“Shut up!”
“You didn’t!”
The hazing belted from all five girls. Brooklyn was the only one who had already known about my mishap in Sin City.
“Oh my god, Becca! Only you!” Payton slapped her knee, laughing at my shortcomings. I didn’t blame her. I did it to myself. And one year later, it was quite funny.
“Yeah, it’s a one-of-a-kind, alright,” I agreed.
Chapter 2
The seven of us stepped into the spa waiting room. Grace and I filled up on cucumber water while the others talked about how hot they hoped their masseuse would be. One by one, we got picked off. And when an exceptionally attractive man called Terra’s name, the rest of the girls moaned in jealous disappointment. I smirked behind my handful of complementary grapes; glad it wasn’t me who’d been called. I was the second to last called by a petite woman with a soft voice, and what I would later come to find as firm hands. The massage was relentless, and despite what I had originally thought about falling asleep, the pain of it all kept me wide awake, sobering me muscle by muscle. By the end of my forty-five minutes, I felt beaten and battered. Just the way I liked it.
“Make sure you drink a lot of water to help flush the toxins out,” my masseuse said, as I left her room.
“I will, thank you.” I took the water and drank it down in a few large gulps. I made my way to the ladies’ room and showered the oil out of my hair. I took my time opening the bottles in the shower and smelling each and every one. I may have gone overboard when I found a eucalyptus spray that turned the shower into an invigorating steam room. When I emerged, I felt like a brand new woman. Slightly tired from the sun and alcohol, but refreshed nonetheless. I ran into Grace by my locker. “How was it?” I asked.
“It was good,” she asked, uncertain.
“You don’t sound so sure of yourself,” I said, pulling open my locker, surprised that I had found the right one.
“Well, like, they really get in there you know . . .”
I closed my locker door slowly, revealing Grace’s brown bewildered eyes. Her strawberry blond hair slick with massage oil; it almost looked as dark as her freckles. “Got in . . . where?” I asked.
Grace’s eyes jumped to Terra, who strolled in. “Oh my god. That was just what I needed! He was so hot!” Terra let out a loud sigh and pulled her robe off.
“I mean, like, they all massage your butt, right? That’s normal?” Grace’s eyebrows pinched together, and she nodded her head, trying to convince herself that she was being ridiculous. I didn’t know what to tell her. I’d never felt uncomfortable during a massage, and frankly, I’d never thought about what was standardized either.
“Well. . .what kind of massage did you get?” I asked.
Grace shrugged and shook her head. Brooklyn and Payton walked in chatting, and the volume picked up, echoing off the bathroom walls. “Like his hands were so firm!” Terra continued to gush over her masseuse.
“You sure it was his hand?” Payton teased Terra.
“Wow! Hey now!” I said, looking between the two. Terra laughed and wagged her brows, causing us all to giggle. Kennedy and Audrey strode in next, never missing a beat and jumped in immediately to tease Terra. If I had to pick a wild one out of the group, it would be Terra. She was a Spanish spitfire with unruly hair. Out of all my friends back home, Terra was the one who liked to kick it up a notch. I thought she might even give Payton a run for her money, but the night was young, and only time would tell.
We took our time in the spa’s bathroom. Everyone showered and took advantage of the luxury creams and complimentary hair products as I did. I went on and on about the eucalyptus spray, making sure everybody tried it. By the time we left the spa, we were pampered to the upper limits and almost ready for our next adventure. Which, to my knowledge, was wine tasting and dinner reservations. The only thing we had to do in preparation was get dressed and maybe put on a little bit of makeup, and we’d be tasting in no time.
Nearly two hours later, we emerged from our rooms. Everyone appeared to be the best versions of themselves, and voices clamored in the air about clothes pairings and eye shadow. Audrey, in particular, loved my heels, and we somehow had a full conversation about them and them alone on the way to the wine tasting room.
“Well, have you tried the moleskin?” Audrey asked, her hand wrapped around the crook of my arm.
