by Ivy Smoak
Everyone clinked glasses.
"We're happy for you, son," he said and put his hand on James' shoulder.
James looked down at his dad's hand like it was a foreign object. "Thanks." He said it more like a question than a statement.
"If you'll excuse us for a second." He grabbed his wife's arm and pulled her toward the kitchen. A second later, the catering staff came running out.
"I think your father might be having a midlife crisis," I said.
"Yeah. Or maybe he's finally trying to be a good dad."
"They both seem lovely," my mom said cheerily. But I could tell by her face that she was shocked. Sometimes she was as bad as me at hiding her emotions.
"A little stuck up if you ask me," my dad said under his breath.
"Dad!"
But James laughed. "You have no idea."
My dad smiled. "And they're the ones that convinced you to root for the Giants? I'll make an Eagles fan out of you yet."
"Good luck with that. I think it's much more likely I'll make a Giants fan out of Penny."
"Not a chance," my dad said.
They both laughed.
My dad had made a habit of coming up whenever the Eagles played the Giants. He'd watch the games with us. Rob, Mason, and Matt would all come over too and cheer on the Giants. It was just me and my dad rooting for the Eagles. Sometimes Bee would come over and cheer on the Eagles with us. I'm pretty sure it drove James crazy that he couldn't convert me into a Giants fan. But I had grown up watching the Eagles with my dad. That was one thing James couldn't get his way with. Besides, I'm pretty sure he enjoyed the ongoing bets we had on the games.
"Have any of you gotten dessert yet?" Rory's friend Jackson asked. "It's delightful on your palette. You simply have to try it." He held up the tray of decadent chocolate pastries.
"Absolutely." I grabbed one off the tray and took a bite. "Oh my God, this is amazing." I took another huge bite.
"You really have been hungry," James whispered in my ear. "Your declaration of love for that dessert was almost orgasmic."
I laughed and elbowed him in the ribs. "It was not."
He gave me a playful smile.
Someone pinching the side of my waist made me jump. I laughed when I looked up at Brendan.
"I'm glad I didn't miss all the family drama," Brendan said. "It's always the best thing about weddings."
James shook his head. "Laughing at my torture?"
"Always." They clapped each other on the back. "Beautiful as always, Penny," he said and gave me a swift kiss on the cheek.
"Thanks, Brendan."
"Still can't believe you're marrying this clown. At least he's not your professor anymore. It actually seems like his parents disapprove of you more than your parents disapprove of him. That's pretty twisted."
James laughed. Brendan and him had grown really close ever since James had calmed down about him kissing me. I was surprised that James was able to forget about that. Maybe he had repressed it like me. Either way, they were friends now. James loved talking to Brendan about his latest development projects.
"That's actually incredibly accurate," I said.
Brendan laughed. "My parents would have loved you, Penny."
"And that's why I didn't ask you to be a groomsmen," James said.
"What? If I had known my flirting with Penny was keeping me out of that race I would have stopped ages ago."
"We both know that's not true," James said.
Brendan shrugged his shoulders. "I can't help what I say around beautiful women." He winked at me. "How do you like the new place? James and I had a blast designing it together."
I looked at James. "You left that part out."
James shrugged his shoulders. "It was mostly me."
"Yeah, right," Brendan said. "Without me, your plumbing and electricity would have been a fucking mess and you know it."
"Fair enough. But aesthetically, I planned most of it."
"Well, you both did a fantastic job," I said.
"I'm pretty sure James designed it with the sole idea of how many places he could bang you," Brendan said with a laugh.
"Inappropriate," James said to Brendan. "And you would have made such a great groomsmen too."
Brendan gave him an exaggerated frown.
"I'm going to leave you two alone to find more dessert," I said. As I made my way toward the desserts, I saw Luke and Mason with two guys I hadn't met yet. I was promised a few stories, and I was not going to miss out on this opportunity. I walked over to their group. "Hey, guys."
"We were just talking about you," Luke said. He seemed a little drunk.
"Yeah? Hi, I'm Penny," I said to the two guys I hadn't met yet. I recognized both of them from the picture of James' frat brothers, though.
"Oh, this is Benny and Mike," Luke said and gestured to the two guys next to him.
"Ben," the taller of the two said and stuck out his hand for me to shake. "College was a long time ago but these assholes still insist on calling me Benny."
"You'll always be Benny to us," the shorter one said. "Hi, Penny, I'm Mike. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"It's great to meet you guys too. So...you were talking about me?"
"Nothing bad, I promise," Mason said.
"We were just talking about how much better you are than Isabella," Luke said.
I tried not to flinch at the mention of her name.
"I don't even know you and I can tell you're better," Benny said.
I laughed awkwardly. "Thanks, I guess." I didn't want to be talking about Isabella. "Luke promised me some stories once the two of you arrived."
"That I did," Luke said and took a sip from his glass of scotch. "Have you heard the professor story?"
"The professor story? I don't think so." I felt James hand slip protectively onto my lower back.
"Mason has already told Penny plenty of stories," James said.
