Chapter Four
CELINE
SIX MONTHS AGO
In the last five years, Ace had only become more handsome and sexier with age. In my opinion, a man aged like fine wine, and this handsome man of mine had matured into my favorite drink of choice. He had grown a beard in the last year, the black stubble making his tan skin seem darker and more alluring, and he had gotten more tattoos. He also spent hours in the gym we created in our house.
The new, rugged look made me crave him all the time, and most mornings, when we got out of bed to go our separate ways for work, I didn’t want to let him go, always giving him a long, lingering kiss to remind him of what would be waiting at home that night.
Lucky for me, I had married my best friend, and even though in the beginning things had not been easy, I wouldn’t want to spend my life with anyone else. There were a lot of petty fights in the first year that could have easily been avoided had we learned how to communicate our feelings better, but I considered myself lucky to have Ace in my life.
What really helped us grow as a couple were the hours that I’d spent devouring any book on marriage that I could read, and the number one rule that saved our marriage was never going to bed until the argument was settled.
Now, four years since our summer wedding, we had never been happier, completely lost in each other’s love. We were only missing two things to complete our perfect life together.
The first was my brother, Ryan, who’d been gone for six months and still had another six more until his final deployment was over. The second thing Ace and I were missing was a child. Ace had been hinting for the last few months that we should find a reason to fill the two extra bedrooms in our double-story home.
I naturally suggested Amber, since the girl seemed to be getting herself into a rut lately. Quitting her job and spending all her time holed up in her small apartment in the dark wasn’t healthy, and regardless of Ace being against it, we were both worried about her. He just insisted that we needed our own space to be a couple without someone always listening, but I knew the real reason was someone getting in the way of us having sex anywhere in the house without worrying about other people.
The man couldn’t handle being confined to rules. He wanted to make his own, and his number one rule was sex wherever and whenever the desire hit. I never objected. Who was I to deny my husband when his only desire was to please me?
Through all of the highs and lows of the last five years together, Ace had been a constant in my life, just as I was in his. Every day, I thanked God for our love. Without Ace, I would be lost because he was my rock, always keeping me from drowning.
We experienced our first low when his mother passed away a few months after our wedding. The woman was so riddled with sickness that we all felt immense relief when we first heard the news. We just wanted her to finally be at peace.
Once we reached the hospital where she’d been for the last three months, my strong, unyielding man broke at the sight of the empty bed and his distraught grandmother weeping in the chair she’d inhabited for most of Ace’s mother’s stay in the hospital.
I was immediately thrown back into the weeks after his motorcycle accident, and the icy fear that shot through my spine kept me paralyzed by the entrance of the room at the reminder of what I could have lost. Ace cried over the empty bed, holding his gran’s hand, and eventually mine when I found the courage to stand beside him.
Since that day, he hadn’t shed another tear, and I always wondered if I’d ever see that side of him again—the broken boy who never truly healed from losing his little brother and being abandoned by his family. The boy I’d fallen in love with, who had grown into a strong man ready to protect me at all costs.
His grandmother died a few months later, but the resilient man I’d fallen in love with didn’t cry when we found her. She had been staying in our guestroom but hardly left the bed, really only enough to eat and watch a movie with us at night. Otherwise, she remained in her pajamas all day, reading books. Sometimes, I sat with her, but we never spoke. She was a silent woman, who preferred to stay lost in her thoughts.
For months, we watched her wither away, and in the end, she began to refuse food. Ace and I knew the day was coming that she would leave us, but we never thought it would be so soon. For a long time, Ace was a shell of the man I knew, but he never shed a tear.
Our house had a darkness in it that quickly consumed us. All we did for months was argue. We couldn’t agree on anything—what to have for dinner, what color to paint our bedroom, what car to get. Nothing made sense anymore. And I felt so lost without him.
The topic of divorce was thrown around a lot. Many nights, we went to bed with our backs turned to each other, our hearts screaming in confusion. Because at the end of the day, we knew we loved each other, and I fell in love with Ace even more with every passing minute despite us not being able to get along.
Amber was the reason we finally came to terms with our problems.
She walked into our house one day like she owned it, a big, fat, shit-eating grin on her freckled face. “Listen here, bitch.” She pointed at me as I sunk onto the couch, eyes darting between her and Ace, who stood in the kitchen making popcorn. “And you, Asshole,” she said, pointing her finger at Ace. “You two need to figure your shit out because this whole divorce talk is absolutely fucking ridiculous. I didn’t bend over backward to give you two the perfect wedding literally a fucking year ago for nothing. So, go have angry sex and get out all your anger and frustration because you two are driving us all bat-shit bananas.”
She plopped down on the couch next to me and reached for the remote to the TV. “Ames, what the hell?” I smacked the remote from her hand and glared at her.
