Hudson and protect him. He got into trouble in school and I always covered for him. When your case was presented to me, no one knew Hudson was my brother so they didn’t know there was a conflict. I used my mother's last name and he used our father's."
"Can you get to the point of why you're here? Gracie has been through enough because of your brother and I don’t want her going through anymore pain," Ashton said, wrapping his arm around me.
