The Beginning of Forever (Summer Unplugged Book 5)

by Sparling, Amy

  “Oh…” I say as chills creep over my arms. “I’m so sorry, babe.”

  Jace runs a hand through his hair. “It’s okay. I’m just…” He trails off, shaking his head.

  “You just want your best friend at your wedding,” Becca says for him. “I know I would.”

  Chapter 18

  Three days before the wedding

  Jace has always been really great at keeping secrets and surprises from me. Like that time he arranged to buy me a car, he had spent weeks figuring out the details and I hadn’t noticed a thing. And then when he was having my engagement ring custom designed for me, I hadn’t noticed a change in his demeanor. He even claimed he figured out my ring size in my sleep, and I didn’t even wake up. He’s always been great at keeping a normal face around me, despite having other things going on in his mind.

  Until now.

  Park was only able to get a temporary paper license from the DMV. They had to order a real driver’s license and said it would be two weeks before it was mailed to him. He couldn’t find his passport and without a valid photo identification, there’s no way he’s getting on an airplane. Jace keeps saying he’s okay, but I know he’s not. I’ve never seen him so distraught.

  “He could drive here if he had a car,” Jace had said earlier this morning. “But he doesn’t because some assholes stole it. The cops still haven’t recovered it.”

  “Do you think his parents could rent him a car or something?” I asked. Jace shook his head. “They’re out of the country. On a second honeymoon of all things.”

  “We can always have a party later and invite him. Then we can all hang out.” Jace had smiled at my idea and told me he would love that. Then he promptly stood up, announced he was taking a nap and slunk off. Before he went into our bedroom, he called back, “If Park calls my phone, make sure you answer it!”

  That was two hours ago. Becca and I are giving ourselves practice manicures for the wedding while Jace naps and I’m trying really hard not to worry about him. Becca’s nails are painted a shiny purple with a faint sprinkle of tiny turquoise glitter. I am trying, very unsuccessfully I might add, to paint my nails the same turquoise-purple ombre as my wedding invitations. The technique involves two nail polishes, a sponge, nail polish remover on a Q-tip and a whole lot of cursing.

  I think we’re both taken aback when Jace’s phone, which is on the coffee table, starts ringing. It has been silent ever since Jace left the room. I glance over at the screen and my eyes burst open. “It’s Park! Get it!”

  “Why do I have to answer it?” Becca says. “I don’t even know him.”

  “I don’t know him either,” I say, nudging the phone toward her with the back of my hand. “My nails are wet. I can’t answer it.”

  She sighs and picks up the phone. “Um, hello? No...this isn’t Bayleigh. It’s Becca, the Maid of Honor.”

  I don’t know why butterflies dance around my stomach. It’s practically impossible for Park to get here for the wedding. Unless he knows someone who owns a private jet and would happily waste thousands of dollars in jet fuel to get him here, all of our hope is pretty much wasted.

  They chat for a few more minutes, but I get so involved in sponging nail polish onto my index finger that I stop paying attention until Becca gasps and says, “Oh my God, I have a great idea! Hold on a second.” She holds the phone away from her ear and turns toward me. “Can we keep a secret from Jace?”

  “Totally,” I say. New waves of excitement roll through me as Becca and I talk with Park on the phone, keeping our voices low in case Jace wakes up. Park just took out a short term lease on a truck so he’d have something to drive until the police found his old truck and the insurance money came through for him to get a new one. It’s a seventeen hundred mile trip from Sacramento to Texas, but he’s going to spend the next two days driving here. He should arrive the night before the wedding and he’ll get a hotel near the venue (which was still kept a secret from me) and then show up in the morning when we’re all getting ready.

  It’s the perfect wedding surprise for my future husband and we’re all really excited about it. Now I just have to play it cool like Jace and act as if everything is normal for the next two and a half days. It’ll be hard seeing Jace mope around, missing his best friend, but it’ll make the surprise all the more worth it if I don’t spill the secret before our wedding day.

  Becca gives Park her number so he can call her with any questions he has before the wedding. “Drive safely,” I tell him before we hang up.

