Love Me Always: A Romance Anthology

by Peyton Banks

  “You’re always on that thing.” It wasn’t too dark out to catch her smirk.

  If I had a dollar for every time someone said that to me, I’d be the richest woman in the state. Sure, I used my phone a lot. It helped me stay organized with to-do lists, maybe-to-do lists, crap-I-don’t-want-to-do-but-will-guilt-trip-myself-into lists, and several calendars for work and for normal adulting crap. My addiction to my phone wasn’t for fun—it was a handy tool for enabling my control-freakiness. More often than not, work accompanied me after my day in the office was done. Beyond that, I had a lot of things to juggle in my life—nonprofit gigs, staying in touch with my mom and brother, then all the work stuff again. Honestly, there was never a chance to put it down. Plus, considering Teresa and I had stayed in touch during the ten years since college by texting and emailing, my phone did matter for our friendship. So there.

  I exhaled and dismissed her comment. I’d had plenty of practice tuning out that particular judgment. If I wanted to have a steady and close relationship with my phone, I damn well would.

  “You can’t see the way?” she teased, flinging her hand toward the stables looming ahead.

  I huffed. There was no point in arguing. As…rustic as this farm, resort, cottagey whatever we were at for our sorority sister’s wedding was, there was no denying the grounds were immaculate and easy to navigate—even after hours.

  Teresa tossed a glance at the enormous resort hall behind us, teetering in her step at the twist. “Someone will see your screen all lit up out here.”

  “Not before they see your dress. You’re like a goddamn walking tin can.” I pretended to shield my eyes from a glare.

  “Gown. It’s a gown, Jaz.” Giggling with a snort, she straightened her gait once more. “At least that’s what the lady at the shop said.”

  “I’d say it’s liable to cause a seizure if you get near a light source.”

  She laughed again, louder. To emphasize the dress’s, uh, special effects, she did a shimmy and almost toppled over. There were silver sequins as an adornment, and then there were silver sequins as a satellite-mirror dress. Too much. It’d be painful to witness in the sunlight.

  “I kinda thought it was cute. In a bold way. Like you should talk, Miss Radioactive Neon.”

  I smoothed my hands over my jacket and pants and smiled at her weird joke. They were bordering neon, but they weren’t nuclear. Lime-green. Funky. Different. I always tried to spice up the dull black and whiteness of corporate law offices and chose a bright hue on Fridays. But maybe I should have changed after work before driving here for the weekend. This wasn’t really wedding appropriate.

  “Actually, this is really chic. And sexy.” She dusted non-existent lint from my shoulder.

  “Thanks, but you’re not wearing something as flashy as that to the wedding tomorrow, are you?” Teresa always had been the free-spirited friend of our old group, but still…

  “For real?” An even louder and more boisterous laugh cracked into the darkness. “Vanessa would kill me if I stole her thunder.”

  I shook my head, grinning, because Vanessa probably would. She’d provided very specific dress code stipulations for the guests to her big day, and gaudily sparkling dresses—gowns or otherwise—did not make the cut.

  Still laughing, nearly to the hyena-cackling phase, Teresa clutched my arm, forgetting her dramatic hold on her dress.

  “Damn, woman. How much did you drink?” I asked around a chuckle.

  Straightening her step as we approached the stables’ doors, she smoothed back her frizzy brown hair. She tossed her shoulders back and stood tall. “Not enough to make that dinner tolerable.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t that bad.”

  Dropping her jaw, she paused with her hand on the bar to open the door. “Not that bad? Come on, Jaz. Forget your manners and admit it was torture. Even you wanted to get the hell out of there.”

  I did, and I had. When Teresa texted me the suggestion to ditch the dinner punctuated with toast, after toast, after toast, after toast, I jumped at the chance to escape. If those folks were going to be this chatty before the wedding, I could only imagine how many people would gab on and on at the reception. They needed a musical cue to cut them off.

  “But I still don’t get why we’re coming here.” As if she were too tipsy to remember her outrageous, impromptu suggestion, I stabbed my finger toward the ground. “At the stables.”

  Her grin was slow and mischievous, and the goody-goody part of me flinched.

