Forever Careless

by Brittany Butler

  “We’re on the second floor. You’re in the room next to us,” he tells them as we got on the elevator.

  Olivia waves at me and enters their hotel room. “See you later,” she calls after me.

  I swing the door open and walk through a small hallway and pass by a kitchen and living room before I stop and take in the bedroom that is decorated in a nautical theme. I toss my purse on the bed and open the balcony. The sunshine and bright blue water greet me. The resort has a perfect view of the stones that Olivia and I promised to visit. Below me is a large pool equipped with a bar, chairs, and stairs leading down to the sandy beach.

  “Can we go to the beach?” I turn around to find Kellen has changed into board shorts and is holding a bikini for me. “When did you become perfect?” I tease.

  “I always have been you just didn’t see it before.” I roll my eyes and grab the bikini and walk to the bathroom. “You can change out here. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”My face reddens and I walk faster to the bathroom when he starts to laugh at me.

  ∞

  “Are you almost done?” He groans.

  “Yes,” I assure him as I coat my eyelashes one more time. He’s so anxious about leaving the room early and walking down the beach to get to the restaurant. We have reservations at a beach front authentic Mexican restaurant in an hour, but Kellen is pushing me to leave now.

  “You have thirty seconds,” he says.

  “Or what?” I laugh at him. I do one last mirror check and open the door.

  “Thank god. I didn’t want to break down the door. Getting kicked out the hotel room isn’t how I imagined the night going.”

  “How did you imagine it?” I pull on my sandals and fall into step behind him.

  “You’ll see,” he grins and steps into the elevator. We’re the only two inside, when the door closes his hands grab my face and he presses his mouth toward mine. He stands back when the elevator door opens signaling that we’ve landed at the first floor.

  “Can we take another ride?” I whisper to him surprised at my boldness. I’m never bold if I haven’t had any drinks in me.

  “Not now. We don’t have time.” He pats his pockets anxiously and walks ahead me to the beach.

  “What’s going on with you? You’ve been acting anxious since we arrived this morning.” I narrow my eyes at him.

  He slows down and looks at me. “No, I haven’t. Why would I be acting anxious?”

  “We have an hour, Kellen, slow down! I can barely see,” I whine.

  “Maybe I should carry you,” he walks over and throws me over his shoulder. I start screaming and yelling for him to put me down. “People are going to think I’m abducting you if you don’t stop screaming.”

  He sets me down on a chair and he sits in the one beside me. I pull my dress down and try to smooth my hair. The resort we stopped in front of has their patio lights on allowing me to take in my surroundings. When my eyes find Kellen I find him watching me with a dimpled grin, I glare at him.

  “What are the plans tomorrow?” I ask him.

  “Zip lining and coming back to the pool.”

  “Are you actually going to let me drink?” I ask referring to today. He cut us both off after our second margaritas and insisted that we have a busy night. I watched William carry Olivia back to their room after she fell two times on the walk back. I would not be surprised if they don’t join us tonight or the rest of the trip.

  “Yes, we are here until Monday morning. Drink everything you want.” He sighs and I look over to him to see that he is nervous again. “I don’t know how to do this.”

  “What?” I ask. My mind immediately goes to worst case scenario, but I remind myself that he didn’t bring me to Cabo to break up with me. That would be crazy, wouldn’t it?

  “I want to talk to you about something.” We haven’t officially said that we’re back together but for the past two weeks we’ve been inseparable. I thought things were falling into place.

  “Just tell me.”

  “Since I met you at that party eight months ago you haven’t left my mind.” He smiles at me and grabs my hands. “Many of those thoughts make me want to punch a hole through my wall, but most of the thoughts are happy.”

  “Get to the point,” I cut him off and he laughs.

