After Ever Happy (After #4) (55 page)

There’s always another day, there’s always a way to make up for the shit you’ve done and the people you’ve hurt, and there is always someone who loves you, even when you feel like you’re completely alone and you’re just out there floating along, waiting for the next disappointment. There is always something better to come.

It’s hard to see, but it’s there. Tessa was there, underneath the bullshit and self-loathing. Tessa was there beneath my addiction, Tessa was there beneath my self-pity and my shitty choices. She was there as I climbed my way through it; she held my hand the entire fucking way; even after she left me, she was still there, helping me through it.

I never lost hope because Tessa is my hope.

She always has been and always will be.

“Will you stay with me tonight? We can leave here now. Just stay with me,” I beg.

She leans up again, pushing her breasts back into her dress as she looks up at me. Her eye makeup is smeared and her cheeks are red. “Can I say something?”

“Since when do you ask?” I touch the tip of her nose with my index finger.

“True.” She smiles. “I hate that you didn’t try harder.”

“I did but—”

She holds up a finger to silence me. “I hate that you didn’t try harder, but it’s unfair of me to even say that because we both know that I pulled away from you. I kept pushing and pushing, expecting too much from you, and I was so angry over the book and all of the attention that I didn’t want, and I let that rule my mind. I felt as if I couldn’t forgive you because of other people’s opinions, but now I’m angry with myself that I would even listen to that. I don’t care what people say about us, or me. I only care what the people I love think of me, and they love and support me. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for listening to voices that didn’t belong in my head.”

I stand in front of the counter, with Tessa still sitting in front of me, and I’m silent. I wasn’t expecting this. I wasn’t expecting such a turnaround. I came to this wedding hoping for barely so much as a smile from her.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“That you forgive me?” she nervously whispers.

“I forgive you, of course.” I laugh at her. Is she insane? Of course I forgive her. “Do you forgive me? For everything? Or close to everything?”

“Yes.” She nods, reaching for my hand.

“Now I really don’t know what to say.” I run my hand over my hair.

“Maybe that you still want to marry me?” Her eyes are wide, and mine feel as if they are going to pop straight from their sockets.

“What?”

She flushes. “You heard me.”

“Marry you? You hated me like ten minutes ago?” She’s truly going to be the death of me.

“Actually, we were having sex on this counter ten minutes ago.”

“You actually mean that? You want to marry me?” I can’t believe that she’s saying this. There’s no way in hell she’s saying this. “Have you been drinking?” I try to recall if I tasted any liquor on her tongue.

“No, I had one glass of champagne over an hour ago. I’m not drunk, I’m just tired of fighting this. We’re inevitable, remember?” she mocks, using a terrible English accent.

I kiss her mouth, silencing her.

“We are the least romantic couple that’s ever been; you know that, right?” My tongue swipes over her soft lips.

“ ‘Romance is overrated, realism is in,’ ” she quotes from my latest novel.

I love her. Fuck, I love this woman so fucking much. “Marry me? Really, you will?”

“Not today or anything, but sure, I’ll think about it.” She climbs down from the counter, adjusting her dress.

I smile too. “I know you will.” I adjust my clothing, trying to understand everything that’s happening in this bathroom. Tessa is somewhat agreeing to marry me. Holy fucking shit.

She shrugs playfully.

“Vegas, let’s go to Vegas right now.” I dig into my pocket and pull my keys out of it.

“No way; I’m not getting married in Vegas. You’re crazy.”

“We’re both crazy; who gives a shit?”

“No way, Hardin.”

“Why not?” I plead, taking her face between my palms.

“Vegas is a fifteen-hour drive.” She glances at me, then at her reflection in the mirror.

“Don’t you think a fifteen-hour drive is long enough to think about it?” I joke, pulling the chairs away from the door.

Then Tessa truly shocks me by cocking her head and saying, “Yeah, I guess so.”

T
he drive to Vegas was a daunting one. The first two hours were spent creating fantasy scenarios about the perfect Vegas wedding. Tessa played with the ends of her curled hair, glancing over at me with flushed cheeks and a happiness in her smile that I haven’t seen in so long.