"Surely not the ones we're going to tell," said Luke.
Mason laughed. "I have told her lots of stories."
"But Penny wants to hear embarrassing stories about James," Mike said. "Right, Penny?"
Mason smiled at me. "I've already told her loads of those too."
"See," James said. "Penny, didn't you want to go find some dessert?"
"Oh, no," I said. "I want to hear their embarrassing stories. Starting with the professor story."
James groaned. I was pretty sure I was the only one that heard it though.
"It was hilarious," Luke said. "We were all taking poli-sci together sophomore year."
"They forced me to go to it," James said. "I wanted us all to take psych."
"But no one else wanted to take that," Luke continued. "So we had all agreed to take poli-sci." He emphasized the word agreed. "When we show up on the first day of class, the professor was late. So James here," he put his hand on James' shoulder, "decided that he was going to teach it. He walked up to the front of the class and started talking about how politics is all about the distribution of power and resources. Actually, the lecture wasn't half bad. He made some valid points about how elections are basically popularity contests..."
"You're missing the punch line," Mike said.
"Right, right." Luke took another sip of his drink. "So he asks for volunteers and makes Mason, Benny, Mike, and I go to the front of the room too. And he makes the class vote on who they'd want to listen to speak next."
"I won," Mason said matter-of-factly.
"Beside the point," Luke said and waived his hand dismissively. "But as the professor walks in, James grabs Mason face and says, 'You voted for your new president based on his pretty face. Suck it America, politics are a sham.' And then he made an incredibly rude gesture to the whole class."
I started laughing. Before today I wouldn't have been able to imagine James doing that. But I was pretty sure he had made the same rude gesture outside of the police station earlier.
"We ended up all getting kicked out of the class," Mike said.
"And the only class left with four openings was psych. The evil bastard."
James shrugged his shoulders.
"I never got to take poli-sci," Benny said. "I'm still pissed about that."
James laughed. "You guys ended up loving psych. Don't lie."
Benny shook his head. "What? I hated psych. We had to memorize all those stupid studies instead of just having awesome debates in poli-sci. You screwed us."
"Wait, Mason, please tell me you've told Penny about the streaking incident," Luke said.
Mason started laughing. "No, I never tell anyone that story. It makes all of us look bad."
"That's true," Mike said. "I thought we promised never to discuss the night of November 9th ever again."
"Well now you have to tell me," I said.
They all looked at each other.
"No, you have to tell me now. You can't just put that out there and not deliver."
Luke laughed. "Fine. I'm not ashamed. They're the ones that got the street wrong, so it doesn't make me look bad at all."
"We were all completely wasted," Benny said. "That included you."
"But I wasn't the one that pulled out a map and was rambling about all the hottest chicks. Here's what happened, Penny. It was homecoming our senior year. All the fraternities and sororities were having huge parties. It was almost a competition every year to see who could throw the wildest one. So Mike here got this brilliant idea..."
"It wasn't me," Mike said. "It was James."
I glanced up at James. I wasn't sure I had ever seen him trying so hard not to laugh.
"What? Don't blame this on me," James said. "I'm pretty sure Mason..."
"Fine blame me. I'm completely comfortable with my body," Mason said.
Luke laughed. "Either way. One of these idiots decided that in order to prove that we had the craziest party, we had to end the night with streaking.
"Makes sense," I said as I tried to stifle a laugh.
"Right? So when everyone was starting to pass out on our front lawn, we decided it was time. We were going to shove it to the sororities by streaking through sorority lane. But we went to the wrong street because our party really was fucking crazy. Were we stoned too? I feel like we were."
"We definitely were," Mike said.
"Anyway, we made our way to the street we thought the sorority houses were. And we started running butt naked down the street. When we were about halfway done, we started hearing all these catcalls. So we turned around and all these guys were cheering us on."
"No, we thought they were cheering us on," Benny cut in. "Turns out we had accidently streaked through a neighborhood where there was only one house belonging to a frat. The only gay frat house on campus."
I started laughing.
"They were cheering us on, but also hitting on us," Luke said. "But at the time we didn't realize they were checking us out, so we stopped and were like doing cartwheels and stuff. Really working the crowd. Some of this." He put his hands on his hips and stuck his butt out.
"Oh my God," I said through my laughter.
"For months after that our frat house got invites to all their social events. Our phone wouldn't stop ringing."
I put my hand over my mouth. I couldn't picture James doing that at all. He used to be so carefree.
His eyes looked twinkly as he stared down at me. A huge smile was plastered on his face.
"I can't even picture you doing a cartwheel," I said. "Let alone doing one naked in public."
"Like they said...I was wasted. And stoned."
"Still."
"Let's do a redo tonight!" Benny said. "We're barely ever together anymore. Let's make tonight a night to remember!"
"It already is," James said and smiled down at me.
"Aw, so cute," Luke said. "Wait, can we hear your story real quick? We've all heard tons of rumors. And obviously, we know that she was your student. But what really happened?"
