Give Me Some Sugar

by Gen Griffin

  “The person sabotaging the wedding knows me well enough to know what I hate. That's scary because I have no idea who's doing it. The only person I can think of who would pull something like this is April Lynne.”

  “Could be. It's her style and she hates you.”

  “It honestly doesn't matter who is sabotaging the wedding at this point,” Gracie said. “The problem is going to be fixing what they've done when we only have approximately 36 hours until we're supposed to say our I do's.”

  “Are the flowers the only thing that was changed?”

  “She tried to cancel the venue for the reception.”

  “That can't be good.”

  “Thank God for small favors, the deposit and booking were non-refundable. The reply they sent back was that it was too late to cancel and the venue was ours regardless of whether or not we used it.”

  “I guess that's good,” he said.

  “It is. We still have to call them and make sure they know the wedding is on, though. Just to make sure the kitchen is open when the caterer arrives tomorrow morning,” Gracie said. “I'm going to be spending my entire day contacting every single vendor or business that has anything at all to do with the wedding and making sure that everything is still exactly the way we want it.”

  “Sounds like you've got it under control,” Cal said. “I wouldn't let yourself get all worked up about it.”

  Gracie paused, feeling a little bit dumbfounded. “That's it? Someone is trying to ruin our wedding and that's all you have to say?”

  “It's just a wedding, Gracie. No one is going to remember what colors the flowers were in five years.”

  She stood in the window and scowled at her own image that was being reflected back at her by the glass. “You make it sound like our marriage doesn't matter to you.”

  “Our marriage matters to me. You matter to me. To hell with the rest of it. I don't care about dresses, flowers or how much my parents spent on the catering. If you don't like the gifts you got at the bachelorette party then I suggest you return them. No big deal.”

  “It's tacky to return wedding gifts. Especially before the actual wedding.”

  “So wait until after the wedding.”

  “We'll be on the cruise.”

  “Have Momma do it for you. Or Trish.”

  “Cal, why can't you help me?” Gracie asked. “You were supposed to be taking today off from work completely so that you would be around to help with any last minute things we needed done for the wedding. Why are you even at work?”

  “Something came up.”

  “Well, make it go away or you and I are going to fight,” Gracie snapped. “This is your wedding too and I need you to help, especially since someone seems really determined to screw it up for us.”

  “Gracie-.”

  “No, Cal. I don't want to hear it. We've been through hell for the last year and I want to be happy on our wedding day. Nothing you're doing at the store should be as important to you as making sure our wedding goes smoothly.”

  Cal sighed. “I love you. I've got to let you go. I'll call you as soon as I'm done here.”

  “Not good enough,” Gracie snapped, but he'd already hung up the phone.

  She stared down at the phone in her hand with incomprehension. She didn't think Cal had ever hung up on her like that before. She certainly didn't remember him doing it. Gracie sat down on the edge of the bed that they had been sharing ever since her own parents had kicked her out of their house almost a year earlier.

  Cal had always been her rock. The one person who she could count on without question anytime something went wrong. She was suddenly overcome with the urge to call him and apologize for whatever she'd done to make him mad. She couldn't stand the thought of him being angry with her on the day before their wedding. She hadn't done anything wrong that she could think of. Why was he acting like he didn't care about their wedding at all?

  Gracie took a deep breath and told herself to pull it together. Maybe Cal was just stressed out. Or was something else bothering him?

  She looked down at the phone in her hand and decided to call the only person who knew Cal as well as she did. Maybe David could figure out why Cal was suddenly acting like a total jerk.

  Chapter 27

  “Have you thought about getting married?”

  Makinsley Madison was laying against Addison's chest as the afterglow from their wake-up sex abruptly dissipated into the vanilla scented air-freshener. Her fingernails were tracing the outline of his nipples, occasionally flicking the nipple rings she talked him into getting last summer.