  “My point is that I couldn’t imagine my life any other way. You came into my world and turned it upside down. You’ve stood beside me and pushed me to do things that I didn’t want to do, when I was being an asshole, and everything in between. I want to know that from tonight I will have you by my side for the rest of my life.” He pulls his hands back and reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small box. My breathing stops and I’m pretty sure the world stops along with it. He opens it to reveal the ring I picked out with Olivia.

  “I know you still have a few months of school left and you haven’t decided your future yet. Think of this as a promise that I’ll be in your future plans and that when the time is right we will get married.” He adds the last line in when he takes in my blank expression. “Audrey, please accept this ring as a promise to our future, and I’ll spend the rest of my life devoted to you.”

  “And baseball,” I add. He laughs and watches me until my face breaks out into a grin. “Yes.” He slides the princes cut diamond that I’ve admired at Tiffany’s more times that I want to admit, on my finger.

  He pulls me up and crushes his lips on mine. When he lifts me off the ground I don’t scream at him, I grin and wrap my legs around his waist. “We’re on a very public beach and I don’t want everyone to see my fiancé in all her glory.” He sets me down and I giggle.

  “I love you,” he wraps his arms around my waist and nuzzles his face in my neck.

  “I love you, too.” He lets go of me and I pout. “Do we have to go to dinner? I have something else in mind.”

  “I know you’re dying to show Olivia your ring.” He grabs my hand and leads me down the beach but not in the direction I want to go.

  “I have a feeling that she’s already seen it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re implying, but you couldn’t be more wrong,” he grins at me.

  “I’ve been the dark about everything! Are there more surprise that I need to know about?”

  “You’ll see,” he replies. I know he says it just to drive me crazy, and it does.

  “There they are!” I say when we walk up the restaurant. The patio is completely open to the beach but the white table clothes on each table make it look more than casual.

  Olivia looks disheveled to say the least. She has her face buried in her hands and her elbows on the table. Her mother would be so proud. William has his arm on her back saying something quietly to her but when they see us they both seem to perk up.

  “How was the walk?” Olivia attempts to grin at me.

  “Nothing special happened,” I dramatically rake my left hand through my hair and she gets up and pulls me into a hug.

  “We are celebrating. Americans celebrate with champagne but we’re in Mexico so we celebrate with Tequila.” She says as we take our seats.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” William tries to hide his grin.

  “I think it’s the best idea I’ve ever had,” she assures him. I watch them as she blows a kiss to him and he grins at her. It seems that they have found their perfect balance. William has someone that makes him let loose and Olivia has someone to tell her when to be serious.

  The waitress brings over a bottle of tequila, that I’m sure was already ordered before Kellen and I arrived. Olivia was going to make us celebrate no matter the outcome. I watch at the waitress sets out glasses for us. Kellen pours both of us a shot. “To us,” he says and we both toss our glasses back. I vaguely remember Olivia making us do shots to us, to the ring, to our vacation, and any other stupid thing that she could think of and the rest of the night was blurred.

  ∞

  “Drinking at breakfast?” Olivia asks when she walks behind me. “That do
esn’t seem like your style.”

  “There’s chicken so it’s actually brunch.” I nod to the chicken underneath my eggs.

  “How does the screw driver taste,” she asks as she takes a seat across from me.

  “Like a bad decision.”

  “Where’s Kellen?” She laughs.

  “In bed,” I take a bite and almost spit it out. My stomach is not well enough for food, especially eggs. Hangovers are the worst.

  “Is he exhausted after a long night of celebrating?”

  “Liv, I don’t remember anything.”

  “Kellen didn’t drink a lot,” she assures me. “He wanted you to have a good time and he was worried about going out in Mexico with everyone in the group being drunk. Don’t worry; you drank enough for both of you.”

  “I hate you. What are the plans for the day?”

  “Kellen wanted to zip line and hang out at the pool.”

  “We should bypass zip lining until tomorrow.”

  “You should have a better alcohol tolerance with as much practice as you’ve had this year,” she laughs at me.

  “Order breakfast and let’s walk down to the beach!” She grins at me and nods her head.