James smiled down at me the whole time he told them about how we met. He talked about how he couldn't keep his eyes off of me in class. And how he wasn't at all ashamed of our story. And neither was I. Two and a half years ago I fell in love with my professor. In a strange twist of fate, it was the first time in my life I hadn't worried about following the rules. We were meant to be. There was no other explanation.
Chapter 11
Friday
As the rehearsal dinner drew to a close, I wandered into the kitchen. For some reason I had been craving a juice box all night. I opened up the fridge and pulled one out. When I turned around, I was surprised to see James' father behind me.
"Hi," I said. It came out awkward, despite my best attempt. "Did you want one? Or we have plenty of other things to drink. Maybe a soda?"
"No." He smiled. "I'm good. I actually came in here to talk to you."
"About what?" I wasn't sure I could handle another fight tonight. I was exhausted.
He sighed and leaned against the fridge. "For what it's worth. I believed you last night. And I could see how hard it was for you to walk away from my son. You care about him. And that's all the convincing I need that you're in this for the right reasons."
"Thank you." I felt incredibly awkward holding a juice box while talking to James' father. I set it down on the counter.
"I just wanted you to know that. But I'd be here either way. I'm done directing my son's life." He looked out the door of the kitchen. "All of my children's lives."
He was tossing me a bone. I should have been grateful, but all I could think about was why now? Why after torturing his son for almost 30 years had he decided to let James make his own decisions for once? "I thought you agreed with your wife? I thought you wanted him to get back together with Isabella?"
He laughed. "No. Susan expects things to be a certain way. Give her more time. I can't apologize enough for what she's said."
"I don't understand, Mr. Hunter. It seemed like you agreed."
"Please, call me Jon," he said with a smile.
"Okay. Jon, it always seemed like you agreed with her. When we were in your office and she was giving me the check...it seemed like you wanted me to take it too."
"My wife is manipulative. She knows just what to say to convince anyone of anything. Except you, apparently."
"And what has she been trying to convince me of? That I'm not good enough for her son? I know that." An exasperated laugh escaped my lips. "I know how lucky I am that he chose me. Ever since I've met him, I've been trying to figure that out. But at the same time, I don't think she has any idea who her son really is." I picked up the juice box. I refused to care about what James' father thought about me. I just wanted to be myself. Tonight, that included drinking from a juice box like a little kid. He could deal with it. He had certainly put James through enough hell.
"Neither one of us has ever understood James' motivations. For anything really. My whole life, and my parents' lives before mine...we have always been motivated by money. How to get ahead. How to grow our wealth. No matter who we had to step on. James wasn't like that. He wanted to make a difference. He didn't care about the same things that I did or that his mother did. Actually, none of our kids do really. We were hard on him because we want our name to mean something. As the oldest son, it was his responsibility. Look at Mason and his dad, Max. They had a falling out because Mason refused to take over Max's company. They patched things up, but that was partially because Matt stepped up. Max had another son that wanted the responsibility. One that cared about their legacy. And Rob...Rob doesn't care about anything but himself."
I wasn't sure what made my blood boil more. The talk about legacy and a name that James had only made better, or the fact that he didn't understand Rob at all. Fuck him. "The Hunter name does mean something, more so because of James. James started two great companies. Not only do they both make money, but they make a difference like you said he wanted. He was a great professor too. And it made him so happy. If he'd listen to me, he'd still be doing that. As for Rob, you clearly don'
t know him at all. He has the biggest heart of anyone I know. He cares more about his siblings than himself. He was there for James during some of the worst moments of his life, because he didn't have anyone else. And that includes you. You abandoned him when he needed you the most. I'm lucky that tomorrow I can call Rob a brother. And I'm lucky to be marrying the most caring, strong, and loving person in the world tomorrow. It's a shame that you don't know him. You're the one that is missing out."
He gave me a curious look. "I wasn't trying to upset you."
I took a deep breath. "Then you shouldn't be throwing blind accusations."
"You're good for him. I can tell you're strong. He needs that."
"James is stronger than you give him credit for. He's overcome so much. A lot of which he wouldn't have had to if it weren't for you and your wife."
Jon smiled. "Even if he is strong, it's nice to know you have his back. That you'll fight for him. In our own way, that's what we were trying to do for him when he was younger. We made some mistakes, of course. I realize that. I want to make it better. I want to fix it."
I didn't say anything to that. He wanted to fix it. Just like I had wanted to fix it. But it wasn't up to us, it was up to James.
"And I don't doubt that he was a great professor."
"Why are you saying these things to me instead of him?"
"He wouldn't listen to me. James doesn't give second chances."
"That's not true. He's given me more chances than I can count."
"Maybe only to the people in his life that he loves then."
"If he doesn't love you, it's only because he thinks you don't love him. He's incredibly defensive."
"He gets that from his mother."
"Ugh." Shit. I had not meant to say that out loud. "I mean..."
Jon laughed. "It's fine. She is his mother, though. She always said she knew what was best. Maybe you'll understand when you're a parent. You want what you think is best for your children."