  “What?” Addy hadn't entirely been paying attention her as he lay back against his comforter and watched the ceiling fan spin lazily above his head.

  Makinsley sat up with her butt on his stomach with one of her tanned, muscular legs on either side of his chest. Her bleached blonde hair was sticking up at a funky angles and the lace teddy she'd decided to sleep in had bunched up around her breasts. As he watched, Mak tugged the teddy back into its proper position.

  “You heard me,” she said.

  “Its fine. I'd already assumed you were coming to the wedding as my date.” Addison had only heard the word married so he made a guess.

  “What?” Makinsley pursed her plump lips at him and shook her head.

  “You were making sure you were my date to Gracie's wedding, right?”

  “Well, I figured we were going to the wedding together, but-.”

  “It's cool. I'd been meaning to ask you to go with me. I just kept forgetting.” Addy lazily scratched his chest.

  “I want to get married,” Mak announced.

  Addison did a double take. “Woah. What?”

  Mak slid off of his chest and sat on the bed beside him. “Before you freak out, hear me out.”

  “I'm sorry but I swear you just said you wanted to get married?” Addison sat up on the bed and started trying to remember where he'd dropped his pants.

  “Everyone else either has already settled down or is in the process of settling down,” Makinsley said. “Your kid sister is getting married tomorrow.”

  “My sister has always wanted to get married. She held a mock wedding to Cal when she was in third grade. Granny Pearl catered it and let her wear her old wedding dress.”

  “Cute.” Makinsley stretched out her legs and then sighed. “We're getting old, Malone.”

  “No, we're not.” Addy tried to ignore the shot of pain that went through his back as he slid out of the bed and began actively hunting his clothes. “We're still young. We have lots of years of life left ahead of us.”

  “I was in Beauton at a club the other night and this cute guy asked me to dance. I'd been dancing with him for around an hour when he straight up asked me to buy him a drink. At first I thought he was just cheap but then he handed me a $20 and I realized he wasn't even 21. How lame was that?” Mak stood up and stepped in front of Addison. She placed both her hands in the center of his chest to stop him from moving. “I'll always love going out on the town and drinking until the sun comes up, but I'm starting to feel like a preschool teacher when I go out. Tell me you don't feel the same way?”

  Addison sighed. “I haven't gone out in months.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Addison rubbed his hand across his eyes tiredly. “Between that mess earlier this summer with Trish's ex-husband and Gracie's wedding, I haven't seen the inside of a bar or club since the last time you and I went. All my spare time seems to go towards building Cal's house.”

  “I thought the house was done.”

  “It is. Mostly.” Addy spotted his pants next to the door. “David and I are supposed to finish painting the interior next week while Cal and Gracie are on their honeymoon. That's the only thing we have left to do.”

  “That's good.” Mak ran her fingertips all the way down his chest and into his crotch. “Tell me you haven't thought it would be nice to have someone to come home to at night besides your Granny?”

&
nbsp; Addison pulled away from her. “I'm not the commitment type, Makinsley. You know that. Our relationship has never been about commitment. That's why it works. You do what and who you want to do and I do the same. We do each other when we're in the mood. No commitment.”

  “We've been sleeping together for seven years, Addy.” Makinsley crossed her arms over her chest. “Whether you want to admit it or not, the fact that you've been spending one to three nights a week with me for seven years implies that we have some sort of commitment between us.”

  Addison frowned at her. “I've never thought about it that way.”

  “I know,” Makinsley said. “Truth be told, neither had I until recently. I looked around me the other day and realized that all my friends are either engaged, married or pregnant. I'm the only attractive single girl left. Your friends are the same way.”

  “They are?” Addison really hadn't thought about it.

  “Gracie and Cal are getting married. I don't give them a year before they have a kid. Katie and Ian are married and they already have the kid. Even David is living with a girl.”

  “Ugh.” Addison picked up his pants and started to pull them on. “I don't have to settle down just because everyone else is.”

