This was where I’d found the first true peace in sixteen months.
I was sitting, letting the water lick my toes before it retreated and enjoying the warmth of the sun, when I felt him walk up behind me. Getting down onto the sand so that he was pressed up against my back with his legs either side of mine, he leaned in and wrapped his arms around me.
“You happy?”
For the first time in a long time, I truly was. “I think I needed this vacation to recharge the batteries I haven’t been able to charge in a long time, honey,” I replied, keeping my eyes trained on the sun glinting off the water. “So yes, I’m happy. Happier than I’ve been in a long time.”
He’d been my rock over the last year and four months. Even on the nights when I’d woken up screaming or crying, he’d patiently hold me, giving me his strength, until I went back to sleep. That’s not to say that I hadn’t laughed and we hadn’t had fun, we absolutely had, but it hadn’t felt like I was living and enjoying the fun, whereas now it did.
“I know, baby,” he whispered, kissing the side of my neck before he moved his hand so that his fingers were linked with mine. Then he moved again, and his left hand started fiddling with mine, which felt nice, so I relaxed into him even more.
There was silence for a long moment until he held the hand he’d been fiddling with up. “Hold that for me, will you?”
Looking down at what he was talking about, I froze as my finger glinted just like I’d been watching the sun do on the surface of the water.
“What?” I breathed, still staring at the large diamond on my finger.
“Hold on to it for me,” he repeated calmly. “I’m thinking for at least seventy-five years.”
“What?” I rasped, sounding like I’d been winded, which technically I guess I had been.
Carrying on like he wasn’t holding a marble statue of his girlfriend, Jarrod murmured, “And when I add the other ring to it, you can hold on to that for at least seventy-five years, too.”
I blinked repeatedly, wondering if I was seeing things. There’d been no discussions about the future yet, no hints or indication that he was going to ask me to marry him, so this had come out of nowhere.
I wasn’t prepared, I hadn’t even said yes yet.
“And what will you be holding onto?”
“The ring that you give me,” he replied like the answer was simple, and then added, “and you. Every day, every night, for the rest of our lives.”
“Are you asking me to marry you?”
The vibrations and movement of his chest as he laughed made my toes curl in the sand. “No, I’m telling you we’re getting married, because asking implies you have a choice.”
Ok, that was arrogant, but it was also one of the hottest things I’d ever heard, and I’d listened to all the books he’d narrated.
Figuring that words were now cheap and had no place in the conversation, I turned around and launched myself at him, taking him down onto his back on the sand.
Wrapping his arms back around me, he lay there grinning up at me as I stroked his cheek. “Is this you saying yes?”
“No, because that implies that I have a choice in the matter. This is me thinking that sex on the beach isn’t just a cocktail and we have this whole island to ourselves for the next four hours.”
There were some trees on the island, so to hide away from the fishing boats and the odd yacht that floated by, we hid amongst them and had the real-life version of the cocktail. And it was fucking awesome!
* * *
Eight months later…
I was officially Mrs. Kline now, and it had been the happiest day of my life. I hadn’t cried, I hadn’t tripped as I walked down the aisle to where Jarrod was waiting for me in his black suit with a black shirt under it – sans tie, which looked freaking amazing on him. I hadn’t messed up my vows, I hadn’t dropped his ring. Nothing had gone wrong, not even the smaller details.
Of course I wished my grandmother was here to see it with her big hair, but I was wearing some of her jewelry so I liked to think that she was a huge part of it because she made the way I looked even more special.
Tony had helped me choose my dress for the day, and we’d decided on a plain white strapless one that had a lace overlay with long sleeves. Scarlett had designed my bridal underwear and what she’d come up with was the most beautiful corset and panties I’d ever seen in my life in white lace with light blue stitching at the seams. It might not be as funny as my character panties, but for this one day I wanted to stick with a level of sexy hot that he’d never forget and what she’d designed absolutely gave me that sexy hot factor.
Elodie was one of my bridesmaids – not a flower girl. We’d tried to get her to do that, but she wanted to hold a bouquet not a “dumb basket of petals”, and she’d stood beside me the whole time, grinning at Jarrod like it was the best show ever. Isla’s daughter and Olivia had also been bridesmaids, and it had just looked fabulous with them carrying mini versions of the adult bridesmaids bouquets, with Kali in his smaller version of the suits the men were wearing as a page boy, that I had to thank Elodie for putting her foot down.
Then, when Jarrod had kissed me after we were pronounced man and wife, Elodie had squealed with excitement and then thrown her bouquet at the people sitting on the right side of the church, almost knocking Cole out. That just added to the day for me in all honesty.
I’d sat blushing and laughing through Jarrod’s brothers speeches, and I’d refrained from throwing a pitcher at my own brothers for what they’d said in theirs. They’d brought up all of my childhood transgressions, sharing how I’d once dropped a pair of scissors on Ammon’s foot that had ended up with him needing twelve stitches (accident), how I’d also thrown a bag of flour to him just before the scissor incident that had burst all over him so he’d had to go to hospital looking like Casper (also an accident, but we’d been baking cookies and I couldn’t be bothered to walk across the kitchen to pass him the flour), the CD incident (his fault), how Major had needed stitches in his head after I’d accidentally dropped my encyclopedia over the bannister of the stairs as I was skipping down them (kind of an accident), and finally how he’d ended up with a buzz cut when I’d spilled wax into his precious hair (not an accident). By the end, I wanted to crawl under the table and hide because it made me sound like a wreck, but Jarrod had kissed me while he was laughing, and it felt so good that I couldn’t have cared less if they’d recounted even more stories than they had.
