Betrayal - Chapter 23
Saturday
I was pretty sure Matt agreed that this first was everything too. Because he kept wanting to do it over and over again. Not that I was complaining. But I was sore. I wasn’t sure how I was going to walk around his house today without anyone catching on to what we’d done all night long.
I tried to move my leg and groaned. Ow.
Matt laughed.
I opened my eyes and looked up at his smiling face. His head was propped up on his hand and he was staring at me.
“Were you watching me while I slept?” I asked.
He reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Maybe?”
“Do you know how creepy that is?”
“I like looking at my girl. What’s wrong with that?”
I didn’t bother trying to hide my smile.
“You better get used to me staring at you all the time. You signed up for a forever of it.”
I laughed and propped my head up on my hand too. “About that…what are your actual thoughts about getting married. For real?”
“I told you I want you to be Brooklyn Caldwell.”
“I know. But…when exactly were you thinking you wanted that to happen?”
“Brooklyn Sanders, are you asking me to marry you?”
I laughed. “Never mind.” I started to sit up.
“Hey.”’ He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me on top of him.
I straddled him as his hands found my hips.
“You mean you want to pick a date?” he asked.
“Do you?”
“We could fly out to Vegas tonight.”
I laughed. “Stop it, I’m serious.”
“I’m serious too.”
“You’re not serious.” I splayed my hands on his chest. “You’re crazy.” I shouldn’t have said anything. We were too young. He thought I was just messing with him. “Are you hungry? I’m starving.” I tried to move, but he kept his hands locked on my thighs, holding me in place.
“I’m crazy in love with you, Brooklyn. I wasn’t joking about Vegas. But we never really talked about what kind of wedding you wanted. Do you want the whole shebang? The white dress?” His hands ran down the sides of the t-shirt I’d borrowed from him. “The flowers? All that?”
Honestly I had never really thought about it before. All I knew was that Matt was everything I wanted and needed. And I could so easily picture walking down the aisle toward him. I nodded. “I do want all of that.”
“And when do you want it?”
“I assumed you were thinking after college?” I asked.
“I wasn’t thinking after college.”
“You weren’t?” I stared down at him.
“No.”
The way he was staring at me made my heart race. I swore it was beating so loudly that he could hear it. “Then when were you thinking?”
He smiled up at me. “I asked you first, baby. When do you want to get married?”
“Well, I heard the fall is a great time for a wedding.” At least, that’s what Justin had said. And I trusted him.
“It’s fall right now,” Matt said.
“Is it?” I laughed as he tickled my side. “Stop it!”
Somehow I wound up beneath him, his body pressed against mine.
“The fall is pretty busy with school and football practice,” he said.
True. Justin acted like my fairy godmother, but I wasn’t sure he actually had magical powers. A fall wedding would have to wait for a long time. “Which is why you do want to wait till after college?”
He shook his head. “I was thinking more of a winter wedding.”
“The winter after we graduate from college?”
He laughed. “No. This winter. We could do it during Christmas break. And if we do it at the start of break, then we’ll even have time for a honeymoon.” He smiled down at me.
I couldn’t help but smile back. “This winter? Is that really what you want?”
“No, I want to marry you in Vegas tomorrow.” He leaned down and kissed the side of my neck. “But I can wait till the winter if that’s what you want.” His kisses slowly trailed down my neck. “I like the idea of you in a white dress saying I do.”
“Yeah?”
“Mhm.” He lightly nipped at my earlobe.
“Okay. Let’s do it this winter.” A fall wedding may have been Justin’s dream, but it wasn’t mine. I didn’t care what season I married Matt. I just wanted to marry him. And now I was already picturing snow in our wedding pictures.
He kissed me slowly. “I’ll make sure you have the wedding of your dreams. But the only thing I really care about is having you.”
Something about the way he said it reminded me of James’ fears about Rachel just wanting to be with him for his money.
And I needed Matt to know that he didn’t need to ever doubt me.
“Matt?” I grabbed both sides of his face so he’d be looking down at me.
“I love you. For you. I know you can give me the wedding of my dreams and everything I could possibly ask for, but I don’t want you to ever think that’s why I want you. ”
He let his forehead drop to mine. “I know. But it doesn’t matter if you don’t need it. I’m going to give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”
***
As far as I was concerned, we were never leaving this bed.
Matt had breakfast sent up and I’d been lazily brainstorming ideas for our wedding in the journal I was supposed to be using to track my panic attacks.
“How many bridesmaids do you want?” he asked.
“Well, Kennedy of course. What about you? How many groomsmen?”
“I’ll just ask Mason.”
I stared at him. He couldn’t just ask Mason. James and Rob were his best friends too. He needed to make up with them before our wedding or he’d always regret it.
“Actually, there’s a girl that’s always nice to me in my English class,” I said. There wasn’t. “Maybe I’ll ask her too. And I could always ask Justin. I think he’d say yes. So I actually want three. Who will your other two be? It would look silly if it wasn’t even.”
“I can ask Brett and Jason.”
“Who are Brett and Jason?”
“A couple of my football friends. They danced with me on the homecoming float when I was serenading you.”
I laughed. “Really? Brett and Jason? There aren’t two other people you want to ask? Two more important people in your life?”
“Nah. Can’t think of anyone.”
Come on. “Actually, I want two more, I think. So you’ll need to choose two more too.”
“I’ll ask Jeff and Mike too then.”