“I wonder how easy it is, in reality, to be married in Vegas. Last minute. Ross and Rachel style,” she questioned, her face buried into her phone.

“You’re googling it. Aren’t you?” I asked her. I moved my hand to her lap and cracked the window of my rental car.

Somewhere outside Boise, Idaho, we stopped for food and more gas. Tessa was getting sleepy, her head leaning forward and her eyes soft and heavy. I pulled into the crowded truck stop and gently shook Tessa by her shoulder to wake her.

“Vegas already?” she joked, knowing we were barely halfway there.

We got out of the car, and I followed her to the bathroom. I always liked these types of gas stations; they were well-lit and had full parking lots. Less chance of being murdered and whatnot.

When I came out of the bathroom, Tessa was standing in one of the many snack aisles. Her arms were already full of junk: bags of crisps and chocolates and too many energy drinks for her small hands to hold.

I stood back for a moment, just staring at the woman in front of me. The woman that would be my wife in just a few hours. My wife. After all we have been through, after fighting back and forth over a marriage that, honestly, neither of us thought would actually happen, we were on our way to Vegas to make it legal in a small chapel. At twenty-three, I would become someone’s husband—Tessa’s husband—and I couldn’t imagine anything that could possibly make me happier.

Even being the bastard I was, I was getting a happy ending with her. She would be smiling at me, her eyes full of tears, and I would be making some stupid remark about an Elvis lookalike walking by during our wedding.

“Look at all this stuff, Hardin.” Tessa used her elbow to point at the enormous number of random snacks. She was dressed in those pants—yeah, you know the ones. Those yoga pants and an NYU zip-up sweatshirt were what she was wearing on the way to her wedding. She was planning on changing when we arrived at whatever hotel we were going to check into, though. She wouldn’t be wearing a wedding gown, the way I had always imagined in my head.

“You’re okay with not wearing a wedding dress?” I blurted out.

Her eyes went a little wide, and she smiled, shook her head, and said, “Where did that come from?”

“I was just wondering. I was thinking about how you won’t be able to have, like, the wedding that women are always obsessing over. You won’t have flowers or anything.”

She handed me a bag of some sort of orange-dyed corn puffs. An old man walked by us and smiled at her. His eyes met mine, and he quickly looked away.

“Flowers? Really?” she asked, rolling her eyes and walking past me, ignoring the way I rolled my eyes back at her. I followed her, nearly tripping over an unsteady child in light-up shoes wobbling by, holding the hand of his mother.

“What about Landon? Your mum and David? Don’t you want them to be there?” I asked.

She turned to face me, and I could see the thought occurring to her in a different way. During the drive, our minds were both so clouded by our excitement over our decision to be wed in Vegas that we forgot about reality.

“Oh,” she sighed, staring at me while I caught up to her.

We walked to the register, and I could tell what she was thinking: Landon and her mum have to be there when we get married. Have to. And Karen—Karen would be heartbroken if she didn’t witness Tessa becoming my wife.

We paid for our junk food and caffeine. Well, she fought me and paid for it. I let her.

“You still want to go? You know you can tell me, baby. We can wait,” I told her as I buckled my seat belt. She pulled open the bag of orange puffs and popped one into her mouth.

“Yeah. I do,” she insisted.

It didn’t feel right, though. I knew she wanted to marry me, and I knew that I wanted to spend my life with her, but I didn’t want it to start this way. I wanted our families to be there. I wanted my little brother and little Abby to be a part of it, walking down the aisle, throwing flowers and rice and doing whatever crap people make the youngest family members do during weddings. I saw the way her eyes lit up when she proudly told me how much she helped with the planning of Landon’s wedding.

I wanted everything to be perfect for my Tessa, so when she fell asleep thirty minutes later, I turned the car around and drove her back to Ken’s house. When she woke up, surprised but not cursing me out, she unbuckled her seat belt, climbed into my lap, and kissed me, warm tears running down her cheeks.

“God, I love you, Hardin,” she said into my neck. We stayed in the car for another hour. I held her on my lap, and when I told her I wanted Smith to throw rice at our wedding, she laughed, pointing out that he’d probably do it very precisely, grain by grain.