“Moleskin?” My upper lip curled as we walked into a large tasting room. Wine-soaked barrels permeated the frigid air, and I took a deep breath in before letting out a shudder.
“Just try it. You’ll thank me later,” Audrey said, patting my arm before letting go. I looked back at her and nodded. I’d have to remember the stuff and try it. But somehow, I knew that coming off the bachelorette weekend high, I would never remember a second skin made of a rodent. I shrugged to myself in contemplation as I stepped up to the bar. I took out my ID and slid it to the bartender; it never got old.
“Which one are you going to start with?” Audrey asked.
I scanned over the list of tasters. “I think I’m going to do the reds. Oh, look, the port comes with a chocolate!” I said.
“Sold. I want that one. Think I could start with that one?” Audrey asked.
I laughed. “I think you have to go in order, but you could ask?”
Grace slinked up beside me while I waited for my pour. “I don’t know what I like. What should I get?” she asked.
“Um, I don’t know. Why don’t you start with a light white wine?” I said. Grace nodded and pointed to the first white wine on the tasting menu. In the dim lighting, her hair looked void of red and she could easily pass as brunette. I smiled up at her timidness and watched as her brows furrowed with thought.
“Are you sure you want to marry this guy?” As soon as it slipped out of her mouth, the fear set in, and she tried to cover her misstep. “No! I mean, I don’t mean are you sure, I mean, you’re sure? Like how do you know you’re sure? . . . When did you know you were sure?” Grace took a breath and stared at me with beady eyes waiting to assess the damage.
I giggled and took a sip of my first taster. Tart. The back of my jaw came to life. “You’re fine! I know what you mean. He’s the one. I just know it.” I said, my cheeks warming.
Grace stared, her eyes unblinking. “But how do you know? I don’t even know what wine I want to commit to tasting. How could you possibly know what man you want to spend the rest of your life with?” she asked, making a valid point. I could see how one might be perplexed over this very question. And I was so young. How was I to know what I wanted? But the answer was simple; I just knew.
Kennedy’s brows rose and nodded as she joined the interaction making it two to one. “Yeah, how do you know?” she asked.
I sighed, my cheeks surely beet red, and that was before the embarrassment. Audrey and Terra turned around to make four pairs of eyes, staring and waiting for me to say something profound. I wasn’t the first man on the moon, but I was the first out of my friends to get married, and that was pretty close. “Because I can’t imagine my life without him. And I wouldn’t want to,” I said, skirting around all of our history.
It would have been easier to say that I’d died once, and my heart refused to let him go. My love for him was so strong that he literally breathed new life into me. It would have been easier to say that I never had a choice. That my heart picked his, or vice versa–I’m not sure–but whatever had happened was outside of my control. That it was fate, and it was bigger than him or me. But because saying all of that was not an option as I stood, twirling my glass with one sip left, I said this: “When you know, you know!”
To their dissatisfaction, each and every one of the four girls groaned in protest. Greedy, wanting more direction. As if I had somehow found the key to success and refused to share it with them. I swallowed my last taste, and my next pour came without asking. Dry. Fruity. Better than the last. It reminded me of my second life.
“But you’ve only known him
for a year, how do you know?”
“Yeah, I’ve dated Landon for three years, and never once was I like, ‘This is the man I want to marry!’”
I laughed, touching my glass to my nose and trying to hide behind its transparency. “That’s because you didn’t know!” I exclaimed.
“Exactly!”
“Exactly!” I agreed. “If you knew, it would be a different conversation, right? It would be more like, ‘I never want to be apart from him. I love him now, and I’ll love him till the end of time! And I can’t wait to share my life with him,’” I said, noting a raised eyebrow from Brooklyn one wine barrel away.
“That’s so sweet, Becca. I’m so happy for you,” Grace said.
I smiled at her, and she leaned in for a quick hug. Her hand lingered on my back, rubbing away her worry. “Grace, you don’t have to worry about it. You will know. And if you don’t know, maybe he’s not the right one,” I said. She finished her pour of white and bared her bottom teeth, wincing. “You don’t like it?” I asked.