  Oh, no. Please no.

  I knew that look. It had preceded many shenanigans in our younger days—nights out when we could recover from the alcohol consumption and lack of sleep. Hell. I was almost thirty-five. I wasn’t in the mood to be the Ethel to her Lucy right now, and we were too damn old for an adventure. Or if I wasn’t too old for this, being near barn animals certainly didn’t register in my idea of fun.

  “No one will come looking for us out here.”

  I doubted anyone would search out two random guests out of a gathering of two hundred. “True, but…”

  Teresa shrugged and lugged the door open. The hinges squeaked a little and I darted a glance back at the hall. No one chased us down. Not a single soul would hear us.

  So why not explore? I winced at the idea of deviating from rules. The stables weren’t off-limits, per se, but I bet the management team would frown upon visitors strolling at their leisure anywhere they pleased.

  “I just wanna see some ponies or something. You know? I’ve never really been up close to one.”

  No surprise, given we were born and raised New Yorkers. I huffed, placating her drunken plan.

  See some ponies. Right. Still not my idea of fun.

  Honestly, nothing about this weekend thrilled me. A wedding without a date. Again. Yay… Not. At least at this one, I had Teresa to hang out with.

  So long as she doesn’t hook up with someone before Sunday. I narrowed my eyes at her as we strode into the semi-lit hallway. Lanterns brightened the hallway space we entered, giving a low glow for us to walk easily.

  “Anything beats sitting in there all night.” She craned her neck to peek around empty stall doors.

  I tucked my phone in my pocket and raised a finger to emphasize a point. “But there was wine.” And I could try to catch up to her. A buzz wouldn’t hurt.

  “Oh, where’s your sense of adventure?” She tripped over her own feet and I lurched to catch her.

  “Unfortunately, it’s more sober than yours at the moment.”

  With her arm slung around my shoulders, we adopted a slanting stagger reminiscent of how we’d usually ended our nights of barhopping. Vanessa, too, if she were single.

  “I can’t believe she’s actually marrying that guy.”

  Teresa giggled as we walked further into the animals’ space. Manure stank first and foremost, but with her frizzy hair shoving into the side of my face as she rested her cheek on my shoulder, I gagged more at the odor of too much product.

  “What, you can’t believe she’s marrying that guy? Or, you can’t believe she’s marrying that guy?”

  I twitched my lips, peering at the tall wooden doors hiding animals along the building. Barely any sounds came from the spaces, but the faster we found a horse for Teresa to admire—from afar, I hoped—the faster we could leave. There was no way I was returning to that rehearsal dinner, but we could explore somewhere else.

  She elbowed me, reminding me I hadn’t answered.

  Right, about our friend getting married. Vanessa was one of those girls who’d planned her wedding since childhood, so her tying the knot was believable.

  It was the groom. “Him. He’s so…”

  “Loaded,” Teresa sing-songed.

  Considering I’d introduced Vanessa to her fiancé when he was one of my clients, I knew exactly how much he made. As his financial lawyer, I was well aware of his wealth. I had just as many zeroes in my salary, and I never thought I was loaded. I’d worked my butt off
for years and had earned every one of them.

  “No. Not that.” Besides, Vanessa had never hidden the fact she liked money.

  “Then what?” Teresa shot away from me, tiptoeing too fast toward a stall with a half-door. “A pony!”

  The beast huffed its huge nostrils at my friend’s squeal and I shushed her. Besides, if that was a pony, it had a few growth spurts too many.

  “Oooh. Feel its snout,” she cooed as she rubbed the horse’s face.

  “I don’t think it’s called a snout.” I crossed my arms, frowning at the animal as it snorted a deep huff.

  Teresa laughed. “Whatever it is.”

  “I think it’s a muzzle?”

  She grabbed my hand and pulled me closer. “It’s like velvet.”

  I yanked my hand back, shaking my head. Uh-uh. Velvet, cashmere, or what, I wasn’t touching that potentially snotty skin.

  My rejection wasn’t taken well. The horse—pony, my ass—snorted louder and stomped its feet.