  “Trust me,” Park says with a laugh. “I will.”

  Chapter 19

  One day before the wedding

  I can’t sleep. It’s four-thirty in the morning and my body absolutely refuses to sleep. After a day spent packing and organizing yesterday, I had passed out fairly quickly last night, but now just a few hours later, I am wide awake. Jace breathes deeply, sound asleep next to me in bed. I stare at the ceiling.

  I wonder if he’s ever spent the night staring at this same ceiling while I slept peacefully next to him. Probably not. Jace doesn’t fret or freak out. He’s just calm. I draw in a slow breath, hold it a beat and then slowly exhale, trying to channel some of Jace’s everyday calm demeanor. It doesn’t really help.

  I try to ask myself what I’m worrying about exactly, as if there’s some kind of specific thing my mind can’t quite grasp and that’s why I’m wide awake the night before my wedding. It isn’t the wedding. It’s not the venue mystery or the fact that we’re going to be officially married soon. None of that bothers me.

  I’m just...bothered.

  The room grows quiet and I realize that Jace’s deep breathing has stopped. “You awake?” he asks, rolling on his side.

  “Sort of,” is my reply.

  “Are you getting morning sickness in the middle of the night again?”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. I’m fine.”

  “Hmm,” Jace says, leaning closer to me. I can just see his features in the soft glow of moonlight filtering in through our window. “Not getting cold feet now, are ya?”

  “Ha,” I say sarcastically. “No way. Are you?”

  He shakes his head. I can’t really see him but I can hear the sound of his head squishing against the pillow. “Never. But you seem like something is bothering you and you should talk to me.”

  “Nothing’s bothering me…” I mumble, trying to roll over to face the opposite direction, but Jace slips an arm around me and that kind of puts a stop to my plan.

  “Talk to me, babe.”

  I sigh. “It’s just that once we’re married, all the anticipation over the wedding will be over. Then we’ll have to focus on the hard stuff.”

  “The hard stuff?”

  “The baby.”

  “The baby won’t be hard,” he says, snuggling up against my shoulder. I snort. “Really? What makes you so confident in that?”

  “You are a super beautiful, super smart woman, Bay. I wouldn’t trust anyone else to raise my kid.”

  “What does being beautiful have to do with raising kids?”

  He shrugs and kisses my collarbone. “Nothing, I guess. I just felt like saying it.”

  Maybe it’s just the sleep finally catching up with me. Maybe it’s just hearing his words and the way that he says them. But my nerves disappear and I feel great enough to finally fall asleep.

  My phone bursts to life at seven in the morning. Squinting my eyes shut against the bright sunlight filtering in through the windows, I flop my hand over onto the nightstand, aiming for my phone. When I find it, I mash the screen with my fingers until the alarm shuts off. Only, the sound merely dims. I open my eyes and realize the alarm sound is now coming from the opposite side of the bed. Jace’s alarm went off at the same time.

  “Wake up, hot stuff,” I say, shoving him. He groans and rolls over, trying to ignore me and continue to sleep.

  I crawl on top of him, straddling his stomach so I can lean over to his nightstand and turn off his a
larm. While I’m at it, I go ahead and slide my hands up his bare chest, leaning forward to nuzzle my face in his neck. “Wake up Mr. Adams,” I whisper in his ear.

  When his hands slide up my thighs and grab ahold of my butt, I know he’s awake even though he hasn’t opened his eyes yet. His lips form a sly smile and I bend down to kiss them.

  “It’s time to go,” I say. “We’re driving for a quite a while, I’ve been told.”

  “Yup,” he says, finally opening his eyes. “Are you ready?”

  “I just want to brush my teeth real fast, otherwise all my stuff is already in your truck.”

  “Awesome,” he says. He makes a big show about removing his hands from my ass, whimpering and everything, and then we climb out of bed.

  Before I know it, we’re on the road. I can’t help grinning as I ride shotgun, staring at the man who will soon be my husband.

