"Tomorrow night," I said slowly and saw the three of them nod. "I want to look…"
I stopped. I didn't know how to say what I wanted, didn't have the words of how I wanted to look.
Cait reached for her phone.
"Hey, Frank," she said. "Crys's hair is awesome! But she called the girls and we're at the Mall. Ideas for clothes?"
My eyes hit Leila's and she shrugged.
My gaze move to Marianne's and she smiled, patting my hand.
"Okay," Cait breathed, putting her phone away. "Grown up but still Crys."
I felt three sets of eyes on me, and my heart started beating fast.
"Fuck," is all I could mutter as I shoved another bite of the gyro in my mouth.
"So where's the ring?" Marianne asked me, as she folded up the wrapper from her burger.
"What ring?"
I glanced at Caitlin and Leila.
"Gabe's mom ring," she said settling her elbows on the table. "The one he demanded his father give to him when you were in ICU."
All I could do was blink.
"I don't know anything about a ring," I said slowly, looking around the table.
"He told his dad he was going to marry you, Crys," Leila said softly, scraping the last of her fried rice from the styrofoam plate.
"Right there in front of God and everybody," Cait chimed in. "We all heard him say it."
The three of them nodded.
"He's only hinted at forever and that was after we came home," I said, looking down at the remains of my food. "He's never come right out and asked me or anything."
"When he does ask…" Cait started before her voice trailed off.
I was quiet.
A ring.
Gabe wanted me to wear Deby's rings.
Gabe wanted me forever, the married kind of forever.
Oh, shit.
My heart was beating so hard I felt like I was going to pass out.
Marianne was up and out of her chair in a flash. "Put your head between your knees, Crys."
"Breathe deep but steady," I heard Leila instruct.
"Is she going to be alright?" Cait asked on a murmur.
"I'll be okay in a minute," I said, my voice bouncing up off the linoleum of the food court.
Fuck.
Forever. The forever kind of forever.
I sat up slowly and took a shaky sip of my soda.
"His mom always said that if you're gonna get married, you need to make sure that whoever you pick is your best friend," I whispered.
Leila's eyes were very wet when I did a slow look around the table. Hers weren't the only ones that seemed to want to leak.
"He's my best friend," I said around the lump in my throat. "You all need to shut the fuck up right now, 'kay?"
I got another round of nods, but this time they were smiling.
We finally left the food court and shopped, laughed and talked our way for the next couple of hours.
I loved my friends, and felt so damn lucky that they loved me back.
But it was time to make my way home to my man.
The man that wanted my forever. Just thinking that made me scared.
Happy but scared to freaking bits.
Chapter Sixteen
He did what he needed to do in the bathroom and made his way back to the bed, to her.
"Do we need to go through the song again?" he asked as he moved himself beneath the covers to capture her bottom against his thighs.
"No, baby," she said softly, slowly, the sound of sleep in her voice. "Think we've got it."
And she was probably right.
They had sung the song so much and so often since she'd come back from being out, without the pink tips in her hair but carrying a fucking truckload of bags.
But she'd been smiling.
So he'd smiled, too.
He loved when she was happy since his Crys had gone through so many things that could make a lesser person depressed for the rest of their natural lives.
"So, baby? I need to get shit sorted in Oregon. But, when that's done?" he started, but didn't hear anything from her. "Us, together, okay?"
She still didn't say anything.
He took it as a yes and closed his eyes, thinking that life, their lives together, could really be wonderful.
*.*.*.*.*
"Oh, look who it is," I heard the voice say as I was draped over the cantaloupes, thumping for the perfect one.
"Hey, Carmi," I said over my shoulder. She wasn't worth me stopping my search. As one of the top real estate agent's daughters, Carmi felt it was her right, that she was entitled to making other people feel bad for just breathing the same air she breathed.
That, and she'd been Gabe's lover in high school.
"Saw you were stalking Gabe at Enrique's," she said with that fucking tone in her voice. I know you know the type I'm talking about. That snarky, criticizing tone that makes you want to rip their heads off and shit down their neck.
Whatev.
"What's going on, Carmi?" I asked, still from over my shoulder. The bitch was not going to detour me from finding the perfect cantaloupe in the grocery's display.
"He doesn't want you, you know," she started on a familiar theme. Once was, I heard this same speech from her every day of every school term for my freshman and sophomore years.
Again, whatever.
I smiled as I leveraged myself back onto the floor, my perfect cantaloupe in hand as I plunked it into the cart.
"Yeah?" I asked, grabbing the handles of the cart. "Seems to me, I was the first one he called when he hit town."
"See you," I said breezily and moved my cart through the aisles, picking up the little things we needed. Gabe had been at my house for almost a week and we were still getting used to the whole pieces of each other, the pieces that were grown-ups, and were adapting, changing to accommodate each other.
But, my heart took a hit, with just running into her.
I hated her in high school.
Probably because she was the one Gabe had chosen after we'd been together at the creek.