“You’re lucky you have your man, so put aside your differences,” she snapped at me, and I instantly felt horrible. “Have some good sex and move the fuck on because at least you can.”
“I think you’re the one having relationship problems—not us.” Ace sat beside me, munching noisily on the popcorn. I bit back a scowl. I hated it when he chewed food loudly.
“Says the asshole who won’t let his wife paint her fucking house gray.” I could see through her anger now, and I knew she was hurting because of Ryan, but nonetheless, I wanted to see this shitshow play out.
“You forgot something. It’s our house, not just hers, fireball.” He emphasized ‘our’, pointing between him and me, but I knew how much Amber hated the nickname ‘fireball’ that Ace gave her when Ryan broke up with her a few years ago and she ended up lashing out at everyone for months.
“Don’t call me that!” she snapped at him.
“Ace!” I exclaimed. He sighed, looking between us in defeat.
“Alright, fine, I’m sorry. I won’t call you that again, but don’t walk into my house telling me what to do,” he told Amber.
“What happened to our house?” I demanded. Crossing my arms over my chest, I glared at him.
“Fuck, baby, you know what I mean!” He threw his arms in the air.
“No, Ace, I don’t. Is it yours or ours, huh? You think just because you pay the bills that it’s not mine, too?” Standing up, I glared at him while I tapped my foot on the carpet. I was so sick of him doing this kind of shit. He would always say one thing, and then the next second, he would change it all up and say something completely different.
It was confusing as hell, and sometimes, the shit he said actually hurt.
Amber stood, her green eyes darting between us. “I think I’ll just let myself out.”
“Sit your ass down,” I ordered. “We need to talk once I deal with him.” She slowly sank back down onto the couch, eyes wide with alarm.
“It’s ours. I didn’t mean it, Celine,” Ace apologized. “ We pay for the house. What’s mine is yours—you know that.”
“Oh, I’m just supposed to know things now?” I threw my hands up in the air in exasperation. “Like I’m just supposed to just understand why you shut me out!” He flinched, his blue eyes no longer holding my gaze.
“I just need time to sort through everything in my head, baby.” He stood, his large hands reaching for my trembling arms. His hold steadied me, and I finally felt grounded after so long, but my bottom lip trembled. I was so tired of going through this all the time. “I love you, Celine, with all my heart. Don’t ever forget that. Do you remember our vows, baby?”
His handsome face blurred as tears filled my eyes. Of course, I remembered our vows. Reaching up, he traced my jaw, his fingertips brushing my cheeks, swiping away a lone tear as it rolled down my face.
“Nobody but you, in sickness and in health. There is nobody but you that I will love with my entire heart until the day that I die.” His voice was steady, his eyes a mesmerizing blue as they held mine. He captured all of my attention, and I struggled to reign in my emotions. My racing heart beat loudly in my ears, and my tears blurred my vision, blurring the image of my perfect husband. With trembling hands, I held his face.
“I haven’t forgotten my promise to you,” I croaked.
He shook his head, his eyelids fluttering closed for a moment. “You didn’t, but I did. I’m so sorry, Celine. I won’t ever forget again. My love for you is stronger than any situation we face,” he promised.
“Oh, my God. You two have me crying like a fucking baby over here.” Amber sniffled, earning a deep chuckle from Ace as he leaned his forehead against mine, his eyes closing as his grip on me tightened. His touch reassured me that we would always be okay, that he would always be mine to have and to hold.
“You’re just jealous that Ryan isn’t confessing his undying love to you,” he mumbled against my lips.
“And you’re still an asshole.” Amber snorted. “What a relief.”
“I love you,” I whispered against his lips before pressing a kiss to them. He groaned and deepened the kiss, his arms banding around me, holding me tight against his muscular frame.
“Hey, hey! No sex in front of me. Save that for later,” Amber interrupted, reminding us once again that she was still here. “You two made up. Now, I need my best friend.”
That was six months ago, and now, I was sitting with a ghost of that woman as we got our nails done. Ryan and Ace were at work, and she hadn’t said a word. Ryan warned me that something happened last night after we left, that something had triggered a panic attack.
I was worried about my friend—my future sister-in-law. She was never quiet—not with me at least. It was worrying. Amber was an outspoken kind of woman. Hell, I could hardly ever get her to shut up. Whatever had triggered her anxiety attack last night was still bothering her today.
“Ames, how was your first night with Ryan?” I wiggled my eyebrows, knowing she had been talking about how much she missed him at night.
What I wasn’t expecting was her lack of reaction. “It was okay,” she mumbled.
“What’s wrong?” The nail tech looked up, slitted eyes darting between us.
I frowned at the woman. Did she have no decency? “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” Amber snapped at me, and my eyes widened in shock. “I just want to relax. That was the whole point of this, right?” She looked around the small nail salon, but instead of looking relaxed, she looked trapped.
