Chapter 45
45
KOLBI
“ J esus Christ, how can one girl have so much stuff?” Conrad huffed out a breath, picking up another box to haul out to the cars.
I had recruited my friends to come to Magnolia’s today to help us clear out her stuff seeing as how her parents threatened to throw it away if she didn’t come and get it. I bribed them all with pizza and beer and told them that dinner was on me for campaign night tonight. We’d been at it for a few hours and everyone was starting to feel it. The hot August sun and humidity dragged out the few hours we had been moving her out and made them feel like days.
“What can I say, my girl has lived a lifestyle that includes a lot of stuff.” My eyes lingered over the stack of boxes we still had to take over to my place. The idea of her living with me becoming more and more real by the minute. Hank started laughing and came to stand next to me, slapping a hand down on my shoulder.
“You good man? Freakin’ out yet?” he chuckled.
“Nope, I’m not freaking out at all actually. I’m more than ready to have her living with me,” I confessed, my voice as even as my heart rate. After several conversations, we decided that she would live with me until she had saved enough money to be able to afford a place on her own.
Her words, not mine.
She had decided that she wanted to be everything her mother wasn’t and was hellbent on becoming Miss Independent. While I supported her mission and understood that this is what she needed to do for herself, I was secretly crossing my fingers that the day would come and she would realize she never wanted to leave.
“Hey, shouldn’t I be asking you if you’re freaking out?” I looked at my friend and joked. “You’re the one getting married next month.”
Hank and Bailey decided to keep their wedding small and have an intimate ceremony at Alhambra Hall over in Mount Pleasant, just on the other side of the bridge. With less than fifty people coming and Bailey’s connections with all of the major event services around the city, it took them less than two weeks to plan and put the whole thing together. With their wedding the second weekend of September, we were just inside the four-week mark. Hank picked up a box and I matched his movements, carrying another box to shove into one of the many overstuffed cars that sat on the street.
“I’ve never felt more ready for anything. Bailey is the love of my life and I can’t wait to make her my wife. I’d marry her tomorrow if she’d let me.” He grinned ear to ear as we placed the boxes in the back of my SUV.
“I’m happy for you, brother, and I can’t wait to stand up next to you as you and your girl tie the knot.” We walked back into the house to find Malcolm and Conrad bickering about god knows what. I was about to tell them to stop acting like children when Bailey, Margaret, and Magnolia walked in carrying several garment bags over their arms.
“Boys,” Bailey snapped like an irritated mother. “We do not have to stand here and argue about who’s fault it was that the random villager died in last week’s campaign. We have two hours to get all of this out and over to Kolbi’s before the movers come and take it away. Now get moving.” She snapped her fingers at them and they reluctantly complied, both picking up a box and taking it out to the cars. Hank and I laughed as we watched our two friends exit the room with their tails between their legs. No one else would be allowed to speak to them like that except for Bailey.
“Margaret, do you mind going with them to make sure they don’t revert to their kindergarten days again?” Bailey sighed, looking at Margaret who laughed and nodded her head before walking out after the guys. She’d been here just as long as the rest of us have to help Magnolia pack her life up into boxes.
“How’s it going in there?” I asked them.
“Good, Bailey is amazing at packing and organizing. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get everything I wanted but this girl has a system.” Magnolia swung her shoulder to bump it into Bailey’s, who smiled at all of us.
“I’ve run enough events on a tight timeline to know where to start so it all gets done without any overage.” She gave us all a confident smirk and looked at Magnolia again. “Here, give those to Hank so he and I can put them out in the car. You and Kolbi go into your bedroom and double check that nothing important is being left behind.” She turned to Hank now. “Soldier, can you please take these bags from her and come with me so we can put them in Kolbi’s car?”
“Of course, cari?o? * .” He moved towards Magnolia and opened his arms to take the garment bags full of clothes from her. Then, he leaned into Bailey, placing a soft peck on her cheek, and gladly followed her out of the house.
“They’re the cutest couple I think I’ve ever seen,” Magnolia sighed, watching them go.
“Eh, I can think of a better couple,” I challenged, stepping up to her and wrapping my arms around her waist. She brought her hands to my forearms and looked up at me.
“It was really nice of your friends to drop everything and come and help me today. I wouldn’t have been able to get it all without them.”
I smiled down at her, thinking about how much I appreciated my friends. “Yeah, they’re good people.” She looked around the room with a hint of sadness in her eyes. The furniture had been covered in plastic by the movers and there were boxes and tape guns everywhere from when we got here a few hours ago to pack up her stuff. Her whole life had been flipped upside down and shaken in a matter of hours.