  Kellen eventually walks down to find us at the beach. My head snaps in his direction when I see him walking toward us in shorts and a bare chest. I don’t think I will ever get tired of that view.

  “You’re drinking already?” He nods to the margaritas on our side table.

  “This girl was drinking at breakfast!” Olivia chimes in.

  “This is what you’re supposed to do on vacation.” I tell them and take a sip of my drink.

  Kellen pulls a chair beside me and sits back, “We can zip line tomorrow.” He looks over at me, “If you can control yourself.”

  “We’ll get up early so she won’t have time to start drinking.”

  “You two have no room to talk!” They laugh at me but they don’t tease me any further.

  “So how is engaged sex?” I spit my drink out as soon as the question leaves her mouth.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Kellen tells her. “Fiancé or not, I’m not having sex with someone that’s not conscious.” Olivia burst out in laughter and I lie back in my seat and cover my face.

  ∞

  The drive to the zip line is a short one. We were picked up in a small white van and dropped off in the middle of nowhere surrounded by mountains and sand. We listened to a safety meeting and followed them up the mountain.

  Olivia is the first; they strap her into her harness and hook it to the line when she stepped on the tiny metal platform. She is grinning from ear to ear and I hold my breath for her as she steps off the platform and zooms down the line. Her screams echo on the mountain until I see her figure stop on the mountain across from us. Next William goes, before I have time to run away, it’s my turn.

  “You go first,” I tell Kellen.

  “Hell no I’m not leaving you over here with these guys. We’re in Mexico babe,” I sigh and step up to the platform and I feel him standing behind me. “It’s close to eight hundred feet to the bottom,” he says in my ear.

  “Shut the hell up,” I playfully shove him back and he laughs at me.

  The instructor snaps my harness in and secures it on the line. “Ready?” He asks in a thick accent and I nod. He softly pushes me from the platform and I zoom past them. I can’t stop the grin from face or the scream that escapes my mouth as I go faster and faster until I reach the opposite side.

  Kellen comes in seconds after I leave the platform and I walk over to him and throw my arms around him, “Thank you for making me do that!” I plant a kiss on his mouth.

  We go through five more zip lines and climb down the side of the mountain before the excursion is over. The instructors informed us that Cabo Wabo shots are served at the end of the zip line and we walk over to the building to get ours.

  “Have you set a date?” Olivia walks up behind me after her harness is removed.

  “No Liv, he asked me two days ago.” I grab my shot and thank the man.

  “So you're telling me you haven't thought of when you're doing it?”

  “After baseball season, I will barely see him for eight months.”

  “You could elope before season.”

  I collapse into the chair and take the shot of Cabo Wabo before the group of zip liners. I welcome the burn and hope they offer me a second shot. When Kellen proposed to me I was thrilled, but the thought of getting married so soon terrifies me. That's normal, right?

  “Whoa, slow down. What just happened?” I meet her eyes to find she’s giving me a knowing look. She has to know that I’m starting to freak out.

  “We can't get married that fast. I'm thinking this time next year at the soonest.”

  “He's going to freak when you tell him that.”

  “He said this was a promise that when we're ready to get married we would.”

  “Yeah but he didn't mean in the next ten years.”

  “He won't push me. We will decide when we are both ready.”

  “He’s ready, Audrey, he's been planning your wedding since your first date.”

  I give her a warning glare. She laughs but drops the subject. I'm thankful for this, it gives me time to stop my panic attack before it becomes out of control.

  Chapter twenty-seven

  “Chloe texted me! Your family wants to see the ring,” I tell Kellen when he walks out of the bathroom.

  We r dying to c the ring!

  I hand him the phone and he grins. “I wouldn’t let anyone see it before I asked you.”

  “Except Olivia,” I correct him. I know she showed him the ring that I picked out.

  “I’ll never admit to that.”

  I let out a sigh, “I need to call my mom.”

