Scared of Forever (Scared #2) (29 page)

“She won’t get the
chance,” I say with a grin.

“Remind me again why
I’m required to help you buy bedding?”

“Because I only buy
black sheets and monochromic quilt covers.”

Maia rolls her eyes.
“Seriously, Jackson and I haven’t even seen each other this week!
You owe us!”

“Mac wants a holiday
to the Maldives and a date, what do you want?” I ask laughing.

“A holiday with you?”
she asks, confused. “Anyway, all I want is for you to make her
happy, and keep her happy.”

“I like you. You give
me easy tasks to fulfill,” I reply, grinning.

Once Maia leaves, I
check in with Mary, making sure she’s at the airport. She is. Then
Jackson. Then Mac. Finally, my mother. Last but not least, I make the
call to Emily, confirming her as the special guest on the date that
only she is in the dark about.

Saturday comes upon me
quicker than Friday did. Jackson pulls up outside of my apartment in
Maia’s BMW, and I load the back of the car with everything I need.
Then I shower, dress, and jump in my Jeep, very proud of the baby
seat I installed myself yesterday.

I arrive at Emily’s
place just after eleven. I knock on the door, palms sweaty. She opens
the door and greets me with a smoldering kiss. “We have to go,” I
say laughing and trying to disentangle myself from her lips.

“What’s the rush?
Is this an all-day date?”

“Kind of,” I say
walking over and picking Sadie up from her bassinet. She smiles a
sweet smile at me.

“Wait! Sadie doesn’t
have a car seat,” Emily exclaims. She knows we’re driving
somewhere, she just doesn’t know where.

“Way ahead of you,”
I say, grinning.

“You are too perfect
for words.” She kisses me sweetly on the cheek. “And handy with
tools. I like that.”

We begin the familiar
drive to the Hamptons. “Are we going to the beach?” Emily asks,
eventually recognizing the scenery.

“That’s exactly
where we’re going,” I say with a smile. We arrive at the beach
house after one, as planned. The driveway is empty, as planned. Emily
is still unaware of what’s next.
As
planned
.

I’ve never seen Tyler
so cagey. He barely said more than a few sentences to me on the way
here. No witty banter. His hands wrung the steering wheel throughout
the whole drive. He audibly breathes a sigh of relief when we land at
the beach house, and ushers me to the door. And when I mention that I
want to take Sadie to the sand, he point blank refuses, in a very
direct way. I scrunch my face in confusion.

Opening the door, I’m
floored to see Mac, Maia, Eliza, and Janie standing in the empty
beach house. Tyler hands Sadie to his mother and kisses me quickly on
the cheek. “I have to go,” he says quickly before dashing out.

“Can someone tell me
what the hell is going on?” I shout, frustrated. “Why are you
guys crashing my date?”

“This isn’t your
date, honey,” Mac replies.

“Nope, this is
pre-date prep,” Maia grins, clanging together the arms of a hair
straightener.

“Calm down, dear,”
Eliza says to me, smiling at Sadie.

This is a strange
communion of people, in a strange situation, all doing strange
things.

Maia pulls out a folded
piece of paper from her bag and lays it on the table.

“What’s that?” I
ask.

She rolls her eyes.
“Instructions from your fiancée, who, by the way, might possibly
be suffering from a bout of obsessive compulsive behavior.”

Maia unzips a familiar
yellow silk dress from a garment bag. “This is the dress the first
night Tyler and I—” I freeze, realizing that Eliza is in the
room.

“Did he say messy?”
Janie asks Mac as she’s doing my hair. “Check the list,” Mac
says.

A few times I try to
make a dash for said list. They all succeed every time in cutting me
off at the pass. When I’m dressed, with hair styled and makeup
applied, they all start walking towards the door. All except Eliza.

“Where are you going
now?” I ask, starting to feel anxious about all the secrecy.

“We’ll be back
soon,” Maia calls over her shoulder.

“I’ve never been
inside here before,” I say to Eliza, marveling at the oak
architraves and ornate fireplace that covers one entire wall.

