Everything I Wish For (Lupine Valley #5)

16. Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Lauren

Ethan’s wedding was the picture perfect combination of winter wonderland on a pristine slice of paradise. Vivian has only seen snow a few times in her life when she and Ethan came to visit me during the winter. Something she says she’ll never do again, her Florida born and raised blood was too thin for that kind of cold. But Ethan wanted a winter wonderland wedding and that was the only say he had.

The day went off without any problems. The toasts are done, the cake has been cut and I am happy I get to finally just be with Brad and have fun.

“Hey gorgeous, you off duty? I can only talk about golf so many more times.” Brad rolls his eyes.

“I am. Would you like to dance with me?” I lean into him, running my arm up his. Willing myself to try and trust this more.

“You know I’d love to. And more.” He winks.

He whisks me out to the dance floor in his arms. Spinning me around to a slow song. After a few songs, the dancing is stopped for the bouquet toss. Brad leaves me once again and I’m alone with all my single cousins on the dance floor.

Move Bitch by Ludacris comes over the speakers and it makes me laugh. Only my sister-in-law would have that as her bouquet toss song.

The photographer takes a couple of fake toss photos before she tosses the bouquet for real. It lands right in my hands.

“Bradshaw, you better start saving for another one,” someone yells from the crowd.

“Yeah, yeah, I will if it makes my baby girl happy,” my dad answers honestly. He’s always done everything he can to make me happy. He throws his arm around Brad, “Now it’s up to you to make my girl happy.”

A pang of guilt hits me for lying to them. And the anxiety I feel about losing Brad is creeping back up.

Brad walks over to me and loops his arm around my waist, dipping me for a kiss in the middle of the dance floor.

“I’ll always make you happy, L,” he whispers in my ear.

The crowd hoots and hollers before Ethan comes over, “Hate to break this up, but it’s my party, so why don’t you two get a room.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Brad takes my hand to lead me off the dance floor.

“I’m going to grab us a bottle of wine for the room and you can say your goodbyes. I’ll meet you back here in five?”

I nod and he kisses my forehead before taking off.

“Lauren?”

I turn to see Layla. “Hey, Layla. How are you? Having fun tonight?”

“I am. I just wanted to apologize about the other night. I didn’t mean to sound insensitive and I get the feeling you don’t know everything there is to know about the accident that night. Not that it’s my place, and not that it really has any relevance in today’s world… I just…” She takes a deep breath. “I’m happy for you guys. And Abigail is too. I spoke to her last night and told her that I had seen Brad. So just know that she’s happy in her life and she’s happy for you two.”

“What else is there to know? And why wouldn’t she be happy for him? The accident was just that, an accident. I know he struggled with the guilt of injuring her, but do they still talk? Is there more to it?”

She gives a tight smile. “It’s not my place. You should ask him though.”

She walks away from me, leaving me reeling by the table. What the hell happened that night that she’s making it sound so ominous?

Brad comes back to the table, scooping me up to throw me over his shoulder and carry me out of the ballroom.

Once we get out into the lobby he places me down on the floor and gets a good look at my face in the light of the lobby.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Why the pout?” He takes my hand in his.

My eyes widen just a bit at his realization, because I don’t want to tell him everything, not right now. Selfishly I want to live in our pretend bubble until we get back home. But after talking to Layla, I need to know what happened.

He leads me off the elevator and down to our room. Unlocking the door to our room, he leads me over to the bed, concern written across his face.

“Layla found me tonight. She told me that I don’t know everything about that night she was talking about.”

“Lau—”

“What don’t I know, Brad? What would make me feel differently about that night?”

His face drops. “I was going to tell you.”

“When? It’s been over a decade, don’t you think the time was then?”

“It’s complicated, L. I didn’t want you to shoulder any of the guilt. I didn’t want you to think the worst of me. I just made the decision that I needed to tell you when we got back. I don’t want to fuck this up, I don’t want to feel guilty about being happy anymore.”

“Guilty? Is that why Abigail is happy for us?” My spine straightens.

“Abigail knows?”

“Brad! That is not the fucking point! What the fuck happened?”

“I promise, I will tell you everything. But I just need to take care of something first. Can you give me some time? I promise the second we’re back in Lupine Valley I will tell you everything. I just don’t want this to end yet,” he pleads, his head in his hands, his tie half undone.

I’m not ready to lose him either. We sit in silence for a minute, neither of us making the next move.

If I say “no,” he needs to tell me now, I don’t know what I’m going to find out. I don’t know what he wants to do. I just want to be done with all of this and go back to the beginning of our trip with the happiness of orgasms and speedos.

“Okay, I’m going to get this make-up off and attempt to get all these bobby pins out.” I give him a weak smile. I start feeling around in my head for the many that are in there. This should give me a few minutes to think about my life and get my feelings back in check.

“Okay. Yeah. I’ll be right back,” he says flatly.

He walks by me and leaves the hotel room, his phone in hand. I hate this. I hate that I made our friendship messy.