I remember looking at her as she smiled up at him in the school hallway but felt Gabe's mouth on mine as our crotches sought each other out to rub, abrade and damn well stroke in our attempts to achieve dry hump heaven.
But, that was a long time ago.
Gabe had been back almost three weeks and had spent almost every freaking moment in my presence since the attack on the shop.
Boo-yah, I thought, placing my items on the conveyor belt in front of the cashier.
The proof was in the pudding, I heard my dad say inside my head.
Yeah, Dad, I thought. From your mouth to God's ear.
I wasn't completely out of luck since Carmi was one person back behind me in the check-out line.
"You can't honestly think he likes you," she said, her head leaning over the person between us, so she could get her little digs in.
I piled the last of my cloth bags into the cart and did the digital signature thingie.
Turning back towards her as I pushed my cart away from the station, I simply asked over my shoulder, not even giving her the respect of a full body as I asked, "Has he called you, Carmi, since he's been back?"
Seeing her face suffuse with red, I couldn't help but press my luck.
"He's been in my bed. Every single night," I continued, stretching the truth more than a bit. "Don't fucking press it with either one of us, 'kay?"
Now that was a fucking boo-yah moment if ever there was one.
I saw my reflection in the windows of the grocery's doors as I moved my cart out to the parking lot.
I was smiling, ear to ear.
*.*.*.*.*
We got to Enrique's at six thirty so we could set up. It was the small Mexican restaurant in Grantham, actually the only one that had stayed the distance as a place to grab some of the best Tex-Mex styled food in our corner of Colorado.
Not that we didn't have a thriving community of Latinos, but
we didn't have a thriving Mexican restaurant trade that could go the distance in our small town.
J.R. was there to greet us and help us plug into the sound system he had. Gabe had brought along the different guitars he'd be using, along with the amps that he plugged into the sound system we both knew was new.
"Here's the set list," Gabe said pulling out the list from his back pocket. "We'll take the fifty but will forego the bar tab since we're here so often."
I saw a smile break across J.R.'s face as Gabe spoke.
"But we want our drinks for free," he said with a smile.
"Done, amigo," J.R. rumbled. "Dan's gonna be the main bartender on duty so let me tell him your drinks are on the house."
"Nice," Gabe said turning from the bar.
"Thanks, Jay," I said, my hand still on Gabe's back.
I got a wink from J.R.
Okay, so I was kind of nervous, the nerves skittering along the edges of my skin and I was spending way too much time in the Ladies Room.
Gabe grabbed me on one of my treks back to the bar and pulled me off to the side before I had made it past the clouded sheet of quartz that separated the restaurant from the bar.
"You okay, Princess?" he asked as his arms snagged me from behind. Pulling my back into his chest, his mouth was next to my ear.
"More than okay, Gabe. So far and away beyond okay," I murmured twisting myself into his arms.
"God, I love you," he breathed, bringing his mouth to mine as he pressed me into the wall, placing my hands up along side of my head as he devoured my mouth.
His tongue movements alone had me on the verge of coming. Now if he'd only press his thigh between my legs…
I know I groaned when he released me. And the only way I knew I'd groaned was from the look that he shot me. Which had me looking at his crotch and seeing the fullness there.
Damn.
I waited a few heartbeats as I followed him back into the tiny bar area. I was rubbing the wetness of his mouth into my lips before I realized people were pointing their faces at me.
Oh, yeah.
Performance.
I took a deep breath and moved into the room, but my legs didn't want to work. I stood behind a chair and it took me a couple of seconds to realize it was Marianne seated in front of me.
I had been trading text messages with my posse all day, mainly because I had been figuring that I was gonna be nervous singing in front of all these people and wanted to drink.
Okay, to do some shots, if I was truthful.
And a lot of shots beforehand if I was being truthful at a soul kind of level.
Shit.
Each and every one of them told me, in no uncertain terms, 'No'.
I had already had more than a few emotional moments today.
First was waking up in the act of making love with Gabe.
The second was being at the grocery store and taunting Carmi which was like poking a bear in a cage.
The third was having my posse at the other end of my phone, wishing me well, holding me up and being everything that you want your friends to be.
Leila's text telling me to put on my big girl panties and to walk towards my dream with clear eyes. Gotta love her for cutting through my bullshit and encouraging me to go for what I wanted. I just never told her what that goal actually was, because, to tell the truth, I wasn't actually sure about it either.
Then, Gabe kissing me before we went on stage to sing.
God.
I really couldn't walk well in the FMP's I was trying to work and stopped at the nearest chair to get my bearings.
Luckily it was Marianne's chair.
I leaned down and gave her a double arm hug from behind.
"I love you, you know," I whispered against her head. It's true, she was one of my most favorite people in the world and it felt like, in the little time we'd known each other, that we'd lived a lifetime.
"And I love you right back, Baby Girl," she said softly back. I knew she did. I could feel it.
"Break a leg," she murmured as I released my hold.
Then, as I moved through the maze of tables, I recognized that almost everyone I was seeing were friends, were the families of our hearts. For both me and Gabe.