  “Already done.” He slips his shoes on and gathers our things for our last night in Cabo.

  “You told her?” I ask in disbelief.

  “I asked her for permission.”

  “I think my heart just melted,” I put my hand over my chest and smiled at him.

  “Don’t do that. That woman would’ve killed me if I didn’t ask.” I giggle knowing that he’s right.

  “Where are you taking me?” I change the subject. He hands me my clutch and we walk out of the room. “We’ve already had dinner.” I remind him, confused as to why we’re leaving the room again.

  “I know, Audrey, I was there,” he deadpans. I roll my eyes at him, “We’re going to a couple of places.”

  “Where?” I insist.

  “Olivia wants to go to The Giggling Marlin. She wants to do the upside down shot. It’s all she has talked about for weeks.”

  “That sounds like her. I think I’ll take it easy tonight. You’ve been taking care of me all weekend, tonight is about you.”

  He turns around as soon as we exit the elevator and slaps his hand over his heart to mock me. “I’ll take it back,” I threaten.

  “There’s Olivia,” I tell him when I see her sitting on a bench outside of the resort.

  “And William, he looks miserable.” We both laugh. William is standing next to the bench, casually dressed, with his arms crossed at his chest. He’s out of his element in our group, but I know he’ll come out of his shell soon. Olivia told me that he’s different with her, and I know that she wouldn’t be with him if he was always like this.

  “Finally, this is our cab.” Olivia motions for us to get in the back of the minivan with her. “The meter was running, Kellen, you got this.”

  “Where to, miss?” The cab driver manages to ask with a thick accent.

  “The giggling marlin,” Olivia answers him without skipping a beat.

  “Told you,” Kellen says.

  The cab takes us to the city, which surprisingly isn’t that different from the states. There are bars, clubs, restaurants, and shopping districts that make up most of the room, along with sketchy places that I would never visit.

  “We’re here.” Olivia p
oints to white and blue building. Kellen pays the driver and we walk inside together.

  The inside is dark and decorated with wood and a nautical theme. I spot the Marlin when we walk in the door. Olivia grins and chooses a tall table in the center. “I’m so happy we’re finally here! I looked this place up for our spring break trip.”

  The bar is crowded and more people linger in and sit down, some bravely walk to the back to be held upside down by the Marlin for shot. Olivia orders us several shots, attempting to warm us up to try things with her.

  “As requested, we need men to volunteer for a dance on the bar. The winner will drink free all night.” The voice booms over the intercom and the crowd shouts.

  “You two,” Olivia shouts over the crowd.

  “I’m not that desperate for free drinks,” William says.

  Kellen shrugs, “I’ll do it if you do it.” He tells William.

  William tosses back his remaining shot, “Oh, what the hell.”

  “We can win this,” Kellen looks around and makes a face. “We don’t have any competition in this building.”

  I look over at Olivia with wide eyes. I hold my laughter in until they walk away from the table. She pulls out her phone and opens there camera. “Please send me this video,” I tell her.

  Kellen, William, and four other guys climb on the bar just as Pony comes over the speakers. I lose it, I burst into laughter. The four other guys are uncoordinated and they try to entertain the crowd with humor, or it appears that way.

  Kellen pulls his shirt off and tosses it at me. I pull it from my face just in time to see him lie on the bar and grind to the song. William pulls his polo off and tosses it at Olivia and tries to copy Kellen, but he doesn’t have the rhythm that Kellen has. I can’t take my eyes off of Kellen. My mind doesn’t know if I should be embarrassed, laugh it off, or combust from the heat that flows through my body.

  The song ends and Kellen is the first to hop off the stage and walk back to me. I hand him his shirt and gesture for him to put it on, or I’ll screw you in the bathroom. The announcer calls out the names and everyone cheers for their favorite dancer. When Kellen Reeve’s name is called I flinch from the noise, some recognize his name and the others were too happy to see my fiancé dancing on the bar.