The Beginning of Forever (Summer Unplugged Book 5)

by Sparling, Amy

  And as much as I don’t want to admit it to myself, seeing Ian after so long away from him brought back some awful memories. Not memories of happiness or longing, that’s for damn sure, but memories of that summer I spent away from home. Ian was the reason I had gotten grounded and sent away to stay with my grandparents for three months. He was the selfish prick who begged me to send him a dirty photo from my cell phone and I was the idiot who went along with it.

  I was so stupid back then. I can’t believe I used to like Ian. Like, really like him. I thought about him nonstop and I doodled his name in my notebook like some kind of teenage airhead. All of that pathetic adoration was completely unfounded because Ian didn’t do anything to deserve it. It wasn’t romantic or charming. He treated me like shit and somehow that made me want to try even harder to make him like me.

  I always had to message him first and he would take forever to reply. He never wanted to talk about my day or listen to my thoughts about things I cared about. He just wanted to hook up and when we couldn’t hook up due to my curfew, or Mom being too strict, all he wanted to do was talk about hooking up. As much as I wish I could go back in time and stop myself from ever dating him in the first place, I can’t. And I wouldn’t even if I could, because Ian getting me grounded was what led me to meet Jace.

  The bed shifts as Jace sits on the edge of the mattress to put on his shoes. “Do you love me?” I ask, my voice raspy from a night of sleep.

  “With all of my heart,” he says.

  I roll over and bury my head in the pillow. “Good,” I murmur as I feel the pull of sleep take over. “I love you, too.”

  At a much more manageable hour of the morning, after Jace has left for work, I finally wake up and find my best friend happy and looking less poisoned from gluten on the couch. She grasps a cup of hot cocoa in her hands.

  “Ooohh, I want some,” I say, eyeing the steam rising off her mug.

  She nods her head toward the kitchen. “I’ve got the Keurig all set up for you. Just press the button.”

  I rush over and press the button, smiling when I see she’s chosen the ugliest mug in the cabinet for me. This mug was a gag gift from her to me when I moved in with Jace a few months ago. “Every home needs an ugly mug,” she had said. “Just to remind you where you came from.”

  It is big and heavy and has an ugly Christmas sweater type print all around it. Pixelated reindeer shapes and big green and red faux-stitching letters that read Happy Holidays. You can still see the twenty-five cent thrift store price tag written in permanent marker on the bottom because that stuff does not come off in the dishwasher.

  Becca chops up a basket of strawberries, separating them into two piles for the both of us. I pour sugar on top of my pile and she rolls her eyes at me. “That kind of defeats the purpose of having a healthy breakfast.”

  I poke out my stomach as far as it’ll go and pat it with confidence. “Yeah, well I am eating for two and at least one of us wants sugar on these strawberries.”

  We eat and watch trashy reality television and everything is fun and happy for about five minutes. Then, from out of nowhere like some kind of emotional punch to the gut, I remember last night. Ian and the way he made me feel. The things he made me think.

  “You okay?” Becca asks. I nod and put on my best smile. It seems to work because she goes back to watching the TV. I’m tempted to tell her all about it. If I do, I know she’ll launch into a verbal counter attack, calling Ian every bad name in the book and then telling me everything I want to hear. Things like how I’m not a shitty person and how I shouldn’t let him get to me because he’s an idiot and I am a great person.

  If I told her about my emotional pain right now, she would hug me and make it all better. But I keep my mouth shut. I’m not sure if I’m ready to let all of this go and pretend like I’m not a massive embarrassment to myself and a disappointment to Jace. I’m not sure if I deserve to be comforted by a well-meaning best friend right now.

  The Sunnyside Bakery is a small standalone building on the outskirts of Mixon. It looks like it used to be a Victorian style home, but over the years it was painted a pale yellow and transformed into a bakery. There are other bakeries in town and it might have been smart to sample all of them before deciding, but Sunnyside Bakery came highly recommended by Molly, who is the wife of Mr. Fisher at Mixon Motocross Park. I would be insane not to trust her opinion. Plus, I didn’t trust my waistline if I had sampled from more than one bakery.