  “I don't want to be old and ugly in my wedding pictures,” Makinsley informed him. “I don't want people looking at me at my wedding and thinking 'she's almost over the hill, isn't she'.”

  “Do people really say that?”

  “My aunt watched my cousin walk down the aisle at her wedding and muttered under her breath that the girl really should have gotten a nose job before the ceremony.” Mak smoothed down her frizzy hair. “I'm not saying I want to quit my birth control and start popping out rugrats, but I think it might be time to get married.”

  “If you want to get married, you'll need to find another guy. My parents hate one another and they've hated one another for as long as I can remember. Marriage has zero appeal to me.”

  “I never said we'd have to be monogamous,” Mak said.

  Addy did a double take. “You want to get married and keep sleeping with other people.”

  “It's called an open marriage, Malone. Its not that uncommon.”

  “It's not common around here,” Addy pointed out. “In my family you're monogamous and miserable til death do you part. And, most likely, you die because your ass was poisoned by your hateful spouse.”

  “We can have a big, pretty wedding and buy a pretty little house somewhere near the center of town. The house three doors down from my mother's has been up for sale for almost a year. They'll make us a deal on it.”

  “I haven't even agreed to get married and you're talking about buying a house?” Addy pulled his shirt back over his head. “Mak, I'm not the guy you're looking for.”

  “You didn't let me finish. Get married. Buy the house. Keep doing exactly the same thing that we have been doing for the last seven years.”

  “Marriage without monogamy,” Addison repeated the words thoughtfully. “Get our parents off our backs about settling down?”

  “Now you're thinking,” Makinsley replied with a smile. “You and I are two peas in a pod, Addy. We can have a perfect life with minimal effort. You've got a great job. I've got a great job. We don't have to have kids.”

  “I want kids,” Addison said abruptly.

  “What?” Makinsley looked surprised now.

  “I want kids. Eventually. Not anytime soon, but I want kids.”

  “Well, I guess we could negotiate on that one.” Makinsley checked her own figure out in the floor to ceiling mirror that was attached to the closet door. “I really don't want kids. Stretch marks are so ugly.”

  “Not having kids would be a deal breaker for me.” Addison was surprised by his own certainty.

  Makinsley considered him for a minute and then smiled. “We would have really beautiful babies.”

  He sighed. “Mak, don't take this wrong way but you're the last person I need to marry. You and I are like fire and gasoline. We both like to party too hard, drink too much and sleep with too many people.”

  “And?”

  “And the mother of my children needs to be someone stable. Someone who makes smart choices and does a better job of acting like an adult than I do. I want a girl who can settle me down and make me think. I want a girl like-.” A vision of a girl with a familiar smile and honey-colored eyes popped unbidden into his mind. Addison quickly pushed his traitorous thoughts to the back of his mind.

  “Like who?” Makinsley demanded with her hands on her hips. “Who is your perfect girl?”

  “I don't have a perfect girl. I just know that there are some qualities I'd like my future wife to possess that you definitely don't have.”

  “Such as?”

  “The ability to cook.”

  “I can cook,” Mak said. “Try again.”

  “I'm not talking about microwaving a box of macaroni and cheese.”

  “Neither am I. I can cook, Addison. Honest to God. My mother worked long hours when I was a kid. I'm the oldest of three. I can cook pretty much anything you can ask for. From scratch.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And you know I clean. My house is never a mess.”

  “I wasn't going to say a word about the cleaning,” Addison admitted. “You're a neat freak.”

  “I'm pretty. I have a college degree and a good job. I know how to cook and I always keep the house clean. What more do you want?”

  “I don't know.” Addison had no idea how to explain what he wanted. “I'm just not ready to get married.”

  “I didn't expect you to go for the idea immediately,” Makinsley said. “But I want you promise me you'll think it over. We're already doing all the things a committed couple do with one another. We'd just be making it official.”