There had been a discussion last month about what the first dance would be – the dad/daughter dance, or the first husband/wife dance. Jarrod had insisted that it would be the dad/daughter dance. So here we were, slowly moving to My Father’s Eyes.
Pulling me a bit closer, Dad rested his chin on the top of my head. “I’m proud of you, Katykins, so very proud of you. And she wouldn’t want you to be sad anymore.” When I pulled back to say something, he just shook his head. “She’s sitting up there on her cloud right now watching all of this, honey, and she’s loving every second and screaming at you to live your life.”
He was right, and until that moment I hadn’t realized that I wasn’t giving myself permission to actually live my life. I was happy – so fucking happy – but I was still living in the shadow of what had happened.
“Now, take a deep breath in,” he told me, waiting until I did it. “And let it out along with all the bad shit.”
The breath came out of me in a peal of laughter, and that final cloud lifted. It was only a year later that it would hit me that I hadn’t had another anxiety attack after that talk with him, and that I’d only had two nightmares. Even my OCD had gotten better.
After the song ended, Jarrod walked up to us, and Dad held my hand out to him. “There’s still time to run, Jarrod,” he told him seriously. When Jarrod just held onto me, he looked at him like he was crazy. “Seriously? You’re not even tempted? I’ve been married to her mother for thirty-one years, man. The ink on the certificate isn’t even d
ry yet, so you’ve got time to escape. See the height of those heels? You’ve got an easy getaway.”
Jarrod’s response was a deep rumble of laughter. “I’ve seen her run in shoes, Paul. Trust me, there’s no getting away.”
Shrugging, Dad started to make his way off the dance floor. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Pulling me into him, he looked over to the DJ and nodded. Then, as the opening notes of Cheer Down began, he said something that broke the tight tear control I’d had all day. “Thought I’d give her one of the most important jobs today.”
One by one they fell down my face, more than likely ruining my makeup and staining my dress with whatever foundation was dragged with them. The difference was, these were happy tears, ones that knew he was right because she was loving every second of this being our wedding song.
If you dissected the lyrics, it would probably shock most people that it was our first dance, but to me they were some of the most beautiful words ever written and revolved around loving someone unconditionally. To cheer down – to me – meant that you didn’t have to act happy if you weren’t. If you added that into the words written by Tom Petty, it meant that you didn’t have to act happy for the other person to love you. Jarrod had stuck with me through the darkest moment of my life, not expecting me to just be the happy-go-lucky person I was before it, and bringing me back to the person I’d been before. And I knew now what I’d known when the GYMP plan had been drunkenly jotted down on those napkins, I would take him however he came, unconditionally, so it was applicable from me to him, too.
My anxiety might have ended that night, and I might have almost conquered the nightmares, but it also started my life, feeling complete and happier than I’d ever been before.
“Farewell to the GYMP,” the girls screamed at the end of the song, making me burst out laughing.
What was even funnier were the expressions on his brothers faced as we walked past him, their eyes looking him up and down like he was a freak of nature. “Never had you down as a gimp, man,” Canon muttered, and then looked at me. “And you – it’s always the quiet ones.”
It probably wasn’t the best idea to call it that, but in our defense alcohol does funny things to your brain. What’s also funny was, the GYMP had meant nothing to me because we’d come together naturally. But if the girls wanted to believe our match was down to them, who were we to tell them otherwise. We knew the truth, and that was all that mattered.
The wedding wasn’t about the attention and flash decorations (although we had all of that, too), it was about us. And when the food was served, I grinned over at Gloria, who’d been helping the caterers perfect it for the last couple of days. They didn’t know what was in her rice and peas because she’d ordered them to leave the kitchen while she prepared it, and watching everyone inhale their food and go back for more, I was even happier that I’d gotten her to make our favorites today – Jarrod’s (and now mine, too) birthday meal.
Beside her in its own seat was the last wig that Maude had ever styled for her. After she’d passed away, Gloria had put it in a special Perspex case so that it wouldn’t get ruined. There were so many little additions that our families had done to include her, and that was definitely one of my favorites.
But then my husband gave me one final gift for the night – well, no he did that in the privacy of our hotel room, but this one was the final gift fit for public consumption. He walked up onto the stage and picked up a guitar that I hadn’t noticed on it and nodded at the DJ.
He’s sung to me so many times and I never got tired of it, but hearing him sing Soul To Squeeze by the Red Hot Chili Peppers? It made a perfect day even more perfect which I’d thought was impossible.
And the videos of it went viral, but because people also sent them to me, I got to relive that moment whenever I wanted to.