  “Oh my God, this place smells so good,” Becca croons as we get out of her car. She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply. “I think I just gained five pounds from by smelling the air.”

  I wish I could share in her weight-gain-by-inhalation, but the smell of sugary foods just makes me nauseous at the moment.

  There aren’t any other people inside when we enter the bakery, but soft music plays from a speaker somewhere in the ceiling and the scent of freshly baked pastries lets us know someone is probably in the back.

  “Are you sure she was expecting us?” I ask. Becca, ever the most perfect maid of honor, had called ahead and made us an appointment.

  Becca nods. “Yep. Stop worrying.”

  Luckily, I don’t have to worry. A plump woman with dark black hair emerges from the back room, patting her hands on the front of her pink apron. The name Carol is emblazoned on the top in curly letters made of rhinestones. “Hello there!” she says, waving at us from the other side of the counter. “Are you my two o’clock?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, stepping forward and shaking her hand from across the class countertop. Dozens of beautifully decorated sweet treats beckon to me from beneath the glass. “I’m Bayleigh.”

  “So nice to meet you,” she says, turning to my best friend. “And, Becca, right?” Becca nods and shakes her hand. I’m not sure what Becca had told her when she first made our appointment, but I’m eternally grateful for the soft way Carol smiles at us and how she treats us like real customers. I guess in the back of my mind I had been afraid that I’d be treated with judgment for being so young. I shove my hands into the pockets of my zippered hoody. It isn’t cold outside–in fact it’s shorts and sandals weather as evidenced by my sparkly pink flip flops and cut off jean shorts. I just couldn’t stop myself from wearing the hoody because it allows me to do exactly what I’m doing now: shove my hands in the pockets, zip up the bottom half and walk around covering my ever-growing belly. You know, just in case she doesn’t know. Just in case some people don’t know.

  Carol seats us at a table in the center of the bakery and dashes off to retrieve our samples. I’m not sure what Becca has set up for us today because a week ago when she had called to ask about it, I was in the middle of a morning sickness puke session and had told her to use her best judgment because at that exact moment, I didn’t give a damn.

  Becca gnaws on her bottom lip as she sits across from me. “What is it?” I ask. “You’re not supposed to be more nervous than I am, you know.”

  She chuckles. “I just hope you like the colors and the flavors and stuff.”

  “I’ll like whatever you choose, I promise. You know me really well.”

  Carol emerges from the back room and Becca draws in a deep breath. I want to roll my eyes at how irrationally silly she’s being, but I don’t because I freak out about the dumbest things as well. Carol sets a white cake box on the table in front of us. “How many other bakeries have you tried?” she asks, sliding her finger under the cardboard flap to open up the box.

  “None,” I say. “Molly Fisher said we should come here so we did.”

  Carol beams. “Oh, Molly is the sweetest thing ever. Well, I hope you girls enjoy! What we have here is a sample of the double chocolate cupcakes and the French vanilla cupcakes. I told Becca you’d probably want both flavors so your guests could choose.”

  I nod. “Sounds good to me.” Carol continues talking about the natural ingredients and special flavors she uses, and still hasn’t fully opened the cake box y
et, so we can’t see inside at the creations that wait for us, and I lean forward, anticipation taking over my whole body. And then I see something on the box that makes me forget all about the cupcakes.

  The paper order slip taped to the side of the box reads: Adams, Jace and Bayleigh.

  Chills dance across my body. Carol’s handwriting is a beautiful script and I love the way she swooped the cursive J and B of our names. But what I love more than anything is the way our names look together.

  Bayleigh Adams.

  That’s going to be me in a just a few weeks. I blink back tears that can only be explained as crazy Pregnant Person Emotions and go back to being excited about the cupcakes. Carol has been talking this whole time, but I hadn’t heard a word of it. Also, there’s two plates in front of Becca and me, along with a fork. I hadn’t noticed those arrive, either.

  I tear my eyes away from my name on the paper and look for the cupcakes.

  “Have you decided on a color yet?” Carol asks as she pulls two cupcakes from the box. “Becca and I discussed purple and turquoise but she wasn’t sure if you’d like light colors or dark, so I made both.”