“Oh, I love it!” Grace said, eager to please, but it was anything but the truth.
“No offense to you . . .” Terra started. I braced myself for the undoubtedly offensive comment about to spill from her lips. “I just don’t think I could ever be sure that I wouldn’t want a different man in my life. Like, how could you pick one, and only one? I don’t think I could settle for just one,” Terra said, eyes crossing in a downward gaze. Grace’s lips pulled down as she looked away. Audrey’s eyes grew large and fixated on my expression. “But like, no offense,” Terra snapped out of her trance and waved her hand, erasing rude parts of her comment.
“It’s OK. Marriage isn’t for everyone. And if you feel like you're settling, I would highly recommend you don’t marry! But for me, I wouldn’t settle if I had anything less than Easton,” I said. And the truth was, I wasn’t offended by what she’d said. I knew that she just hadn’t met the right person yet, and one day if she did, she would have a different perspective altogether. If she didn’t, well, at least she wouldn’t “settle,” and that was fine too.
Terra must have felt bad for her comment because she spent the rest of the wine tasting trying to make it up to me with over-the-top compliments and gestures. I must have told her three separate times her comment didn’t bother me, but when she wouldn’t let it go, I told her we could call it even if she gave me her port chocolate. She gladly gave it up, and I savored the dark, bitter-sweet chocolate between sips of the syrupy port. By the time we had strolled to dinner, my heels were in my hands, and I padded barefoot down the pathway.
Dinner was a perfect mixture of laughter and delicious bread rolls. The wine helped keep my body warm in the air-conditioned restaurant as I picked at my plate of chicken and potatoes au gratin. We talked about the wedding briefly, going over the final dress fittings and place settings. I filled in Payton about how Brooklyn and I knew the rest of the girls from back home. Grace and I met in the third grade when I had to take her to the nurse’s office after she scraped her knee on the asphalt. She cried the entire way there, and I remember it feeling like life or death in the moments it took to walk to the main office. She was friends with Kennedy, and I slipped into their small friend group seamlessly after that day. I met Brooklyn, Audrey, and Terra in high school. But when the conversation pivoted, and the girls wanted to know how I’d met Payton, the air shifted, and I was no longer warm.
“And you met Payton at Norton University?” Audrey asked.
“Yes, she was friends with a couple of the guys there, Nolan and James. And Nolan and I shared a class, so we started hanging out,” I explained.
“Isn’t Nolan the guy who cheated on you?” Audrey asked. Though it was an innocent comment, my stomach churned. My face flushed. They had no idea that Payton was the one who he’d cheated with.
“Um, yeah. But we weren’t exclusive or anything, so . . .” I said, trying to diffuse the conversation.
“Still, what a dirtbag!” Audrey said of Nolan.
“And didn’t he sleep with your friend or something?” Terra pressed.
Acrobats flipped in my stomach. The whole circus had shown. I stuttered. “Uh, uh, he . . .” My eyes jumped to Payton, and I wish they hadn’t. Her head held high in a dismissive fashion. It only made me angry.
“Oh, and wasn’t James the one who died?” Terra continued, digging the entire table into a hole we could not escape from.
My face drained, and somehow, I wished we were still talking about Payton and Nolan. I found I preferred anger to helplessness and sorrow, and I would rather dwell on how Nolan cheated on me than how James was denied a long and beautiful life that he very much deserved. I could not answer the questions as they came.
“Yes, James is the one who had the accident,” Brooklyn said, as a matter of fact.
“Oh, shit! I’m so sorry, you guys. It’s been a tough year, huh?” Terra said, looking from Brooklyn, Payton, and me.
Brooklyn squeezed my hand under the table, and my eyes dropped to my half-eaten chicken.
Payton nodded. “The worst,” she said.