Epilogue
Jarrod
One year later…
We hadn’t intended on having kids for another five years until Katy was thirty, but when that little test showed the surprise we had coming, we immediately adjusted our plans and celebrated.
What followed, though, was nine months of hell. Morning sickness, cravings (mostly putting pineapple on everything, including pizza which was a hard limit for me), afternoon sickness, food aversions, swollen feet, cankles, tears followed immediately by laughter, the boy-girl argument, the name argument, the gender revealed or kept secret argument, the nursery color scheme argument…
And then her water broke as we’d sat down to lunch with our families, ruining Canon and Major’s shoes and only just missing Duke, who was sleeping by her feet. Proving that she was special, she went against the grain for a first time labor and within an hour our daughter made her way into the world, pissed and letting us know it. Fortunately, our son had made a quieter entrance after we’d arrived at the hospital, and he’d just looked around and had gone back to sleep.
Now I was sitting beside my wife who was sleeping, with my daughter Melody in one arm and my son Barker in the other. The name argument for our daughter had been over in a minute because as soon as I’d suggested Melody, she’d jumped on it. The one that had last four months – and had only ended because she’d seen him and decided it didn’t suit him – was naming our son Anakin because Katy loved Star Wars.
There was no way in hell I’d have called him Anakin, so when she’d said her second choice was Barker, I was relieved that I didn’t have to carry him out to meet our families saying, “Meet Anakin Kline.” I wouldn’t have survived the fallout from it, especially with him having an uncle called Bond.
As soon as Barker had left her womb (literally because he was still dangling by his umbilical cord), she’d told me these were the only two kids she was ever pushing out because, even with them being twins, they were on the long side and had come out at turbo speed with no time for drugs. The nurses kept telling her that she’d forget the pain, but she was adamant that she wouldn’t forget her vagina tearing in two ever. Seeing as how she’d given me a life that was richer than my dreams, I could give her that.
With my eyes on the babies, I watched as not-Anakin Kline but Barker Kline and Melody both blinked their eyes a couple of times, and then looked up at me with different expressions on their faces. Barker’s was content and sort of ‘imma lay here and just be cute’. whereas Melody’s warned she was about to lose her shit – which she did right then.
“Are they awake?” Katy mumbled sleepily.
Uh, gee, ya think?
“Your daughter is a hellion,” I told her, watching as she pulled herself up to sitting in the bed. “And I think she’s hangry.”
Passing over the harpy, Katy fiddled with her top and then winced as Melody literally pounced on her and started feeding, growling when she got it. “Christ that’s fierce,” Katy gasped, looking up at me wide eyed. “The nurse said we’d need to top up with formula for a couple of days, maybe even always depending on how my udders do at producing a glass of milk for them.”
That was an analogy that made me shudder at the mental image it brought. Not the milk production because there was nothing gross to me about that, but picturing udders on her chest.
“Yeah, she dropped that stuff off after you passed out. Once your harpy’s done her thing, we can swap and I’ll give her it, if you want?”
And just like that, we made the life changing adjustment from just the two of us to parents, as easily as we’d made the adjustment three years ago when we’d gone from people living independent lives to us.
After the feeding was done, diapers had been changed, and baby bootys were sparkling, I sat back down holding them in exactly the same way as before and started singing The Calling’s Wherever You Will Go. Barker was the first to close his eyes and slip back to sleep, but Melody watched me with eyes that were the same color as my own until the song was almost finished, making me wonder if her path in life would be one that involved music.
Just as I finished the song, Katy sat bolt upr
ight in bed and squealed, “I knew you sounded like someone, but I couldn’t figure out why.”
Being likened to the lead singer of the group was far from a bad thing, seeing as how his voice kicked ass. In fact, I remember back when the group released that song and people saw the lead singer, heard the depth of his voice and went ‘huh?’.
“Yours is a bit raspier and a smidge deeper,” she continued, holding her thumb and forefinger about a quarter of an inch away from each other in front of her face. “But that’s it. Shit, how long has it taken me to figure that out?”
“Three years?” I suggested grinning at her.
She dropped her hand down to her blanket covered lap and her expression changed from excited to soft. “I saw you before that, honey.”
Carefully getting up to put the babies in their fishbowls, I walked back over to her and sat down on the edge of her bed, planting a fist in the mattress either side of her. With our mouths now about an inch away from hers, I laid it out. “Six months before you became my GYMP, this beautiful gamer chick moved to town and started working at the garage. She intrigued me, and I wanted to get to know her better. So, when my lease was up, I moved in next door to her and got to know her and her huge dog, too.”
“You did that on purpose?” she breathed, looking shocked.
“How else was I going to get you to talk nerdy to me?”
Laughing quietly, she lay back, watching me with sparkling eyes that were taking longer to open when she blinked. It might not have been a bad labor, but she’d given birth to two babies so she was exhausted.
Laying down beside her, I pulled her into my side and lay there staring blankly at the ceiling. Three years ago I never knew I’d have this, but now I couldn’t imagine my life without it. Every night I went to sleep with my wife wearing one of her nighties and a pair of hilarious but sexy character underwear, with Duke watching out to keep her safe.
Talk Flirty To Me: Cheap Thrills Series Book 4 Page 22