  Becca and I practically start drooling as Carol gives us each a cupcake with lavender icing swirled high. Next, she gives us its pastel blue equivalent. They’re both wrapped in silver foil cupcake papers and have a light sparkly sheen on the icing.

  “Beautiful,” I say, picking up my fork but feeling like there’s no way I’ll be able to stab it into such an elegant creation.

  Next, Carol takes out two more cupcakes for Becca and me. Only these have a deep rich coloring to the icing. A turquoise-blue and purple that is so stunningly beautiful that I instantly say, “This one! This color. Oh my God, it’s perfect.”

  Carol and Becca laugh at my reaction but I don’t care. I sit back in my chair and clap my hands in front of my mouth. “They are so perfect! So beautiful.”

  Instantly I can imagine my entire wedding–the flowers, the decorations, the invitations. Turquoise and purple. Weeks of being indecisive and unsure about everything now fold into one perfect moment where I feel that this wedding will be a breeze. It will be turquoise and purple and it’ll be beautiful and wonderful.

  “Bayleigh!” I look up to see Becca leap off her chair and come to my side of the table. “You’re crying!”

  Carol hands me a napkin, which is also purple, and I take it and dab my eyes and start doing this laugh-cry thing because I’m so emotional I can’t help it. “I’m fine,” I say after a moment. “It’s just all so perfect.”

  “I’m flattered, darling,” Carol says, sliding the plate closer to me. “But you haven’t even tried them yet!”

  Despite my natural instinct to keep something so beautiful intact, Becca and I dive into our cupcakes and it is immediately evident that we should have both double chocolate and French vanilla flavors at my wedding. We make it easy by requesting the chocolate ones to have turquoise icing and the vanilla to have the purple icing.

  It becomes very clear that Becca and I only halfway know what we’re doing when we decide we want to reserve these cupcakes for the wedding and Carol asks a question we hadn’t even thought of.

  “How many cupcakes will you be needing?” Her pen hovers over the order slip and my lips squish to the side of my mouth.

  “Um,” I say, looking at Becca. “We don’t exactly know yet.”

  “A general rule of thumb is to order as many servings as people you are inviting, plus a dozen just in case. It’s always better to have leftovers than to come up short.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” I say, feeling my cheeks turn red because I am a total idiot who doesn’t deserve to plan a wedding if I am this stupid about it. “But I’m not even sure how many people we’re inviting.” I lower my forehead into my palm and stare at the floor. “I can’t believe we didn’t think of this,” I mutter, so embarrassed that I never want to look up and meet Carol’s eyes again.

  Becca shuffles through her oversized purse and produces a small pink notebook. The one she calls her Bridesmaid Planner. I know I’ve made fun of that thing, but I am so glad she has it now. “We’re inviting forty-three people. So I guess we should order about five dozen?”

  “Perfect,” Carol says, penning the number onto the order sheet. “Would you like these picked up or delivered?”

  “Delivered, please,” I say, grateful for a question that I can actually answer. Well, sort of. “Becca will have to give you the address because it’s some huge secret from me.”

  “Really?” Carol asks, intrigue dancing across her eyes. “The wedding location is a secret from the bride? That’s a first.”

  I nod. “It’s kind of a long story.”

  Carol relaxes in her chair. “I have plenty of time.”

  I glance at Becca and she nods encouragingly. Tiny butterflies fill my stomach as I prepare to tell them the story about my wedding location. It’s not that I’m nervous or anything, it’s just that every time I think about that night I get butterflies. I take a deep breath. “It was the day after Jace proposed and we were both super excited about the engagement, so we spent all day talking about the wedding. We knew we wanted it to happen as soon as possible because,” I pause, not wanting to say the real reason. I’m not sure if Carol knows I am pregnant or not, and just in case she doesn’t, I’d rather her not know. I swallow and continue, choosing my words carefully. “Because we’ve already been together for a long time and most of that time was long distance and we just really want to be married. We didn’t want to wait. So, that was in May, and we choose August ninth to get married just because it felt like the quickest time we could get married while still having enough time to plan a wedding. Then, it was like two in the morning and I had spent all night searching online for the perfect place for the wedding. I wanted somewhere beautiful but it couldn’t be far away because my family and friends can’t exactly afford plane tickets and hotel expenses just to come to the wedding, so it had to be in Texas. There are like no pretty places in Texas, by the way.”