  Chapter 20

  The day of the wedding

  “It’s a beautiful day,” I say, leaning my forehead against the glass and staring up at the sky. “A perfect day for a wedding,” I add with a smile. Jace nods. We’re just outside of Mixon, pulling onto the interstate. I glance at Jace from the corner of my eyes. “I wonder if the weather will still be good when we get to wherever we’re going…I mean, it could be hours and hours away from here for all I know…”

  He gives me a look that says he’s not buying my excuse to get more information out of him. “Okay, I’ll give you this.” Jace says. “A tiny hint...of course you might figure it out but I hope not.”

  “What is it?”

  He bites his bottom lip and then says, “We’ll be there in about two hours.”

  I lift an eyebrow. “That doesn’t tell me anything. There’s like...five million places that are two hours away.”

  Jace shrugs. “This is my wedding surprise to you. So you’ll just have to wait.”

  I slouch as much as I can in the passenger side of Jace’s truck, grabbing a pillow out of the back seat to squish between me and the window. “I’m not good at waiting,” I say as I ease myself into the most comfortable position I can manage while sitting up and being buckled in. “So wake me when we get there.”

  The beauty of sleeping on a road trip is vastly underrated. Sure, you don’t get to experience any of the sights or argue over which gas station looks like you might get murdered if you stop there, or make fun of weird cars you pass by, but so what? Sleeping is bliss. Sleeping is time travel.

  I don’t feel the truck roll to a stop and I don’t wake up when the engine goes silent. I do stir a bit when my passenger door opens. Jace’s soft voice nudges me out of sleep. “Wake up, my bride. We’re here.”

  For a brief moment, I’ve completely forgotten why I’m asleep in the truck. My eyes flutter open and I yawn, a big monster of a yawn that makes my eyes water. Man, I was passed out. Probably because I didn’t sleep well last night. Too excited…

  Too excited for…

  Oh my God! I sit up so quickly my seat belt locks against my neck, halting me with a quick slash of pain across my skin. The wedding is today. How on earth did I forget that very important fact, even if it was only for a few moments?

  “You okay, babe?” Jace laughs, brushing the hair out of my eyes. He’s standing next to me, tucked inside the open passenger door of his truck while I’m still buckled into my seat. The moment I see him, I feel tears pool in the corners of my eyes. I don’t even know why. I’m just happy. And excited.

  I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him toward me. When I open my eyes a few moments later, I see a very familiar oak tree.

  “Why did we stop here?” I say, pulling back and looking around at the front yard I haven’t seen in over a year. “Do we need to pick up something?”

  Jace shakes his head. He reaches over and unbuckles my seatbelt, then helps me climb down from the truck. Goosebumps cover every inch of my skin as I look around. My mouth falls open and I’m not sure it’ll ever close again.

  “What do you think?” Jace says, gesturing to the sight in front of us.

  Jace’s grandfather’s house, the massive manor of a house in Salt Gap, Texas, has been transformed. The shutters are painted, the porch is refinished. Flowerbeds line the perimeter. But that’s not even half of what has changed. Clear lights cover every inch of the grand oak trees in the front yard. Purple and turquoise roses overflow glass vases at various places on the wraparound porch and petals the same color line the cobblestone driveway, directing us into the back yard.

  A gazebo has been erected in the center of the yard, right where Jace’s old dirt bike jumps used to be. Flowers line every walkway. Fifty white chairs with purple and turquoise satin ribbons tied around the backs, all facing toward the gazebo. It’s like a scene right out of a fairytale.

  Or, you know, a dream wedding magazine.

  “Jace.” It’s all I can manage to say, because my hand covers my mouth in the next instant. It’s just all so beautiful, I can’t stand it. And to the left, I can see across the yard to my grandparent’s house. The place I once considered a prison, had become so much more than I ever could have imagined.

  “I know it’s not Disney Land,” Jace says, wrapping an arm around my waist. “But when I tried to picture where I’d want to marry you, this was my first idea. I thought it would be romantic...to marry you in the same place where I first met you.”

  I look into his eyes and feel so much love pour through me that I think I might burst. “It’s perfect.”

