I did kiss her, but her comment kind of struck me. I had never seen her cry, not once. She was a very passionate person and her emotions were easy to read, but I’d never seen her shed a single tear. She had once joked that she probably hadn’t cried since she was seven years old (when her mom left). I was beginning to wonder if it were actually true.
“So does this mean I have to plan a wedding?” she said after a while. “You did make me promise, you know.”
“Yes, you did promise. But if it’s not something you want to do, then I’ll just figure something else out.”
“Like what?” she asked, eyeing me carefully.
I shrugged. “Like asking Cali to do it.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” she exclaimed, lightly shoving me as I laughed. “Do you have any idea what she might actually do? We’d have an eighties-themed wedding, just like a friend of ours did last year. Cali has talked about it nonstop since.”
“Eighties, huh?” I pretended to seriously consider it. “That sounds interesting.”
“Tyler Matthew Huntington! I won’t show up.”
I gave her a shocked expression. “You wouldn’t dare stand me up.”
She glared at me to make a point. “I just might if you’re gonna be so difficult.”
“Difficult?” We were both laughing by then, but I ran my fingers softly along her hair and looked into her eyes. “But in all honesty, I’ll do whatever you’re comfortable with. If you don’t want to plan a wedding, I completely understand and…I guess I’ll do it instead. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do though, so I will have to consult somebody. If you’d be so kind as to point me in the right direction…”
When she put her arms around my waist and hugged me, I thought she was grateful that she got out of it. But instead she replied, “I should come clean and tell you that I really do want to plan it. I’m so excited to marry you and…the idea of a wedding has actually grown on me.”
“Really?”
She nodded against me. “Yes. But let me get through Megan and Jack’s wedding tomorrow, and then I’ll let you know if I feel the same way.”
She looked at me and I laughed, very thankful she was always so honest. “Okay. That sounds fair.”
Jayden had agreed to help Megan with the flowers, but when it looked like the task was going to be far too enormous, Megan let Jayden off the hook and hired someone. Jayden admitted that she was very relieved, and now she was just going to be helping adorn the wedding party with the flowers.
We ended up walking along the boardwalk a little longer. Our conversation quickly returned to our own wedding. We both offered several suggestions and we talked about everything very candidly. I was pretty convinced that she really was excited, and it made me a very happy guy. Plus we both decided we wanted to get married sooner rather than later. However, as she was calendaring in her mind, trying to think of a proper date, we realized that every weekend contained something until the end of October.
“I’ll gladly give up my birthday to marry you,” I informed her.
“I don’t think so,” she playfully scowled at me. “I think October 21st is probably the best weekend.”
“That’s too close to your birthday. Why do you have to make the sacrifice?”
“For one, it’s not right on my birthday, and another, I usually don’t really do much to celebrate my birthday.”
“And your friends let you get away with that?” I couldn’t picture Cali letting that slide.
“No,” she growled, and it made me chuckle. “We usually go out and do something, but they learned long ago that I’m pretty adamant about them not making a big deal out of it.”
I nodded my understanding. I couldn’t picture her as the type to enjoy being adorned with gifts and blowing out birthday candles. “What did you do for your birthday last year?” I asked.
“Mmm, we all went to Marrakesh.” I must have looked confused because she added, “It’s a Moroccan restaurant.”
“Hmm, sounds interesting,” I smiled.
“Maybe I should take you there for your birthday. You’d like it,” she assured me. “They have belly dancers.”
“Ah, that does sound interesting,” I joked.
We finished out the rest of the night by walking the rest of the boardwalk, and then spending some time alone at my house. I loved watching her look over her ring several times, smiling at the shiny diamonds set in white gold. When I took her home around midnight, it was hard to let her go. I felt like she should be mine to keep, just because we had a date set to get married.
I went to work the next morning like any other morning, but I felt like a new man. All I could think about was my future with Jayden, and I had to remind myself to concentrate on what I was doing.
Jayden planned on sharing the news with her friends that day, but since Matt was now working with me, she wanted me to be the one to tell him. Lou was going over some things with him when I arrived, so I just nodded a greeting and got myself ready to work.
I was happy that Lou had liked Matt right away, and after the first two times Matt came in and did some work with us, Lou was anxious to know if I thought he would stay. When he came in again on Thursday, Lou offered him the job, and Matt accepted. I was very happy he was here, but the downside was that we probably wouldn’t get the same Saturdays off anymore. Luckily the shop would be closing for Labor Day Weekend when we all went camping one last time.
When the morning rush had subsided a little, Matt and I were both sitting on stools at the back of the garage, taking a break.
“So I have some news for you,” I told him.
“Yeah? Does it include finishing my Camaro for me?”
I laughed. “I don’t know. I’m in pretty good spirits; you might talk me into it.”
With a smile he looked me over. “Good spirits, huh?” Then his face changed. “Wh- wait. Is…is Jayden pregnant? You’re gonna be a dad!”
I scoffed. “No. Traditionally there’s something that comes before that. Well, at least for some of us.”