“I suppose, but usually, I can never get you to shut up, so why don’t you just tell me what’s going on? Did you not like the proposal?” She stiffened.
“No, it was perfect. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted, Cece. You know that.”
“Then, what the hell has you acting so strange?” I demanded. “Ryan told me you were upset last night. What did he do?” I asked, automatically assuming my brother managed to upset her, which wouldn’t be all that surprising. He tended to speak before he thought about what he was actually saying.
“He told you?” She looked at me, green eyes wide with panic and fear, a blush coating her freckled cheeks. She was embarrassed . My fiery best friend who had no filter was embarrassed. This wasn’t like her.
“He told me you were crying a lot last night and thought maybe he made the wrong decision in proposing. That maybe he should have waited a little longer.” I couldn’t let her know that I knew about the panic attack. If she was this panicked about being upset, I didn’t even want to know what would happen if she knew that he’d told me about her anxiety attack.
She relaxed instantly, a small smile curling her red lips. “I just lost myself in all of the emotions, Cece. I never expected him to propose the night he came home, but shit, I couldn’t believe he was home, you know?” She shook her head. “It wasn’t a bad time. There was just so much happening back-to-back.”
“I cried too when Ace proposed. If you asked me all those years ago if we would get married, I would have laughed in your face. Me and the asshole…” My voice trailed off for a moment as I remembered the days we hated each other. “Who would’ve thought we would be a perfect match?” She laughed, a light shining in her eyes that was missing before.
“Just everyone around you two. Well, except Ryan. He’s such a protective jerk,” she scoffed, tossing her red curls over her shoulder.
“He really did make things difficult for us, didn’t he?” I flinched and glared at the nail tech, who had cut my finger with the grinding tool. The small woman rolled her eyes and mumbled an apology. They said there wasn’t beauty without pain, but if she cut my finger again, I would gladly be ugly.
“Why do you think I started dating him in the first place?” It wasn’t true. I ended up dating Ace because, despite his asshole personality, he was my rock my entire world was flipping upside down. He was my strength when I couldn’t walk any longer.
She snickered, arching a brow at me. “Please, you started dating right after Ace left. Nice try, bitch,” I retorted.
“Oh, right, well, that’s why I kept dating him when Ace came back to keep him away from you guys.” She shrugged, looking pleased with herself.
“Right.” I rolled my eyes. We both giggled and kept up the light banter until the ladies finally finished our nails. We quickly paid and tipped them before getting in my car and heading to our favorite restaurant for lunch.
After stuffing ourselves with two big cheeseburgers, we lounged against the comfy booth to give our food a little time to digest. Amber suddenly broke the silence with a laugh. “I’m going to have to start watching what I eat for the wedding.” She paused, her eyes widening. “I’m getting married, Celine. Me! I’m going to be getting married to your brother .”
I snorted. “You just realized?” She laughed, using the black satin napkin on the table to wipe away her smeared, red lip gloss.
“I’ve wanted to marry him for years, you know that, but fuck, it’s finally happening, and we have so much to plan!” she exclaimed, looking slightly overwhelmed.
“Since when did this become a we ?” I asked, pointing between the two of us, trying to lighten the mood again. If she got overwhelmed and had an anxiety attack because of it, I wanted to do my best to keep her as calm as possible.
She narrowed her green eyes at me. “Since we planned your wedding, I fully expect the same.” Laughing, I took a quick sip of the bubbly cola on the table and remembered that I hadn’t asked what her twin had to say about the sudden engagement.
“I bet Alissa was excited when you told her. What did she say?” Amber suddenly avoided my gaze, picking up a stray fry and shoving it in her mouth, even though I knew she was so full. She was about to burst.
“I haven’t told her,” she mumbled a moment later.
I frowned. “What? Why not? She’s your twin!” I exclaimed.
“We haven’t spoken in a few months.” That was news to me.
“What about Jamie and Mia?” She shook her head. “Your mom?” She looked down at her lap. “When did you stop talking to your entire family?” I demanded. This was so unlike her. I didn’t understand it. Family meant everything to Amber.
“A few months ago.” She shrugged, though I could tell she was bothered by everything. “They wanted me to move back home and stay there until Ryan came home. Actually, they wanted me to break up with him because they were tired of me always being alone.” I scoffed. She wasn’t alone. Even while he was gone, she still had us. “We had a huge fight because I wanted to stay here and wait for him. They just didn’t understand why I wanted to stay—refused to leave, actually—so I haven’t answered a phone call from any of them.” Anger flared in her features as she stiffened.
“Does Ryan know?” She shook her head, her red curls covering her freckled cheeks. “What are you going to do now?” I asked her, my voice softening.
She shrugged, signaling our server over, ending the conversation. “I have no fucking idea. They won’t give us their blessing, though. That’s for sure.”
My heart broke for her.