Chapter 3
Payton drowned her regret with another glass of wine. At least, I assumed it was regret. Perhaps she was just uncomfortable with the topic, or the point of view at which it was shared. I knew she had her reasons for sleeping with Nolan, and none of it was shared at the dinner table that night. Thank god. But it caused for an uncomfortable walk back to our villas. Payton and I couldn’t be further from each other as she led the way, and I trailed in the back. I didn’t know what to expect when Brooklyn, Payton, and I were alone in our villa for the night, and I didn’t want to find out.
But when Payton unlocked the door and an exceptionally well-built firefighter was sitting at the dinette set, I knew I wouldn’t have to deal with Payton for quite some time yet. His blond hair was a mess, and his stubble had been growing just long enough to give the illusion that he was a little rough around the edges. A bad boy, helping good people. He stood to his full height, making me feel small, and when all the girls pointed directly at me, I melted. My insides disintegrated, leaving me with not a bone to stand on. This guy was unbelievably attractive, and I didn’t want to take my eyes off him. But the last thing I wanted was for him to notice me at all.
He strode towards me. My stomach lurched as he swooped me off my feet and placed me on a chair in the middle of the villa. Brooklyn started playing music, and Payton started pouring shots. The girls were hollering, and the bass bumping. All of it was happening so fast my head began to swim. And then his jacket was coming off. The screaming began as my friends turned into feral beasts. He peeled his jacket off his arms, exposing his shirtless, very tan abs and red suspenders as he swung the jacket overhead. He placed it around Kennedy’s shoulders, and she screamed, jumping up and down as if her teen crush pop star had reached downstage and grazed her fingertips.
I sat motionless in the wrought-iron seat in the middle of the room. Hiding in plain sight. Brooklyn passed by and placed a tiara on my head, and Audrey draped a sash over me that read, “bachelorette.” As if I wasn’t already a target, now I had a red bullseye painted across my chest. I didn’t want any of it. The stripper turned his attention back to me, placing his boot between my legs, resting on the edge of my seat. I spread my legs, not wanting the sole of his boot to touch my jeans. My back straightened as it pushed against the chair. I noticed some of the girls laughing at my expression, and I tried to loosen up, but my face was frozen in shock.
The firefighter’s hips rolled to the beat of the music as he slid one red suspender off his shoulder to hang waist side. And then another. Before I knew it, oil was being rubbed down his chest and onto his abs. My eyes were transfixed, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t blinked since we arrived at the villa. Then, a collision of fear and excitement plowed through me. I swallowed hard, and when he turned to let the other girls help rub the oil in, I escaped from the hot seat.
The girls hooted and hollered, an
d I grabbed a shot on my way out of the villa. I threw it back before the door closed behind me. And I was thankful to hear that the commotion continued in my absence. I walked to a nearby row of grapevines and sat under a trellis near the parking lot. Taking a deep breath, I did what I knew was forbidden on a night like tonight. I called Easton.
“Hello?” Easton answered on the other line. My heart warmed at the sound of his voice.
“Hello,” I said.
“Is everything OK?”
“Yeah,” I said, small and meek.
“Beck, what’s wrong?” Easton asked.
I sighed. “Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to hear your voice.”
There was a pause on the line. “I miss you too. I’m just picking up my brother from the airport; he should be out any minute.”
“Are you excited to see him?” I asked.
“Yeah, I think it will be nice. I haven’t seen him since I moved to Clover. It’s probably been over three years or so—”
“They got a stripper. . .” I blurted out, unable to hold it back any longer.
Easton laughed carelessly on the other end, and I didn’t know if I should be relieved or offended. “I know. Brooklyn told me everything before you left. Is he as good-looking as she said he would be?” he asked, sounding genuine.
My face flushed as I walked my fingers around on the bench. “Seriously?” Sometimes I questioned if he had a jealous bone in his body. Not that I wanted that. I didn’t. But I could have stood to hear a little worry in his tone.
“Well, I mean, I know he’s not as ripped as I am, but she said he’d be good-looking.” Easton laughed at himself, and I joined in. A commotion sounded on the other line, and then I heard a door slam shut. “Hey, man. Good to see you!”
The Kindred Soul of Nora Faye: The Tethered Soul Series, Book 3 Page 2