“You two are getting hitched?” He looked genuinely surprised when I confirmed with a nod. “Wow. That’s great. I mean for you. It’s not something I would ever do,” he laughed.
I took it with a grain of salt. Matt was very honest with how he felt about marriage.
“Do you have a date set?”
“First weekend in November.”
He paused for a moment. “Of this year?”
I laughed. “Yes, of this year.”
“And she’s not pregnant?” He laughed when I rolled my eyes at him. “Okay, it’s Jayden we’re talking about here. She’s been pretty set on having a normal family life—husband, kids, dog—for quite a while now. As much as I knew it would happen, it’s just weird to think that the time has finally come.”
“How come?”
He shrugged. “All these years she’s insisted that her life is going to go a certain direction, and now it’s actually going to happen. She’s just one of those people that’s…so damn interesting. She would make it big so easy… She has so much to offer the world.”
“So you think she’s wasting her talents if she gets married and has kids?”
“Hey, man,” he replied, holding up his hands. “I’m not saying that at all. She can have a family and still make it big. It’s just not what she wants. It’s hard for me to understand. Shawn works his butt off to attain something that would come overnight for Jayden, and they have completely opposite desires. How does that work out?”
“Background. Character. You see how opposite their personalities are.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And it’s not like Jayden hasn’t worked hard on her music. She may not work hard to get recognized, but she still puts in the time to get as good as she is.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” He was quiet for a few seconds before saying, “I can’t believe she turned Nick’s manager down.” I obviously had no idea what he was talking about and the look on h
is face confirmed it. “Oh, I just thought… Sorry man, I thought she told you?”
“Well she didn’t, so I guess now you’re gonna tell me.”
He looked uncomfortable for a second, but then he shrugged. “Well, Rod wants Shawn’s band to sign…but only if Jayden is a part of the package.”
I raised my eyebrows at the news.
“She’s one of the most talented guitarists out there, Ty, and she’s female.” He paused to let that set in. “Do you know how special she is? And you’ve seen them perform. You know their band is amazing—all of them just mesh—but you know it wouldn’t be the same if you took Jay out of the equation, right? It just wouldn’t be the same.”
I completely understood what he meant. Shawn, Mac, and Josh were great together, but there was something about the chemistry of the performance—and the entire night—when Jayden was on stage with them.
“And even when Camryn plays with them,” he continued. “Man, I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s amazing. Jay and Cam together…” He whistled. “Sorry, but they’re both pretty hot.”
“Never mind their talent, right?”
“You know what I mean,” he chuckled. “The entire group is incredible.”
I nodded my agreement. “Does Shawn know all this? About the offer to sign?”
“Oh, hell no. On the phone Jay told Rod Halverson to sign Shawn without her—that it would completely be worth every dime—but he was really hesitant. But not because he doesn’t want Shawn—he really does—but I think he’s looking for the double kill, you know? So guess what?”
I shook my head, not even knowing where I would start guessing.
“Rod asked Jay if he could be her manager to sign her for a solo project. And Nick sweetened the deal by offering his name to produce her.”
Okay, now I was completely blown away. Why didn’t Jayden tell me any of this?
“She turned them down?” I asked. Matt nodded, but I was shaking my head. I really didn’t know what to think about it. “There’s no way she’d let Shawn find out,” I sighed.
Matt’s look agreed with me, and it made me feel bad for the situation she was in. She didn’t want a career in music—at least that’s what she said. She turned down the opportunity to do a solo album, which totally did not surprise me. She would freak out at the idea of going on stage without Shawn. But she had also turned down an opportunity to sign as a band with Shawn. I really didn’t know what to say.
“Well, what about Camryn? Would that be a possibility?”
Matt kind of shrugged. “I think she’s kind of in the same boat as Jayden.”
“You mean she wouldn’t want to tour?”
“Mmm, I mean…” He paused for a few seconds. “Her personal life. I guess she’s engaged now. Her goals are kind of like Jayden’s. She wants to get married and have a family. I think a professional career in music is the furthest from her mind.”
I let the information settle. “Wow. Does Shawn know she’s engaged?”
He nodded. “Yeah. But he kind of played it off. It’s hard to tell what he thinks because he won’t allow himself to look soft, you know? And if you ask him straight out, he won’t give you a straight answer.”
I felt bad for Shawn. The one thing in the world that he wanted was a career in music. It was coming along slower than he’d hoped, and I knew he was frustrated with it. Now Camryn was engaged, a girl he cared about as much as his music.
Matt and I talked about Shawn’s situation for a few minutes until our conversation drifted back to Jayden.
“You’ve heard all her talk about divine providence and stuff, haven’t you?” he asked me.
“You mean that she believes in God?”
He shrugged. “Anyways. That’s where all her decisions come from. She feels that certain choices that she makes have been divinely guided somehow.”
“And you don’t believe that?”
He laughed. “I guess I might believe in God, and I guess Jayden’s a pretty spiritual person, so maybe she really is in tune with that kind of stuff.”
