Chapter 28: Birthday
A/N: I apologize for not getting this up sooner. My updates will probably now be 2-3 a week until I reach graduation next month. Please don't hate me. :)
What the hell did I just do? Did I just kiss him? Oh, my goodness. That was not supposed to happen. Now he is going to take it the wrong way. Shit. I guess I was happy that he remembered my birthday. And that he trusted me with his baby. Yeah, that is all it is. Who am I kidding? I wanted more than a kiss. My hands were clamped so hard on the steering wheel that my knuckles were turning white.
The metal was cutting into the back of my ring fingers. I glanced at one, an opal gaudy ring that my mother had thought was so precious when we went to antiquing. It was pretty. I had to give her that. The one on my left hand was turned around so that all you could see was a white gold band. I used my thumb to twirl it around to face me. I could not help but smile at the memory as the crimson jewel reflected the morning light. I had not touched it in years, but today just seemed like the perfect day to take it out of retirement.
"So dish." Grace commanded, glaring at me.
"About what?" I asked perplexed still lost in my thoughts.
"What you told me that you'd explain to me later. What was so bad between you two? It didn't seem like bad blood just now."
"I wanted to sleep with him before I moved, but he wanted to wait." It still frustrated me to even think about it. Why didn't he want me?
"Okay, so he was a dumbass." She stated sardonically. "So who was your baby's daddy?" Ah, the inevitable question.
"His best friend." I mumbled lowly, praying that she would not hear it. She did.
"Ouch." She flinched, "And that would be?" She motioned trying to get me to continue.
"Reid." I simply stated.
She glanced out the window to think. Of course it always takes a while. Her head snapped back at me, her eyes wide, "The blonde hottie we met last night?" I nodded, biting my cheek, continuing to keep my focus on the road before me. "I knew something was going on with him. He is too good lookin' for you not to have at least attempted to taste. I take it Tyler doesn't know anything about it."
I glared at her with my 'are you serious' look. "Of course he doesn't know anything about it. You and Pogue are the only ones that know about the baby. Bailey knows that we slept together back then, and the girls know that we've been fucking since I came home, but all that ended last night. Don't mention it to anyone." I ordered, not even bothering to give her another look. She knew I meant business.
Several moments went by in utter silence before she broke it, "Who is Pogue?"
I chuckled to myself, "Another guy I grew up with. I'll tell you all about them later."
"Damn, woman. How many guys were there?" She inquired playfully.
"Four that mattered." I answered smirking to myself. "You will meet the other two tonight."
I glided into the cafeteria, probably grinning goofily. She kissed me. And she was sober this time around…I think. The way she was driving who the hell knows. It was real though; that's why I didn't have a problem with it. I felt the spark, the connection that I had forgotten about all this time was still there. I had not gotten a kiss from her in so long. My lips were still buzzing. It wasn't a full on passionate lip lock; it surprised us both. I knew right then that it was honest and unplanned, and as much as she wanted to deny it, she still had feelings for me. My day could not get any better.
I plopped down in between Reid and Bailey at the lunch tables. Oops. I didn't know that it had been that long. I missed my morning classes thinking about her and waiting for her. It was worth it though. Who cares if I had to do detention to make up for the lost time? "Someone looks happy." Bailey pointed out, smiling at me. I shrugged.
"Where the hell were you?" Reid asked uncouthly. "You get on my ass about missing classes and look who the one was skipping."
"I was waiting for Elizabeth to come pick up the Hummer." I explained, snatching some fries from his plate.
His brow lifted high under his hair with a wide-eyed expression, "You let her take your Hummer?" He asked astoundingly.
"It's her birthday." I shrugged it off nonchalantly. "She needed something to drive her friends into town, and I offered. It's not a big deal; she left me hers."
"Today's her birthday?" He asked surprised.
"Yeah, Dipshit." Bailey retorted, "Which is why I was trying to discuss what we are doing this weekend. I hope none of you have plans." I glanced around at everyone who were shaking their heads and eyeing each other before turning back to Bailey. "Good because we're going to Boston." She declared.