What? Who even are these people? I set the notebook down. “Two more.”
“Brooklyn…”
“You have to make up with the Hunters, Matt. They’re your best friends. Not Brett and whoever.”
“Brett, Jason, Jeff, and Mike didn’t kiss you though. And they don’t think I’m a liar.”
“You can’t have a wedding without your best friends by your side.”
“The last time I checked, the only person I really need there is my girl.”
Darn him and his stupid charming smile. “You’re really not going to try to make things right with them?”
“I’ve apologized to James a dozen times, Brooklyn. For something that I didn’t even do. I tried to make things right. I don’t know what else I could have done. You’re making it seem like I don’t care, but this is on them. I didn’t cut them out of my life. They cut me and Mason out.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But after all those things you confessed to me about James’ problems…aren’t you ever worried about him?”
“Of course I’m worried about him. But what can I do if he won’t even talk to me?”
That was a fair point.
“It’s really sweet that you care about this, Brooklyn. But I’m done caring. I just want to know you have my back. That you believe I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Well, technically he did do something wrong.
He should have told James what happened right away.
But I got why Matt kept it a secret. He was trying to protect James, not hurt him.
Matt was a good person. And I needed to stop worrying about the Hunters and start focusing on the man right in front of me.
Marriage meant sticking up for each other.
As soon as I had a minute, I’d text Rob and tell him the prank was off. I wouldn’t talk to Rob or James again until they made things right with the Caldwells. It wasn’t really my fault that they weren’t friends anymore. I was done meddling. I just wanted to be happy with Matt.
And I didn’t need revenge against Isabella anymore. I didn’t need to worry about fitting in. Because I already found my place. Right here.
I snuggled into Matt’s side. “I do believe you. And I’ll always have your back. Now that you mention it, I think I do just want one bridesmaid. So maybe just Mason for you then?”
“Sounds good to me.” He kissed the side of my forehead.
I felt so comfortable and safe in Matt’s arms. And for some reason it reminded me about how uncomfortable I was with my new family. I had no idea how we were going to have a happy wedding when our families hated each other.
“Matt, why did you tell your mom I was staying with you because I didn’t want to live with my dad?”
“Because I knew it was an easy way to make her say yes.”
I laughed. “You’re very good at getting what you want.”
He didn’t respond. He just lifted up my notebook to look at some of our wedding ideas.
“But it was easy to make her say yes because your parents hate my dad, right?”
He set the notebook back down on my lap. “I don’t know if I’d say hate. They just don’t see eye to eye on how to run a business.”
“And that’s why they had a falling out?” I asked. “Is that all you know?”
“My dad doesn’t exactly loop me in on his business decisions.”
I knew this was a sore subject for him. He wanted nothing more than to take over the family business one day, but his father wouldn’t even entertain the idea.
I sat up so I could face Matt. “I heard this rumor and I don’t know if it’s true.
” There was no way I was going to mention Miller.
“And I know I should just ask my dad, but he’s so evasive when I ask him questions.
So I just need you to tell me if it’s true.
” I swallowed hard. “Is my dad a mobster?”
Matt laughed. “I don’t think so. He just…” his voice trailed off. “All I really know is that he does some shady stuff with his business. And my parents wanted no part in it. But a lot of their friends do business with him still. Like the Hunters.”
Shady stuff. Even though my dad denied it, Isabella said the Hunters owed the Pruitts a debt. “That kind of sounds like mobster stuff to me.”
He lowered his eyebrows. “Yeah, I guess it kind of does, doesn’t it? No wonder my parents want nothing to do with him.”
I nodded. “And he kind of acts like one, right? With all the bodyguards. And security systems. And how he won’t even really tell me what exactly he does.
He said it was better that my mom left because he couldn’t keep her safe.
And didn’t you see my bodyguards’ faces?
He had someone do that to them when they broke the rules.
He…he…I think maybe my dad’s into some really bad stuff.
And when we had lunch the other day he was talking about me taking over the business one day… ”
“You can’t do that,” Matt said. “I don’t know if he’s a mobster or not, but like I said…he does shady stuff. Illegal stuff. You just said yourself it was dangerous.”
“I know. I wasn’t really thinking. I just…he seemed proud of me. I don’t know, it was stupid.”
“Nothing you do is stupid.” He pulled me onto his lap. “You should just ask him flat out. Or I can ask my dad…”
“No, I don’t want you to involve your dad. He’s already being really nice for letting me stay here. I’ll ask my dad about it.”
Matt pushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Let’s forget about whether or not our parents are friends. Our wedding isn’t about them. It’s about us.”
I nodded. He was right. And yet…it kind of felt like the wedding was about me becoming a Caldwell as quickly as possible. “Are you sure you don’t want to marry me just so my last name isn’t Pruitt?”
“I want to marry you because my eyes always gravitate to you in a room. I’m only happy when I know that you’re happy too.
You’re the only one that puts me in my place.
You’re different than all the other girls I’ve ever met.
You’re pure. You understand me. You’re so strong.
When you cut me out of your life, I realized that I’m only really living when we’re together.
You’re funny and smart and you even get along with my brother, which is rare. ”
I laughed.
He reached out and cupped my cheek in his hand. “I can’t keep my hands to myself when I’m around you. I love you, Brooklyn.”
That was more than enough for me. I’d only been looking for a little validation and he’d given me a ton. This wasn’t about him not wanting me to be a Pruitt. This was about him desperately wanting me to be his. And I already was.