“Well, she’s definitely more in tune with aspects of my life than I’ve ever been,” I admitted. “I truly feel that she was placed in my life for a reason.”
“Yeah, so we can all see what demonic losers we are when we’re graced with her angelic presence.”
We both laughed at that. Sometimes I actually felt that to be true.
“But I understand what you mean,” he continued. “I truly do think she has some sort of gift, and I think I met her at a time when I really needed her. I was this longhaired, foul-mouthed skate punk when I first met her. I drank all the time and did drugs… She was a freshman taking sophomore English—and I was a junior, there again because I’d flunked it—so we were in the same class together. We had assigned seating and she ended up sitting right behind me. I thought she’d be this stuck up, little miss know-it-all—girls like that don’t really talk to guys like me—but man, I was so wrong. The teacher of the class really rubbed me the wrong way. She already hated me from the year before, so I was really intent on being an ass again, you know?” He laughed and shook his head. “But Jayden… If she hadn’t been in that class, I’m sure I would have flunked it again and I would have never finished high school.”
“Did she tutor you or something?”
“No. I actually got decent grades when I wanted to. But Jayden was just…hilarious. She’d say these comments and stuff from where she sat behind me—things I never expected to come out of her mouth. I ended up really liking the class, and because I looked forward to seeing her every day, I actually made it to class every day.”
I smiled because I could definitely see the motivation.
“The day she invited me to go riding with her and her friends was the day I stopped doing drugs and drinking. I even cut my hair,” he smiled.
“Why?”
“I have no idea. I think it was just to show myself that I had come across something better. I don’t know. But the next day in English—it was first period, so I tried to get there early sometimes just so I could talk to Jayden more—no one even said anything about my hair. It was certainly noticed, but most people really didn’t talk to me much. I was told I was a little scary,” he said, making a sinister face.
“But anyway, I was expecting Jayden to tell me it looked nice, or something. She’s always polite like that. But instead she says, ‘It’s missing something.’ She hollers at Shawn—he was in the class, too—to toss her some hair gel. The guy carried it around with him,” he chuckled. “So she puts some in her hand and goes to work on my hair, putting the top of it into a two-inch faux-hawk. Mrs. Morton begins class and Jayden’s stuck with leftover gel in her hands, so she shrugs her shoulders and starts running the rest of it through her own hair. The teacher notices the gel on her desk and snidely asks, ‘Ms. Adams, would you like a mirror?’ Jayden smiles at her and in a sweet voice replies, ‘Oh, I’m fine. But thank you for asking.’ ”
Matt was laughing at the memory and it made me laugh, too.
“Oh, it was great. Mrs. Morton didn’t take crap from anyone. She seemed to know that Jayden was being facetious, but Jay was such a ‘nice’ student, I don’t think she knew what to say. When the teacher turned her back Jayden threw the gel across the room to Shawn. There were actually lots of moments like that. Anyways, I could go on and on about her. She became my best friend that year. I never had a sister and she was the closest thing I had to one. Chris was the same way with her—until he wanted to date her a year later.”
My interest was piqued with that one, but our break was over when the next car came in. However, Matt picked up right where he left off as we got to work.
“Chris used to pick on Jayden like crazy. Kind of how Shawn still does now. I think Chris always liked her, but they had been friends for so long… Maybe he saw that Shawn had asked her out, and even though they didn’t exactly date, they still remained friends. I think the problem was that Chris and Jayden we
re too close. She had only known Shawn for about a year and they started playing music together, so maybe it wasn’t so risky to her then, you know? But when we were seniors—she was a sophomore—Chris asked her to the prom. It wasn’t even a big deal because they were best friends and everyone knew it. I knew he liked her more than that, though—he told me—and he ended up telling her that. I think she was a little freaked out, like he worried she would be, but they ended up dating for a while after that. They agreed several times that they should just be friends, so they were kind of off and on. I think Chris’s biggest regret was that he didn’t agree with her, but he went along with it anyway. He didn’t want to push her away, you know?”
“And now?” I couldn’t help asking.
With a smile he replied, “And now he just wants what’s best for her. He’s glad she’s happy. I’m so relieved all their arguing is over, though. That really sucked. I never saw Jayden so angry, and I never heard Chris yell at her before. It was scary. I thought they were done for good.”
I shook my head. Matt had shared some of it with me once before and I was completely shocked by some of the things Chris had said to her. Of course she only got upset over the things he’d said about me, and that’s what had really set her off. It was amazing that they were still even friends.
We worked the rest of the day and continued our conversations. I’d always loved working in Lou’s shop, but having Matt there was especially nice, and I couldn’t believe how fast the day went sometimes. Most of our talk drifted between Jayden and Stacie to sports or mechanics, and after talking shop for a bit, our conversation turned back to music.
“So what do you know about Nick?” I found myself asking.
Matt looked a little surprised. “You mean why he was here?”
“Oh, I know why he was here. Jayden told me that she was going to invite him.”
He paused for a moment. “I don’t understand your question.” Then he smiled. “Oh, you mean what do I know about the two of them?” he asked with raised eyebrows. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
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