"Wait a second," Caleb interfered, "We're going to Boston?" Bailey nodded at him as if he were dumb, "We can't decide to just take a trip and stay there for a weekend on a Friday afternoon. We have to have hotel reservations, transportation-"
Bailey cut him off, "Jason has already taken care of everything. He reserved seven rooms at some five star hotel, organized a limousine to pick us up tonight from Nicky's, picked out a club that she would like to go to tonight, paid for us girls to have a spa day tomorrow, and some other stuff that I can't think of at the moment."
Who is Jason? Glancing at Kate and Sarah, they were already loving the idea and were probably in love with the guy for having included them on this mini-vacation. Caleb seemed at a loss until he managed to find something to contradict her, "Only Sarah and I are 18. How do you expect that we can all go to some club in Boston?"
"Because I have these," she grinned as she pulled out an envelope from her bookbag and tossed it onto the table in front of her. Caleb opened it pulling out ID's. "I emailed some pictures of you guys to Jason, and he brought those with him. As of today, we are all twenty-one!"
Kate and Bailey clapped giddily as Pogue snatched one of the licenses out of Caleb's hand staring at it and pulling his own out of his wallet, silently comparing. "These look real." He voiced astonished, sliding his new card into his wallet with his old one, and placing it back where it came from.
"Well it is Elizabeth's birthday." Caleb announced thinking as he observed the cards thoroughly. "I guess everything is handled then." Bailey grinned, seeing that she had won one over Caleb.
After pulling out Kate and Sarah's new fake id's, he slid the envelope over to me and Reid for us to take out our own. Checking it out, it really did look authentic. Awesome.
This could be the perfect opportunity for me and her to get to hang out together. Maybe get a little closer. I smiled again, glancing at Bailey, "When do we leave?"
Well this afternoon was interesting to say the least. After returning from Spencer's with Grace to the house, all six of us headed into town with constant outspoken thoughts from the boys about my newly acquired vehicle. Boys and their toys. We drove down the backroads, the others fogging out Tyler's baby. Whoops. He's going to kill me. Once we got to town, we went shop hopping. The boys really loved that. That's my sarcasm slipping in there in case you can't tell. They did enjoy the lingerie shop though. With promises of modeling whatever they picked out, they joined us enthusiastically.
However, when exiting, Collin was chasing me, and once the door swung open and I reached the sidewalk, I accidentally ran into someone knocking their bags out of their hands. Bending downward to help the lady pick up her things, I continued to apologize profusely. Normally I would not have thought twice about it, but when I glanced up into her eyes to hand her her things while trying to stand, I was hit with a sense of familiarity. "Mrs. Simms?" I asked rather nervously.
Her eyes narrowed, taking in my appearance with some displeasure until they reached my face. "Elizabeth?" Her scowl twisted into a heartfelt smile as she embraced me, "Tyler told me you were back. He came by last night to pick up your birthday present. He is so excited that you are home." She pulled back to look at me, capturing my face between her hands, studying me, "And he was right. You have grown up to be more gorgeous than ever."
Hearing that caused me to beam back at the woman, "Well, you look amazing. What are you doing in town?"
"We are home for a couple of weeks. We are having an anniversary party Wednesday night. Your father has been invited. You must come." She stressed to me as she kissed my cheek, "I will speak to you soon, my dear. It was lovely to see you. Happy Birthday!" With that, she was gone, rushing down the path to her chauffeur.
Tyler got me a present? He had to go to his house to get it? It better not be… No, it couldn't be. He wasn't that stupid to think that after all of these years he could just do that. No. Glancing to the side, the group stood and stared at me, wondering what the hell just happened. "Family friend." I shortly explained. "Come on, let's get over to Nicky's, I'm starving." I had yet to eat breakfast or lunch and it was nearing 4:30.
"Let me take your stuff; I'll put it in the car." Collin offered.
"I can do it." I conveyed as I strode over to the large black vehicle. He ran in front of me as I neared the back.
"You can't look in there, your presents are back here. Hand me your bags and turn around." He instructed.