  “By 'official', you mean what exactly?”

  “I'll cook you dinner one night this week,” Makinsley offered. “Maybe a couple times, if my cooking passes inspection. Maybe we can start making a little more effort to spend time together outside of the bedroom. We both like going fishing and we haven't gone together in a long time. We could take your boat out one day this weekend or go swimming out at the creek?”

  Addison rubbed his chin and tried to think of a reason to turn her down. He really didn't have one. Her proposed plans sounded perfectly fine. And it wasn't like he had any other women in his life right now. He wasn't about to admit it to Makinsley, but he'd been coming pretty close to being monogamous with her for the last six months. He just didn't have time to sleep around these days. Finding new girls to have sex with was getting a lot more time consuming than it had been five years ago.

  Maybe Makinsley had a point when she said they were getting old. He was getting tired of carding his dates. Maybe Makinsley wasn't being completely insane when she suggested taking their seven years of casual sex to the next level.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay?” Makinsley wrinkled her nose at him. “That's all you have to say to a girl who just offered to cook you dinner multiple nights a week?”

  “It sounds good. I guess,” Addy said. “You want to give slightly more commitment a try and I can see your logic. Let's give it a try and see how long it takes us to kill one another.”

  Makinsley grinned at him. She stood on her tippy-toes and kissed him lightly on the lips. “I think we can do this. We're just as good out of the bed as we are in it. Now, what do you want me to cook for breakfast?”

  “You can't cook breakfast. The hot plate died and I don't have any food. Besides, Kerry's still handcuffed to the coffee table.”

  Makinsley stuck her tongue out at him. “Breedlove lives next door, figure he has food?”

  Addison nodded. “Trish goes grocery shopping at least twice a week.”

  “Good, we can go raid their pantry. Just give me a few minutes to freshen up.” Mak grabbed her clothes and ducked into the bathroom. Two minutes later Addison could hear his shower running as he sat on the foot of his own bed
and wondered what the fuck he had just agreed to?

  Chapter 28

  The back door of the house creaked loudly as it opened to reveal David and Trish standing in the middle of the kitchen. Trish was sitting on the counter in a skimpy nightie. Her long black hair was tousled and her thighs were wrapped around David's waist.

  “Hey, what's for breakfast?” Addison walked into his best friend's house as if he lived there.

  “Trish is. My breakfast. Get out.” David kept his arms tightly around his fiance. Trish was clearly aware that the back of her butt was not completely covered by her nightgown, because the first thing she did upon seeing Addison was reach for the hemline to pull it down.

  “Oh my god, take it to the bedroom. I'll cook if y'all have food.” Makinsley pushed passed Addison and walked into the kitchen, surveying the brand new appliances that Trish had purchased shortly after her grandfather had died. The big double door stainless steel refrigerator was almost too big for the kitchen. The stove was the best quality that David's money could buy. “Nice setup,” Mak said.

  “Jesus, did you bring everyone?” David reluctantly let Trish go. He glared at Addison as he surveyed the veritable crowd that had just filed into his house. Addison, Makinsley and Kerry, still handcuffed, were all standing in the narrow doorway.

  “My stove died.”

  “You mean your two burner hot plate?” Trish asked with a roll of her eyes. She traced her fingers down David's toned abdomen with obvious reluctance and then stepped away from him.

  “I have a headache,” Kerry whined. He was wearing a slept in button-down shirt and khakis that looked like they hadn't ever seen an iron.

  “You shouldn't have eaten all the jello shots.” Mak walked over to the fridge and opened the door to inspect the contents.

  “Y'all were having loud sex on the other side of a very thin wall from me. I needed something to help me sleep.” Kerry wrinkled his nose with obvious disgust. “And now we come in here and Trish and David are having sex in the kitchen. Is that all you people do? Have sex?”

  “Um, why are you in my house?” Trish shot Kerry a truly nasty glare. “And why are you in handcuffs?”