Summer Unplugged: The Beginning Of Forever Part 10

"I don't even know why I'm crying," I sputter, pulling away from her hug. I shake my head and try unsuccessfully to wipe away my tears with the back of my hand. "I'm just..."

"I get it." Julie smiles, tilting her head. "Pregnancy sucks. But you look at it this way...you'll be a young mother, which is awesome. I know because I am one." She puts her hand on her hip and winks. "When all your friends are wiping snotty noses and changing diapers, you'll have a kid who can take care of themselves. It's amazing." Her eyes light up a few moments later. "Unless of course, ya'll decide to have more kids which would make me, Grandma, very excited."

"I can't even imagine that right now," I say with a laugh. "One epic life changing thought at a time, please."

Julie laughs. "I have no advice for you on that one. Jace was our only child so I have no experience in raising more kids. But he was so easy. Such an easy baby. Hopefully yours will be, too."

I nod even though I'm not really sure what part of raising a baby could ever be easy. I'm not even sure I still know how to change a diaper. It's been a long time since my little brother wore them. I'd like to think I did a good job in raising him as a baby, but truthfully, any time something was hard, I'd make Mom do it.

"So are you excited about the wedding?" Julie asks.

I nod. "I'm really excited about my dress and everything, but it's kind of scary because it doesn't feel like it's as big of a deal as it should be. I keep seeing wedding shows on television and it's all so big and fancy and important...my wedding planning hasn't been like that at all."

"That's because television makes everything out to be more dramatic than it really is." She waves a hand through the air dismissively. "Your wedding doesn't have to be that. Besides, a small wedding like yours will be amazing and you'll make so many great memories of it."

"So it'll be small?" I ask casually, gnawing on my bottom lip. "Can you tell me anything else about it?"

"Oh my G.o.d, I forgot!" Julie's eyes widen and she slaps a hand over her mouth. "You don't know the venue! I can't believe I almost said it out loud. Jace would have killed me!"

"So everyone already knows my wedding location but me?" I laugh. "This is probably the weirdest way to plan a wedding."

"Don't worry, you'll love it," Julie a.s.sures me. "But let's not tell Jace that I almost said too much."

The gla.s.s door slides open and we both spin around, eyes wide and guilty expressions that could be seen a mile away.

Jace stands at the doorway, a cup of coffee in one hand. He lifts an eyebrow. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Nope," Julie says, glancing at me with a smile. "Just talking about...a sale at Nordstrom."

"Bayleigh doesn't shop at Nordstrom," Jace says skeptically.

Julie shrugs. "All the more reason to talk about it."

He rolls his eyes, showing us that he doesn't believe a single word of our shenanigans. When he wraps his arm around my waist and kisses me good morning, the smell of his coffee makes my stomach hurt. But I smile anyway so it won't upset him.

"Well, whatever you were talking about, I'm glad the two of you are having fun."

"Oh we definitely are," Julie says, smiling.

"Yeah and by the way," I tell Jace. My heart starts pounding in my chest but I don't care. I'm going to say this. "I'm not going to Ashley's stupid photography show."

"Yeah," Julie says defiantly. "Screw that b.i.t.c.h."

Chapter 17.

One week before the wedding I can always tell when it's Sat.u.r.day morning compared to every other morning. These are the days when Jace doesn't have to wake up before the sun, throw on some clothes and rush off to work. These are his off days. Well, usually. Spending Sat.u.r.day mornings in bed with him is one of my favorite things. The bed is always warmer when he's in it, snuggled up next to me. I can't imagine a better paradise than being curled against his chest in our plush mattress, in the place we've made a home.

Unfortunately, today is the last Sat.u.r.day Jace and I will have as single people. Next Sat.u.r.day we'll be married. The unfortunate part is not because of the marriage, obviously. It's because this is a freaking Sat.u.r.day, unofficially known as my snuggle day, and Jace is still up at the b.u.t.t-crack of dawn. His best man and best friend Park is arriving today and Jace has to pick him up from the airport because unfortunately for us, he's also not of legal age to rent a car.

He leans over my side of the bed and kisses me on the forehead. "Be back before you know it," he whispers.

"Not true," I whisper back. "I already miss you so you can't be back before I know it. Because I know it right now."

"What am I gonna do with you?" he says, a.s.saulting me in an onslaught of kisses to my cheek, neck, shoulder and lips.

I giggle profusely, twisting left and right because he hasn't shaved in a couple of days and his scraggly facial hair tickles like crazy. When he stops, I catch my breath and push him away. "Go get your friend," I say, rolling my eyes. "Ya'll better bring me back a cheeseburger."

"It's six in the morning," Jace says. "What do you want a cheeseburger for?"

I sit up on my elbows and give him the most serious look I can muster. "Are you seriously going to question your pregnant fiance's food cravings?" I stick out my tongue.

"You are the biggest dork in the world, but I love you so much."