“I grew up here,”
Eliza says with a smile. “It was a beautiful place to grow up.”
She smiles down at Sadie dotingly.

“I’d never leave a
place like this. I’d want to exist right here,” I say dreamily.

“I hope you do,”
she says cryptically.

“Eliza, please tell
me what’s going on,” I beg. “It’s driving me crazy.”

“This is date five,”
she says with a cheerful grin.

It’s starting to feel
a little ominous. Like in a slasher movie, where the girl finds out
that all the people she’s surrounded by are cannibals or some shit.
I pace, back and forth. Tyler hasn’t returned yet. Neither have
Mac, Maia, or Janie. Eliza left Sadie and I a few minutes ago, so I
went exploring. The house was largely unfurnished, my bare footsteps
thudding against the hardwood floors. I meander through each room,
except for two on the second floor that are locked. I find that
peculiar for an empty house, but don’t spend too much time thinking
about it.

Hearing footsteps on
the floor below, Sadie and I walk down the stairs. Maia is standing
alone. “Let’s go,” she says with a smile.

I don’t question her
and follow out of the beach house and around the perimeter. Maia
takes Sadie from me just before we round the corner. My stomach flips
when I see Tyler, standing next to Jackson and Mac in the distance.
Opposite them stands Eliza. My stomach almost literally bottoms out.

“Welcome to date
five,” Maia says softly.

“My makeup,” I
sniff, trying desperately to keep the tears at bay.

“Date five looks
like—” I begin, turning to Maia.

“A wedding,” she
finishes. “It does, doesn’t it?”

“Did he do all this?”
I ask, relinquishing my defeat to the tears.

“Every last minute
detail,” Maia says, rolling her eyes dramatically. “And right
now, he’s thinking of killing himself, owing to the fear that you
may be mad, or say no. Will you?”

I shake my head,
smiling like a Cheshire cat. Maia pulls a green flag from the
windowsill and waves it towards the waiting guests. Tyler leans
forward on his knees, head hung low. “I had a red flag, too,”
Maia explains. “Just in case you decided to get all runaway bride
on us. I think he’s relieved,” she says, gesturing towards Tyler,
still slumped forward with Mac rubbing his back dramatically.

Maia and I walk towards
the rest of the gathering. Now I know why I wasn’t allowed to wear
shoes. When we arrive, she leaves back towards the house, and Eliza
hands me a bouquet, filled with carnations, proteas, roses, kale
flowers, and white baby’s breath. I can’t steal my eyes away from
Tyler. The minute I get close enough, our eyes become fixed,
unfaltering. He smiles a broad smile, the dimple on his left cheek
the perfect accessory.

I walk over and stand
in front of him, dress billowing in the breeze. He looks so handsome
in a pair of loose linen pants rolled up to mid-calf and a casual
button down shirt, its color a few shades lighter than my yellow
dress.

“These flowers,” I
say, looking down at the bouquet. “They were from you?”

He nods, eyes boring
into me. Intense, as if in this moment, time has stopped; the world
has stopped turning on its axis; everyone else is gone from my sight.
“They stayed on my table for months,” I laugh.

Maia returns moments
later with Sadie, who’s wearing a pleated yellow chiffon dress with
a sparkling yellow rhinestone collar and the tiniest yellow linen
ballet flats I have ever seen. She matches us.
Every
detail is perfect.

“One more surprise,”
Tyler whispers. “Turn around.”

I turn and come face to
face with my baby sister, Mirelle. I fly into her arms, not realizing
until now how much I had missed seeing her face. Aside from some
emails, I hadn’t heard from her in so long.

“Hi,” she says,
eyes glistening with tears. Her and I look so similar that we could
be mistaken for twins. Her hair is dark now though, almost black, and
her eyes don’t have their usual sparkle. But she is my sister
nonetheless, and I have missed her.

“I’m so glad you’re
here,” I say, hugging her again.

“No way I’d miss
this,” she says, hugging me back. “Now get off of me and go get
married,” she finishes with a reprimand. “We can catch up later!”

I walk back to Tyler,
and he takes my hand. “Who will marry us?” I ask.