“Hey, you okay?” I dropped my head to bring my eyes to hers. Her lashes flicked up as she met my gaze and she studied me for a beat before speaking.
“Yeah, I’m okay. I wish things were different. I wish they were different. But they aren’t and I can’t change people who aren’t willing to change.” She shrugged the tiniest bit before I pulled her into my chest. We stood in her living room hugging for a moment before she pulled away.
“Are you sure it’s okay that I stay with you? I know it’s fast but?—”
“Baby, I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I promised, leaning down and sealing the promise with a kiss.
“When I have the money, I’ll get my own place, I promise.”
“I hope you don’t. I might just have to dock your pay so you can’t.” She scrunched up her face at me and pinched my arm.
“I’m serious, it’ll only be a few months and then I’ll be out of your hair.”
“I doubt it. I plan on making it so good you never want to leave,” I said without a shred of doubt in my voice. I had every intention to make her breakfast each morning and drive her to work with me. I planned on making sure she has every new dress or new pair of shoes she wanted. If she wanted to go to Sunday brunch with my family, I’d take her. If she wanted to go to Aspen for a weekend, I’d buy her a whole damn jet just so she could go. Whatever she wanted, I’d make sure she had it. I knew the type of lifestyle she was used to and I was ready and willing to give that to her, even if she didn’t know it yet.
“We’ll see about that, Jack,” she quipped with a smirk, before picking up a box and walking out to the car with it.
Several hours later, the boys and I were sitting around the dining room table at my place for our weekly D and D session. Bailey and Magnolia were curled up in the living room together continuing with their weekly rewatch of Gilmore Girls that they had started back when she first started coming to game night. Her belongings were strewn around my house after we’d cleaned her place out of everything she wanted to bring with her.
“Why do I feel like shits about to hit the fan?” Hank lamented after his roll. I had them trapped in a village without the supplies they needed to get to the next part of their quest. They didn’t know it, but a slew of goblins were about to descend on them.
“If only one of us were a paladin, then we could use divine sense to figure out if something evil was around,” Malcolm scoffed. I looked at my friend suddenly, his words hitting me square in the chest. Something about him calling out the skill made me think back to last November when I went to the Sinclair’s manor for the first time and got the sense that something wasn’t right. Something about them, that house, put me on edge but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Ten months later, I knew exactly what had made me feel so uneasy.
“What’s that look for?” Conrad asked, looking at me up and down from his chair.
I blinked hard and shook my head. “Nothing, it’s nothing. Alright fuckers, buckle up.”
For the next hour, my friends rolled the die and battled the goblins I threw at them, mild cursing and yelling included. The girls yelled at us a few times from the other room to be quiet because we were interrupting their show. Conrad rolled his eyes while Hank and I laughed. Malcolm, oddly enough, didn’t make any kind of asshat remark he would normally make, which I thought was out of character.
“Alright losers, last roll,” I called out once I noticed the lack of sound coming from the TV in the other room. I could hear the girls chatting on the couch but I knew before long they’d be in here asking us when we’d be done.
“Will it be a nat twenty?” Malcolm quipped, raising his brows as Conrad released the die.
“Nope,” Hank said flatly when the die didn’t land on the perfect number.
“How’s it going nerds?” I heard her voice and looked up to find Magnolia and Bailey watching us just to the side of the table.
“Are you guys almost done?” Bailey yawned, walking to stand behind Hank.
“We’re wrapping up now, blondie,” Hank answered, grabbing her hand and pulling it around him.
“Anyone roll a nat twenty yet?” she asked.
“Not yet, which is so weird to me. I know the stats aren’t in our favor but we’ve been playing for over a year. You’d think it would’ve happened by now.” Conrad frowned.
Magnolia had moved to stand behind my chair and was resting her hands on my shoulders. She leaned over and brought her lips to my ear. “Should I know what a nat twenty is?”
I chuckled softly before kissing her on the cheek. “I’ll explain it to you later, flower.”
As I wrapped up the story for the night, I thought about the last ten months with Magnolia and how our whole story started by chance. If I hadn’t been riding down the street that Saturday morning just as she had been stepping out into the street, we might not have had the start we did. If her father hadn’t hired me to work his campaign, we may not have ever met. Sheer chance brought us together and made it so that our stories were tied. While the circumstances weren’t always easy to work through, they had been what needed to happen so we could end up together. A random chance encounter, a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I had ended up with a girl I knew I wanted to keep forever.
Almost like the same amount of chance you have at rolling a nat twenty.
* ? sweetheart/honey