  I grabbed Teresa’s arm and tugged her back from the horse. Her laughter only rose.

  “Shh.”

  “Oh, calm down.” She wrenched free and skipped toward another horse.

  “They’re all sleeping.” I checked my watch, because, oh gee, I knew when horses’ bedtimes were? It was late, though, if no staff were in here. “Let them be.”

  “Look.” She was stretching up on tiptoes again, stroking another horse’s face. “This one is happy. She’s smiling!”

  Lucky animal. The more we dallied in here, the more out of my comfort zone I sank.

  Standing back a few feet, I crossed my arms and waited for Teresa to get her animal fix. I shook my head at her cooing sweet nothings to the creature.

  “So why don’t you care for Vanessa’s fiancé?” she asked without moving from the horse.

  I waited for her to finish making sappy, kissy noises at the animal before I spoke. “I like him just fine. But he’s kinda…”

  “Loaded?” she sing-songed again.

  “All right. Maybe that’s the biggest reason she’s marrying him.” I glanced around the room, eyeing the closed stall doors, still somewhat baffled as to why we were here. Not in the stables to satisfy Teresa’s curiosity, but why the wedding was at this location.

  Vanessa had explained that her man thought it’d be cute to invite llamas to their wedding. How that was a wedding trend was beyond me. Yeah, you do you and all that, but really?

  Her fiancé was much younger than us and very…hipster. Eccentric. So in love with Mother Earth that he’d convinced our gold-digging friend to have their wedding at this animal therapy farm-slash-resort. A cushy site with five-star accommodations as an off-the-beaten-track lodging and reception venue. From the brochures, I’d learned the foundation of this place was the horse therapy services the staff provided for veterans suffering from PTSD. That was all good and well, but I couldn’t jive with this nature-embracing stuff. At least not on a personal level.

  “Well, on the bright side, she found someone to put up with her for the rest of her life,” Teresa said.

  As she backed up from the horse, I quirked a brow at her.

  “Or until she tires of him.”

  I nodded, accepting her drunken slant as she wrapped her arm over my shoulders again. We strolled down the stable’s walkway and she let out a long sigh. Maybe it was a yawn?

  The sooner she tired of this, the faster we could head back to a real building.

  “When’s it gonna be your turn?”

  “To what?”

  “Get hitched,” Teresa said with a huff. “Hey, look!” She pointed up ahead. “There’s the llamas!”

  Dammit. So much for steering her toward the exit. My phone buzzed in my pocket between us. Was it a text or an email notification? With her plastered to my side, I couldn’t tell.

  “Come on, you said you wanted to see horses, and you did.” I reached for my phone as she stopped still.

  “Oh, my God.” She resisted my maneuver to direct her toward the doors. “Humor me. You really want to go back to that dinner already?”

  “Well, no.” I pulled my phone from my pocket. “But it’d be nice to be near Wi-Fi again. And inside, where there won’t be any bugs.”

  “Jasmine. Just chill for a few more minutes.” She dodged me and ended up spinning us around toward the llamas again.

  “I will. But do we have to be in here?” I unlocked my phone’s screen.

  “There’s no bugs around us. Put that thing away. For like two seconds!” She lunged for it and I pulled my hand out of her reach.

  “I’m only going to check what—”

  Once more, she shot her arm out and stole my phone. With a gleeful squeal, she dodged me chasing her and danced away.

  “Teresa!”

  If she drops that in horse shit, I swear to God— “Give it back!”

  She backpedaled away from me too fast and bumped into the wall. Or maybe it was a gated door. A loud metal-on-metal clang rang out and she jogged away. “Whoops.”

  “Give it back.”

  “Uh-uh. You need a break. There’s nothing so important that it can’t wait five minutes. Hang out with me and chill, girl.”

  “In here?” I crossed my arms and she stopped evading me.

  “Sure. Let’s just say hi to the llamas, and then we’ll go find a more ‘civilized’”—she smirked with the air quotes—“place to hang out in your—style.”

  “Oh. Because it’s so awful to be inside, or near basic amenities.”

  “You come see the llamas with me,” she said and dropped the phone into her pocket, “then I’ll give you your phone back.”