"I love you, too," I say, rolling back over in bed, pulling the covers up to my neck as sleep starts to fall over me again. "Cheeseburger," I whisper as I snuggle under the covers some more. I'm pretty sure I feel him plant a kiss on my cheek one more time before he slips out the door. I think I smile, but I'm too sleepy to know for sure.

I slip on an oven mitt and pull out the tray of cinnamon rolls a few seconds before the timer goes off. My phone still hasn't rang since this morning when Becca called to let me know she was leaving her house and would be here soon. We have a whole day of last minute wedding prep to do, and she was supposed to arrive like, right now. That's why I timed the cinnamon rolls perfectly.

With the cinnamon rolls on the counter and the oven mitt off my hand, I grab my phone to check it for any missed messages. No word from Becca. I frown and begin frosting our breakfast, hoping she gets here soon. I don't know if it's because I'll be a mother soon, or if I'm just going crazy, but I hate waiting on people. All I can ever think about is that they probably got in some horrific wreck and are lying dead on the road right now, unable to tell me.

There's a knock at my door, and I leap off the barstool, running toward the door at full speed. I swing open the door without checking the peephole first. "Thank G.o.d you're not dead!" I say in a voice that's terrifyingly like my mother's.

Becca rolls her eyes and pushes through the door with about six big bags in tow. "Why would I be dead?"

"Because you took so long to get here," I say, helping her with the bags.

"You're ridiculous. Do I smell breakfast?"

"Yep. You'll be happy to know I didn't burn the bottoms this time."

"Woohoo!" She high-fives me. "You're going to be an excellent wife one of these days. Now we just need to teach you the super tricky skill of boiling water."

Now I'm the one rolling my eyes. "I know how to boil water."

She slaps a hand to her chest in surprise. "Jace is such a lucky man!"

I grab a frosted cinnamon roll and shove it in her mouth. "Here, eat this so I don't have to keep listening to you talk."

Becca helps herself to two cups of coffee while I drink hot chocolate in order to avoid caffeine for the baby. I never knew she was such a huge coffee drinker until lately. She claims she picked up the habit at the place where she works. Apparently they all drink coffee like fiends over there. I'm a little jealous of her job because when she talks about it, you can tell she really loves it. I hope I will love my job just as much when I'm working full time at the motocross track.

"So what all did you bring me?" I ask after we've eaten. I drop to the floor and start digging through the bags. One is a paper shopping bag made of pearly thick paper with satin ribbon handles.

"Oooh!" Becca swoons, darting to the floor next to me. "Those are the RSVPs! Every single person we invited has replied. That has to be some kind of world record or something."

I dig into the bag and pull out about fifty envelopes, all addressed to Jace and me in Becca's lovely cursive handwriting. The RSVP cards are printed on the same cardstock and in the same elegant style as the invitations, but I never got to see them because the invitations had the address of the venue. The paper is hand dyed with turquoise at the top and purple on the bottom, the colors fading between the two in a beautiful ombre.

One part of me absolutely loves that Jace planned the location of our wedding in secret and the other part of me is going completely crazy, dying to know where it'll be. It is supposed to be a small wedding with a small venue, that's all I know. We both didn't want some crazy big location, but when I search online for small wedding places in Texas, nothing quite looks like something Jace would choose.

We open all of the RSVPs and take note of who is coming and who "regretfully declined" by checking that box on the paper. Some of Jace's older relatives who aren't healthy enough to make the trip declined as we already knew they would. When I open the RSVP from Becca's mom, I start laughing.

The checkbox for Regretfully Decline was checked and then scratched out and the box for Joyfully Accepts was checked. In small lettering at the bottom of the paper, Becca's mom had written: s.h.i.+T I'm sorry, I checked the wrong box on mistake. Of course I am coming! Love you!

"Your mom is so scatterbrained," I say, placing her RSVP to the side. It is definitely going into the wedding memories sc.r.a.pbook that I swear I'll get around to making one of these days.

"Tell me about it," Becca says. "She bought you a wedding card the other day and was totally confused when I told her she already bought a card for you like two months ago. Now she'll probably give you both of them since she can't choose which one is her favorite."

My phone rings and since Becca is closer to the coffee table, she hands it to me, sing-songing the words, "It's your lover-boy."

I'm laughing at how stupid she is when I answer the phone.

"Hey," Jace says. He sighs. "I'm at the airport and I'm confused as s.h.i.+t."

"What does that mean?"

"I've been waiting for his flight, number 4572, and it just landed but I can't find Park. I watched everyone who came out of the plane and then I've been standing by the baggage claim and he's not here."

"Did you try calling him?" I ask.

"Like a million times. His phone goes straight to voicemail."

"Are you sure you have the right flight?" I know my questions are pointless because I'm sure Jace has already thought of them, but I ask anyway.

"Yeah," he says, his voice dejected. "He had emailed me his flight information. This is definitely the right place he should have landed. I even asked some of the other pa.s.sengers who walked by. I don't know where he is, but I'm thinking he never got on this plane."

"Wow..." I gnaw on my bottom lip and Becca gives me a curious look. "What are you going to do?"