  Jace’s late grandfather’s house is no longer the old bachelor’s pad that it was the first time I saw it. It’s been cleaned out, refinished and remodeled. It smells clean and fragrant inside, no longer a smelly memory of all the cigars that were smoked in it daily. At first I’m blown away by all of the work this would have taken–where was I when Jace was making all of these phone calls and arranging everything?

  Jace laughs when I ask him this. “You were usually sitting right next to me,” he says. “Watching TV or sleeping or completely ignoring me when I was on the computer.”

  “You do such boring things on the computer!” I say in protest. “Why would I pay attention to that?”

  “Exactly. My friend Matt is a contractor and we communicated through email for the most part. He was in on the secret and knew never to call if you were going to be around.”

  I draw in a deep breath and shake my head, letting it out again in a sigh. “You never stop amazing me. I mean, how will I ever pay you back for this?”

  “Marry me,” he says. And he says it like he’s serious, too. Not like he’s just making a joke. In this very moment, I am one hundred percent sure that Jace Adams, former motocross superstar, truly believes that I can pay him back for all his hard work just by marrying him.

  And I am so, so unworthy of a love like this.

  Chapter 21

  The house’s bedrooms have been outfitted to be bridal changing rooms. Mine overlooks the front yard and Jace’s is upstairs. As I sit on a blush stool getting my hair done by my Aunt Truly, I have a perfect view out of the massive window. I can see my mother, David and Bentley arrive. The caterers come next and they’re all dressed in black with purple and turquoise ties.

  The band arrives and sets up in the back yard. I can hear them warm up their instruments and vocal cords and Jace was absolutely right. They sound a lot like my favorite band Mumford and Sons.

  “Are you nervous?” Aunt Truly asks, bobby pins hanging out of her mouth.

  I try not to roll my eyes. “Are you kidding? Of course I am. Not about getting married though.”

  “Then what for? I was a freaking wreck at my wedding.” She pins another curl on top of my head, then grabs the curling iron off the vanity.

  “I’m not nervous to marry Jace. I’m nervous about all the people. The possibility of tripping on my face or doing something else equally embarrassing.”

  “Aww, that won’t happen.” Aunt Truly says confidently, as if she’s some kind of mind reader or
something.

  There’s a soft knock at the door and I start to turn, but Aunt Truly stops my head with her head. “Nuh-uh,” she mumbles as her hands work my hair. “Don’t move or I’ll mess it up.”

  Instead, I choose to watch the vanity mirror in front of me to see who’s at the door. It’s Mom. She’s wearing a cerulean dress, heels and her hair is swept into an up do that makes her look ten years younger.

  Just like in the movies, Mom bursts into tears at the sight of me. It makes me giggle. This is all so surreal. “Mom, you look really pretty,” I say as she rushes up to me, gushing about my hair and my makeup and my dress.

  “Ugh, no,” she says, still fawning over me. “I am nothing. You, honey are the star of today. You’re so beautiful, I can’t even…” Yep, it’s all over now. She’s now a sobbing puddle of motherly tears. “I love you so much,” she whispers as she leans in for a light handed hug, darting out of Aunt Truly’s way just before the curling iron had a chance to burn her.

  “Okay okay,” I say, grabbing a tissue and handing it to her. “There will be no crying today!”

  Aunt Truly clicks her tongue. “Good luck with that one.”

  Becca rushes in a few moments later, her face flushed but still beautiful thanks to the amazing makeup job she did on both herself and me. All of those YouTube makeup tutorial videos she spent months watching have really paid off.

  “Why are you so frantic?” I ask. I strain to turn to look at her but Aunt Truly puts a stop to that.

  Becca looks through the window, and then glances at her phone. “He’s not here yet. He should be here. I don’t know if I should call him again. Should I call him again? Would that be annoying of me? Maybe he got lost.”

  “Park?” I ask, even though the clarification isn’t necessary. Of course she’s talking about Park. She nods. “I hope he gets here soon. I don’t want your wedding ruined.”