  This makes Carol laugh. Maybe she thinks I’m joking, but I’m not. “So anyway, I was freaking out about trying to find a place that’s both small and beautiful and not too commercial and a place that kind of feels like home. Like the perfect place to marry someone. And Jace, meanwhile, hadn’t been helping me at all. He was playing Xbox all night and just nodding when I’d show him stuff online. Then, when I was really discouraged about it, he suddenly sits up and drops the Xbox controller and is like ‘Oh my God, I’ve got it. I know the perfect place!’ So I asked him where and he just shook his head like a big jerk and said it was so perfect that it would have to be a secret. He said it’ll be better that way.”

  Carol’s eyes light up and Becca smiles devilishly because she already knows the answer to Carol’s next question. “Well, where is it?” Carol asks her in a fake whisper. Becca pretends to zip her lips closed. “I’ll write it down for you but I can’t say it in front of Bayleigh.”

  I roll my eyes and don’t even try to hide my goofy smile. I have to admit that not knowing the location of my own wedding until the day it happens is kind of awesome. Carol excuses herself to the back so she can put in the details of our order and Becca and I dive into the rest of our cupcakes.

  My phone vibrates and I take it out of my pocket to find a text from Jace.

  Jace: Still doing stuff with Becca?

  Me: Yup!

  Jace: Mind if I hang out at the track and ride a bit?

  Me: Of course not. Have fun, babe. I love you.

  Jace: ILY more!!

  When I look up from my phone, Becca is staring at me. “What?” I say, shoving it back into my pocket. She just shakes her head. “What?” I say again, only this time it’s not a question but more of an annoyed remark.

  “You always get that goofy smile when you’re texting Jace,” she says. I can tell instantly if you’re talking to him or someone else by the way you look at the phone.”

  �
�So what? I can tell when your mom texts you because you look pissed off,” I retort.

  Becca groans. “Tell me about it. One of these days I’ll make enough money to move out and be on my own like you. That will probably take forever, though.”

  I lick the remaining icing off my plastic fork and then point it at her. “Or you could find yourself a rich boyfriend. Preferably a motocross guy like Jace.” My eyes light up. “Ooh! Or his friend Park! He’s probably rich since he’s semi-pro. You need to meet him, marry him and then be my best friend-slash-motocross wife bestie forever!”

  She sighs. “If only life were that easy…”

  I sigh, too, but for a different reason. “You never know,” I say. And it’s true. You really never know what life will bring you. Even when you think you’ve got it all figured out, you’re wrong. And then, months later, when you think you really do have control of your life, you’re even more wrong than you were the first time.

  That’s not always a bad thing. There have been times in my life where I felt that every single decision I had made was wrong and detrimentally stupid. But then somehow, everything works out. I’ve screwed up way more than Becca ever has, and yet here I am with Jace and a happy life and a future family. I can’t imagine what kind of great things will happen to Becca when it’s her time to find true love.

  While we’re saying our goodbyes to Carol, she takes my hand and squeezes it. “I love that you aren’t doing everything strictly by the book,” she says, smiling. “I can’t think of a better way to start a marriage than by doing things your own way.”

  For some reason–okay, it’s probably the hormones–I feel myself tearing up at her kind words. “Thank you.” I turn away quickly so I won’t have time to let the fresh tears fall down my face. Today is a good day, I remind myself. There’s no reason to let crazy hormones jump in and ruin it.

  Becca lowers the volume of her car stereo at exactly the wrong moment. Taylor Swift just belted out the loudest part of the song, and unfortunately, so did I. I slap my hand over my mouth and slump lower into the passenger seat. “You can warn a girl next time you’re going to do that,” I mutter, but I doubt she hears it over her maniacal laughter.