"I guess I'll stay around a little longer. Maybe I missed him somehow. I'll keep trying his phone. Part of the reason I called you was to make sure my phone is still working because I was starting to think maybe the problem was on my end."

"Good luck, babe." I try to think of something comforting to say. Jace isn't like me. He's not going to jump to the conclusion that Park is dead, lying in a ditch somewhere outside of the airport in California. "I'm sure he'll show up."

"Thanks. I'll call you later and let you know what's up. I love you."

"I love you more," I say, smiling in an attempt to make him feel better.

"You wis.h.!.+" he says right before he hangs up.

Becca frowns when I tell her what just happened. "I know he's Jace's best friend and all, but what kind of friend just doesn't show up when they're supposed to?"

"Maybe he missed his flight?" I say with a shrug.

"I don't know who this dude is, but he better get here in time for the wedding or I'll have to kick his a.s.s for ruining my best friend's big day."

"You look scary when you're making threats," I say. "Remind me not to be late to my own wedding."

"You better not be late. I'd hate to have to kick your a.s.s on your wedding day." She pulls out a folded piece of poster board and flattens it on the floor. Five circles with ten squares around each circle have been drawn on what I now recognize as a handmade seating chart. "Now that we have the RSVPs, we can seat your guests."

"I've always thought this was kind of weird," I say, looking over the hand drawn layout and trying to picture what the venue would look like. "Can't we just let people sit where they want to?"

"Apparently not," she says, pointing at the wedding planning binder I had left on the coffee table. "It seems stupid to me too, but we have to do it."

After the pointless endeavor of placing people in chairs based on how well they know and/or like each other, we sit back and admire our seating chart. There's a head table at the front of the other tables and that's where we'll sit. It's small, with only room for me and Jace in the middle and then Park and Becca on either side of us. I like having a short wedding party. We haven't decided where to put my brother. I think he'd like sitting at the head table with us, but I also think he'd rather sit next to Mom and David. I make a note of it so I can call and ask him later. But for now, we've knocked out one more task in the great list of things to do for a wedding.

Jace gets home around lunchtime. To our disappointment, he arrives alone. His phone is clutched in his hand and I've no doubt that he's been trying to reach Park for the whole drive back.

"I wonder what happened to him?" I ask, barely getting the words out before Jace plants a kiss on my lips.

"Something must have happened. Maybe his truck broke down on the way to the airport. And I guess his phone broke at the same time. He wouldn't just ditch...something happened." He moves past me toward the kitchen and grabs a slice of leftover pizza from the fridge. I cringe when he bites into it cold. I so can't eat cold pizza, but Jace loves it. "What are you girls up to?"

"How are you being so casual about this? Aren't you afraid your friend is dead?"

He gives me a look like I'm crazy. "He's not dead. Something obviously came up, but it wasn't death."

"How do you know that?" I ask, hands on my hips.

He takes a huge bite of pizza. "Because I have faith that things will work out just fine. They always do."

As much as I want to argue his logic by bringing up every possible bad thing that could have happened to prevent Park from catching his flight, I decide to keep my mouth shut. If we still haven't heard from Park in twenty four hours then I'll allow myself to freak out. After all, Jace knows his parents and would probably be the first person they called if something bad had happened to him. This comforts me a little.

Just before the three of us are about to leave to get dinner, Jace asks me to leave the room. He has this sneaky smile on his face so I know he isn't mad at me, but I frown and question him anyway. "Why do I have to leave?"

"Because the maid of honor and I have some wedding plans to discuss," he says, not missing a beat. "I'd totally let you stay if you weren't the bride but...alas, you are."

"Fine, fine," I say, pus.h.i.+ng myself out of Jace's lap. "Don't take too long. I'm starving."

"Love ya," Becca says, grinning like a goofball.

I make a big show of slumping out of the room and into my bedroom. I think seriously about pressing my ear to the door to eavesdrop on any information I can overhear, but then Jace is one step ahead of me. He turns up the volume on the television until all I can hear is an incredibly loud episode of The Simpsons.

While I wait, I slip into the closet and admire my wedding dress. It stays locked up in a black garment bag, but sometimes when Jace isn't around, I take it out and stare at it on the hanger. I'm too scared to touch it or mess with it, so I leave it on the hanger. The last thing I need is to smudge dirt on it, or snag it on a hangnail or rip off sparkles or something.

As I stare at the folds of fabric, I try to imagine myself wearing the gown in exactly six days from now. My hair will be fixed, my makeup will be flawless. I stare down at my raggedy nailsI've been neglecting my cuticles like crazy. But soon, they'll also be perfectly manicured. I will be all fixed up and painted and primed into the most beautiful version of myself.

Then I'll get to marry Jace.

This is all so freaking surreal.

"Knock, knock," Jace says from somewhere just outside of the closet. "Are you staring at your wedding dress again?"

"Yes! Go away!" I shout, frantically grabbing the garment bag and zipping it closed. "You can't see it!"

I hear him slump against the wall next to the closet door. "That thing must be really pretty with how often you stare at it."