I quietly close the bathroom door behind me. The tears well up behind my eyes, but I won’t let them fall. I can’t explain to Brad why I’m crying. I don’t want to ruin things further than I already have.

It takes me almost an hour to find every bobby pin and wash all the hairspray out. Part of me was hoping Brad would come in and join me, forget about everything I said, everything I asked.

I open the door and step out into the room.

“Oh, my God!” My hand slaps to my chest, “You scared me!”

Brad is sitting on the bed, in the dark. His hair is tousled like he’s been running his fingers through it, eyes puffy as if he’d been crying.

He holds up two take out boxes. “We missed the cake. I know you were saying how good the bakery is so I went to get us some slices,” he sounds unsure of himself.

I sit down next to him on the bed and reach out my hand. “Thank you, I’d love some cake.”

I tentatively take one of the boxes and slide backwards until my back hits the headboard. I pat the spot next to me, and he joins me with his cake.

Turning on a movie we both love, I look over to see if he’ll react to one of our favorites. He’s too quiet and it's unnerving.

There is none. He’s just slowly chewing on his cake like it’s paste in his mouth, starting straight ahead.

I sigh and dig into my own. Might as well eat my feelings tonight.

I wake up to our last morning on vacation, and Brad is as far away from me as he could possibly be on the complete opposite edge of the bed. And I do mean edge, he’s almost falling off, teetering on the edge with one leg hanging off. How did it all go so wrong last night? I never should have let this go this far.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and grab my tee to throw over my bike shorts and sneak out the door to go down to breakfast. I don’t have it in me to wake Brad up for another conversation. One that I don’t even want to have myself. Besides, it’s only six in the morning. I just want to get my coffee, and sit on the beach to watch the rest of this sunrise.

I walk through the lobby, heading straight to the coffee machines and to-go cups.

The aroma of coffee beans hits my nose and I breathe in deeply, reveling in the smell, closing my eyes. Letting the coffee relax my anxiety about the whole situation.

“You’re up early, baby girl.” My mom’s voice intrudes on my calming coffee thoughts, causing guilt to gnaw at my stomach.

I jump a little at her touch on my shoulder, “Oh, hey Mom.”

“Are you alright?” She begins to brew her own coffee, “You’re a little jumpy today.”

I snap the lid on my coffee, swirling it a little to mix the cream, and let’s be honest, buy myself some time before I answer her.

“I don’t think so.” Tears well in my eyes.

“Oh dear, let’s go outside, come on.” Mom takes her coffee quickly, not adding what she normally does, and we walk out onto the pier off the restaurant.

“Baby girl, what’s—”

“I lied. We lied. Brad and I. We aren’t actually dating, Mom. And we pretended, but I didn’t pretend. Only he did. Except maybe now, he isn’t? And now we’re going home, and things are just going to go back to…to…I don’t even know. But we didn’t talk last night after the whole thing and now—”

Mom rubs my back as I cry. “Baby, I know you lied.”

My head snaps up to face her. “You, what?”

“We knew. Miriam knows too. She called us immediately after you left their house for dinner.” At least Mom has the decency to look ashamed.

“But—the room? Dad? Does he know?” I sputter to get all my questions and thoughts together.

“Yes, he knew. We both just want you to be happy. And we aren’t stupid, or blind. We see the way Brad looks at you, and how you look at him. Baby, it’s the same way we still look at each other. We just want you to be happy. We’ve always known it was Brad.”

“Yeah well—fat chance of that happening,” I scoff.

“Have you told him that you love him?”

“Of course! He knows how much I care about him, he has to.” But does he? I’ve never come out and said the words, but my actions surely show it. Is that why he doesn’t feel like he can tell me what’s happening or happened with Abigail?

“As more than just your best friend forever?” she probes me further, pushing me to admit my own fault.

“Well, I mean I haven’t explicitly said that I want this to be real. To him anyway.” I suck in a deep breath.

“Don’t you think it’s time?”

“You really knew this whole time?” I lay my head on her shoulder, soaking in the sunrise.

“Nice deflection.” She kisses the top of my head. “We all knew. Even Ethan and Vivian.”

I sigh dramatically, and try to sip my coffee without picking my head up from my Mom’s shoulder. Her soft chuckle reassures me that everything will be okay and maybe I can face this day.

“I told Vivian yesterday,” I admit. “The guilt was too much. I was too afraid of what will happen when we go back, if we make this real and it ends like it did with Damon.”

“No. Never. Damon and Brad aren’t the same person. Brad has been there for you for twenty years. Making things official with him won’t change that.” Mom adamantly shakes her head in disagreement.

But what she doesn’t know is that our relationship has already changed. Even if we go back to Lupine Valley, nothing will be the same as it was and I don’t even know what this secret is surrounding the accident with Abigail. I thought I knew everything. I thought he was always honest with me.

But isn’t that just the icing on the cake? Nothing is as it seems. Not one thing.

Do I want to know what happened over a decade ago? Or do I just let it go and help him through whatever it is he has to do to get over it?