I waved and offered, "Hey" and "How Are You," as I moved through the crowd.
At one point, I raised my eyes to Gabe there on the stage and his eyes were dead on me even though he was still tuning.
I felt my heart swell just feeling his eyes lock with mine.
I was probably six Gabe-sized steps in front of the stage when I heard him start the beginning of Blackbird, Sara McLaughlin's rendition from 'Sam I Am'.
As it was, I was two notes away from the opening as I hopped up onto the stage.
Gabe shot me a smile, with his eyes all soft, and I was gone.
Singing the song that had always brought me peace, always knowing that I was the black bird stuck in the middle of doves. The one who had to be herself, no matter what other people thought.
"Thank you so much for being here," Gabe said when the applause had died down. "But we need you to understand there are other people just on the other side of this wall, trying to have dinner. So, while we appreciate your enthusiasm, let's remember there are others here just trying to have a meal, okay. In a word? People eating."
I caught more than a few smiles and knew that Gabe's words weren't gonna mean dick going forward.
These, most of them our friends, were here to party and wouldn't be denied.
I turned my head to the side as Gabe's fingers found the way into the Gin Blossom's "Until I Hear It From You," which meant that I could take a moment and look out over the crowd.
I saw Frank with his partner, Stan sitting at a table in the back that was meant for two but held another couple that I was unfamiliar with. Saw Dex with Leila on his lap sitting alongside Cait and Jake, although I could pretty much figure that Jake was not wasting an iota of attention on us, wrapped up as he was in his girl.
I loved them both but had to call them , 'Mr. and Mrs. Gorgeous', because it was true. They were the most gorgeous couple your eyes would ever see together in one place.
I couldn't keep my eyes off Gabe although I knew that there were some pretty observant people in the audience, people that knew us individually and as a duo, and could do the addition.
And the audience picked up the chorus, beating time on the small tables J.R. had set up in perfect line, but that our friends had rearranged to fit how they wanted.
I glanced at Gabe and saw his eyes were already on me.
Oh, God, there was love in his eyes. But if I could see it, others could, too. Not how I wanted to become public, this thing between us. That is, if I kind of wanted it at all. My heart was still undecided.
Gabe's looks didn't stop, though. He dragged my heart through the lyrics and made the two of us a part of them.
We moved into 'Cruisin', which was the song that Gwyneth sang with Huey Lewis in that late night movie. I loved that song, because it reminded me of all the times Gabe had called me in the middle of the night to have me ride in whatever car he was working on at Skeet's, the local body shop, when I was fifteen or so.
According to Trails, the manager and the biggest 'Care Bear' you'd ever meet, Gabe's work also included fifty to a hundred additional miles on your odometer if you had a car worth driving.
I'd never tell.
But it was true. Gabe would boost their cars and send me a text so I could meet him out on the road and we'd ride around like our lives depended on it.
Then have a major lip lock session. A length of time that would leave me frustrated and empty for more than a couple of days. I never knew if Gabe went somewhere else to get his satisfaction.
The cars were never hurt, but only reflected an increase in mileage which Trails managed to roll back when he noticed it.
Against the law? You bet.
Satisfying? Not quite. But when I was in my teens it was freaking close.
> Gabe moved into the opening chords of Pink's 'Who Knew'.
I wasn't sure how this was gonna go, seeing he wasn't a Pink fan, and he'd tried to reduce that song to a slower beat and using only an acoustic guitar.
But it was absolutely perfect.
And as I sang I substituted, 'eight years'. Call me old fashioned but he was still my best friend that had very recently turned into my lover.
It fit.
And he caught it.
We smiled at each other as we moved off-stage to take a break.
I couldn't be next to him after all the emotions that the songs had dug up, without touching him, without having him either on my lips or in my arms.
And that kind of shit gets a girl's heart involved.
So I stayed away.
It was really hard to do.
Chapter Seventeen
She was awesome, just like he knew she'd be.
Her voice, the way she looked, it all fit to make his world the best place to be.
This singing thing wasn't anything much to the two of them, since they'd essentially been doing it since they were kids.
To different tunes, but still singing in front of people.
So, they'd gotten through the first set and had done okay if the crowd was any indication. But, then, the crowd consisted of most of their friends or Human Hiero's friends so it wasn't a good thermometer of how their set had gone.
He didn't care.
As long as he had Crys singing next to him, catching his eyes and having her blend her voice with his, he couldn't give a fuck.
She moved to the back of the bar after meeting and greeting with more than a few people.
"Just so you know, you're not seeing any of the men in this room, right?" he whispered, his mouth against her ear.
"You're not telling me what to do, shit for brains. Especially when you keep avoiding the question of how we're gonna be a couple in public," she shot back. "Don't freaking put rules on me that you can't live by."
"Don't give a fuck, Crys," he said in a louder whisper. "Don't want you seeing Niko anymore. We agreed, babe."
Stupid fucking ass-wipe, Niko. It had taken him a while to figure out who her first time had been with and he had come up with Niko, her stupid Goth friend.
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