TWO YEARS LATER

TESSA

THE DAY I GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE,
I was so proud of myself. I was so happy with every aspect of my life, except that I didn’t want to work in publishing anymore. Yes, Theresa Young, obsessive planner of every detail of her future, changed her mind midway through college.

It started when Landon’s bride didn’t want to pay for a wedding planner. She was adamant about not hiring one, even though she had no idea how to start planning her wedding. Landon helped her, though; he was the perfect fiancé, staying up late to look through magazines with us, missing class to taste ten different cakes two different times. I loved the feeling of being in charge of such an important day for so many people. It was my specialty: planning and doing something for others.

During the wedding I kept thinking that I would love to do this more often, just as a hobby, but as the months went by, I found myself at bridal expos, and the next thing I knew, I was planning Kimberly and Christian’s wedding.

I kept my job at Vance in New York City because I needed the income. Hardin moved to New York with me, and I refused to let him pay all of my bills while I tried to figure out what the hell to do, because though I was so proud of my college degree, I just no longer wanted to work in the field. I will always love reading—books are forever tied to my soul—but I simply changed my mind. Just like that.

Hardin gave me endless crap about this, since I’d always been so sure about my career choice. But as the years went on and I grew up, I realized that I didn’t know who I was when I enrolled in WCU. How can people be expected to choose what they want to do for the rest of their life when they’re just
beginning
their life?

Landon already had his job lined up: fifth-grade teacher at a public school in Brooklyn. Hardin, a
New York Times
bestseller at the young age of twenty-five, had four books published, and me, well, I was still working on figuring out my own path, but I was fine with that. I didn’t feel rushed in the way I always had. I wanted to take my time and make sure every choice I made was set to make me happy. For the first time I was putting my happiness before anyone else’s, which felt great.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror. There were so many times in the past four years when I wasn’t sure if I would make it through college, and now here I was: a college graduate. Hardin clapped while my mother cried. They even sat together.

My mother walked into the bathroom and stood at my side. “I’m so proud of you, Tessa.”

She was wearing an evening gown; it wasn’t really suitable for a college graduation, but she wanted to dress to impress, as always. Her blond hair was curled and sprayed to perfection, and her nails were painted to match my graduation cap and gown. It was over the top, but she was proud and I didn’t want to take that away from her. She had groomed me to succeed in life and be everything she couldn’t, and now, as an adult, I understood that.

“Thank you,” I responded as she handed me her lip gloss. I gladly took it from her, despite the fact that I didn’t want or need to reapply any makeup, and she looked pleased when I didn’t fight her on it.

“Is Hardin still out there?” I asked. The gloss was sticky and too dark for my liking, but I smiled anyway.

“He’s entertaining David.” She smiled along with me, and my heart filled a little more. My mother’s fingers ran over the ends of her curls. “He invited him to that fundraiser he’s speaking at.”

“That will be nice.” Things weren’t as awkward between my mother and Hardin as they used to be. He would never be her favorite person, but over the past few years she gained a respect for him that I never would have believed was possible before.

I’ve gained a new respect for Hardin Scott, too. It’s painful to think back over the last four years of my life and remember the way he used to be. I wasn’t perfect either, but he held on to his past so tightly that he broke me in the process. He made mistakes—massive and devastating mistakes—but he paid his dues for them. He would never be the most patient, the most lovable and friendly man out there, but he was mine. Always had been.

Still, I had needed the distance from him after I moved to New York with Landon. We had been seeing each other “casually,” as casual as Hardin and I could be. He didn’t pressure me to move to Chicago, and I didn’t beg him to move to New York. It was about a year after Landon’s wedding that he finally moved, but we made it work by visiting one another when we could, Hardin more so than me. I was suspicious about his sudden “work trips” to the city, but I was always so happy when he came and wanted him to stay when he left.

Our apartment in Brooklyn was decent. Though he was making a lot of money, Hardin was willing to move into a place that I could help pay for. I worked at the restaurant between planning weddings and classes, and he only complained minimally.