“That would be me,”
Eliza says, stepping forward. Only then do I notice Dr. Carson
standing behind her, a happy smile on his face. He’s a man of few
words, but I don’t think there is a prouder father in all of the
world.
Except maybe Tyler
.

“She’s a retired
judge,” Tyler says in my ear.

Oh, now I get why I
always found her to be so severe and, well,
judgy
.

I haven’t prepared
vows, although it’s so very easy for me to talk about all of the
things that I love about Tyler. But a couple of sentences will
suffice. “I’m home with you. I love you.”

He runs his thumb
across my cheek and I melt into his touch. He knows what I mean. A
hundred words couldn’t be weighted with more meaning than that
simple affirmation. His eyes shine happily. The sun glistens against
the gentle ocean waves. The breeze causes his hair to shift ever so
slightly. When it’s time for him to say his vows, he stays silent
for a few seconds, looking around, before he brings his eyes up to
meet mine again.

“Remember last week,
when I proposed?” he starts. “Man, that makes me sound so crazy,”
he quips as an aside. I laugh, as do the rest of our guests.
“Remember that I thanked you in advance? Well, I thanked you for
everything before today. For Sadie. For choosing me. For allowing me
to be the person that gets to wake up next to you for the rest of my
life. I thank you in advance for making me the happiest man in the
galaxy today, for all of Sadie’s future brothers and sisters, for
the days where we may not be perfect, for old age.”

I don’t know why Mac
insisted I wear makeup, as the tears flow freely down my face. The
most endearing part of the vows is the sincerity in his voice as he
presents them to me.

“Also,” he
continues with a cheeky grin, “thank you for allowing me to be your
first kiss.”

I look up at him
quizzically. What does he mean? Wait—
Oh
my God
! My eyes round to epic proportions, and I blush
furiously. Tyler stifles a laugh.

We say ‘I do’ to
one another moments later, and then Tyler pulls me into a kiss that
rocks me like a Richter-ten earthquake. All of our friends and family
cheer wildly.

Our reception is a huge
bonfire on the beach, with Maia and Jackson, Mac, Janie, Mirelle and
Tyler’s PA, Mary, in attendance. Tyler has arranged for Eliza to
take Sadie for the rest of the weekend. Unbeknownst to me, he had
already asked Mac to pack her a bag and dropped it off at Eliza’s
house. I laugh uncontrollably as they all fill me in on the secretive
happenings of the week.

“He made me go to ten
different baby stores to find Sadie’s dress,” Maia says feigning
irritation. “Eventually, I just had him describe it to a dress
maker. And a shoemaker! Do you know how hard it is to find something
when you are actually looking for it?”

“Not to mention
making me stalk you in your sleep!” Mac chimes in.

“What?” I ask,
confused.

“
Mac
,”
Tyler says sternly.

“Oh right, sorry,”
Mac says quickly.

“And it took Mary
almost a week to track down your sister,” Tyler says. Mary smiles
from opposite me, across the fire. Having spent the afternoon with
her, it has become apparent that her and Tyler’s relationship is
absolutely platonic. She’s all business.

“Where were you,
Ellie?” I ask, turning to my sister.

“Vegas,” she
answers simply.

“That’s a long way
from Missouri,” I observe.

“Yeah, but I like it.
It’s a good change from our small town,” she answers shortly, not
volunteering anything further.

“I’m glad you’re
here. Can you stay a while?” I ask, eyes pleading.

“I think I can manage
that,” she says with a smile.

A thought flashes
through my mind. “You guys forgot the wedding traditions! You know,
something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue!
That’s probably bad luck,” I admonish.

“Nope,” Tyler says
with a satisfied smile. “And I didn’t know you were
superstitious.”

“He thought of it
all. Something old is your dress. Eliza found it, God knows where. I
think it was when she had your old apartment cleared out when it was
sold. Something new is the diamond pin Janie put in your hair.
Something borrowed is the brooch on your dress, it was Tyler’s
grandmother’s. And something blue is the garter,” Maia says
matter-of-factly.