I was beyond amused. They were going through so much trouble to try and hide my presents from me. I obliged, handing him my sacks and strolling back to the group. Across the street was the bar and out front I noticed my blue RX8 parked. I should have known that they would have been here. Pogue's Ducati and Caleb's Mustang were there too. My friends finally get to meet each other. I skipped ahead into the street, quickly glancing both ways, motioning the Texans to follow.
I just finished up a game with Tyler when she walked in. She entered as if she owned the place, trailing behind her was her following. Caleb, Pogue, and the girls were occupying the table and she continued that way, flashing those pearly white teeth excitedly. Bailey pretty much jumped her, wrapping her arms tightly around her, giving her birthday wishes. The others followed hugging her and placing kisses to her cheek.
Tyler laid his stick on the table and headed in her direction, not even saying anything to me. I walked behind him a little slower and less excited. I embarrassed myself yesterday, and now she doesn't want anything to do with me. It's okay though. Bailey and I made amends which made last night more tolerable. On the way over, the cute blonde that I would have ended up 'having' the day Elizabeth barged in intercepted me. I wrapped an arm over her shoulder, leading her with me. She could make this situation more bearable. Once arriving, I noticed the glint in Tyler's eyes as he kissed her brow. He placed her to sit next to him as everyone sat. I pulled a chair from a nearby table and put it in between Bailey and Tyler, pulling the girl, whose name was Keegan, onto my lap. Never did I speak a word to her.
I knew I recognized all of the people except for the young one. The photographs that I had inspected that one morning in Elizabeth's room were filled with them. The two guys, Collin and Jason, were in a lot of them, mostly in some compromising positions with her. I had expected that we would have a great weekend together, but unfortunately, it seemed that one was vying for her attention, since the other was taken by the beautiful green-eyed blonde who I met earlier. The younger boy greatly resembled Reid except that he was more built and darker skinned. His girlfriend, Annabel, was bubbly and cute. She resembled the old Elizabeth with the light skin and light colored locks.
After all of the introductions were made, the girls all left us guys to get on the dancefloor. Elizabeth veered off into the direction of the bar to talk to Nicky and probably get her free drinks. It still amazed me how she could pull off getting out of trouble and get whatever she wanted. It was as if she had a power all her own, except hers stemmed from her personality and appearance, not from magic.
Jason maneuvered to sit closer to the rest of us. Beau followed to sit in the empty chair between me and Collin. His eyes were planted on the girl that I love, completely enamored. The guy, Jason, huddled close to the rest of us to speak, "Are you guys ready for this weekend?"
We all nodded, Caleb decided to speak, "I don't feel right about you paying for everything though. Is there anything we can do?"
He shook his head, "It's all compliments of Daddy." He mused. "He'd do anything for the girl. He loves her!" I shared a glance with Pogue. I sure as hell hope that she hasn't slept with his dad. "She's like a daughter to him." He finished, calming my fears. That would be weird. "So you guys grew up with her, huh? What was she like as a kid?"
"Nothing like how she is now." Reid mumbled.
Jason chuckled, "I wouldn't expect so."
"How did you meet her?" I asked, pretty interested in her life back in Texas.
"I met her at a couple parties when she first moved there, she was shy and quiet unless she was around Cara." Reid instantly became more attentive, "We never did associate much. At the end of the year I invited her to my house for a party and she met Grace and Annabel. We've been best friends ever since." I could tell that he was hiding something, keeping it out of the conversation. Collin did not seem very enthused at the friends comment since he scoffed. Of course I knew that they were more than friends, but there was something else.
The girls came back, slightly sweaty, and Elizabeth sat down in my lap, her vodka sour sloshing in her glass. "Are you ready for the start of your birthday weekend?" Jason prided.
"I thought it had already started," she stated perplexed.
Bailey grinned mischievously, catching her attention, "Uh-uh. Come on, the presents begin outside!"
Elizabeth grabbed her hand and hauled herself up. I felt around in my jacket pocket for the box inside. I'd wait until later tonight when we were alone to give it to her.
The next chapter will be an interesting one! Keep reading and reviewing! Love!