  As hideously bright as her dress was, it did have pockets. For that reason alone, it was less of an abomination.

  I gave her a beady stare and she held her hands up like she was swearing an oath. “Promise.”

  “Fine.” Brat.

  I only gave in because she was most likely right. Work emergencies didn’t tend to crop up at night. Those were reserved for the butt-crack of dawn. She grinned as I walked up to her and we linked arms together. We ambled down the way toward the llamas and rounded a corner to actually see them since the animals had meandered to a different side of their pen. Stall. Domain. Whatever it was called.

  “Okay. We saw them. Let’s go.”

  Teresa leaned her forearms on the top rail of the pen and shook her head. “Do you ever stop obsessing about where you gotta be?”

  “No.”

  I wasn’t only eager to leave and have my phone back. It was getting late. If I wanted to have a nightcap or two, or five, we needed to get a move on and head to the bar at the hall. Because after that, I still needed to finish proofreading my drafted emails from earlier and shower. And then my nighttime routine of moisturizing and calming yoga. Plus, once in bed, I had to catch up on the last chapter of the book from my club, so I could be ready for our meeting next week.

  Some people vowed that there was a place for everything and everything in its place. My motto was that there was a time for everything and everything in its time.

  Deviating from the evening’s plans, coming out here to the stables to “just explore and hang out,” was throwing a wrench in my agenda.

  Did that make me a control freak? Yup.

  Did that bother me? Not one damn bit.

  Call me boring. It’s true.

  “Aren’t they cute?” Teresa cooed as she watched the llamas gnaw on hay.

  Honestly? No. They were hairy and bug-eyed, and entirely too tall. Why Vanessa and her fiancé wanted to dress up these animals and invite them to their wedding made zero sense to me. Why not slap a tux on a grizzly bear and train it to bring the rings down the aisle? Or a pair of donkeys to serve as ushers?

  “That one’s taking a dump.” I pointed. “Again, what about this is supposed to be adorable?”

  Teresa hung her head in the space between her arms on the rail and cracked up. “Oh, my God. What if one of them has to take
a shit during the ceremony tomorrow?”

  I couldn’t hold in a giggle.

  “Why the fuck do they wanna have a goddamn llama at their wedding?” she got out around laughter? “Why?”

  My stomach ached as I fell into laughter too. After a few minutes, we were rubbing our abs and wiping tears from our eyes.

  “At least when you get married, you won’t have any craziness like this. Right?”

  I nodded and caught my breath. No llamas or pack animals would be invited to any milestone event of my life. “How about if I get married, not when.”

  She sobered enough to study me. “Aww, come on, Jaz. You’ll find someone someday.”

  When? I’d admit I hadn’t been seeking a man to complete me. I had my career. I had my family. Seeking a Mr. Right hadn’t fit into my agenda yet. “I’m not even looking.”

  “Why not?”

  My love life was dismal because it was just…too much. Too much of a mountain of effort to consider. Dating? Did she actually think I had time to dedicate to dating? All that time searching for guys. Then the process of preparing to meet them and getting to know them, never mind all the primping and preening to make myself date-ready. After that, layers of analyzing and debating, picking, and choosing. Infinite second-guessing another person’s every word and move. Nah. It was way too much to take on right now. Maybe when I was more settled in my job. Or…just…later.

  Teresa watched me as I tried to condense an answer she couldn’t nitpick. I cleared my throat. “I have high standards to meet.”

  “Well, yeah.” She rolled her eyes. “And no one’s ever gonna measure up to the stud that you dumped freshman year.”

  “It was a mutual breakup.”

  It’d been a long time since I’d thought about him, but she had a point. If I were to welcome a man into my life, someone like Tony would fit in the bill. He had fit the bill because the two months I was with him was the only time I’d ever dared to think about a happily-ever-after. I’d only gone on six dates with him, convincing myself he was the one—right until I’d found out he was going to move to another college to be near his family after that semester. Long distance? No way. He’d offered, but it wasn’t what I’d ever had in mind for romance. Besides, my schooling was only going to get heavier and harder. It had been the best for both of us to part ways.