The Ever After of Ella and Micha (The Secret 4)

“See, I told you it was stupid,” she says with a heavyhearted sigh. “I should just keep my mouth shut.”

“No, it’s not stupid. Not at all.” I pause, considering my next words carefully because they’re important. “Do you want to have it somewhere near the cemetery?”

She quickly shakes her head. “No, I like by the lake. It’s just nice knowing she’s in the same town. God, this is so weird. I’m talking about her like she’s still alive.” Her voice quivers at the end and she looks away, avoiding eye contact with me.

“Hey.” With my hand, I turn her head back toward me. “Nothing about wanting your mother near you is weird, whether she’s alive or not.”

She smiles sadly, but it’s nice to see her smile while we’re talking about her mom, even if it’s a sad smile. “Well, I still want to have it at the lake,” she tells me. “And my dad will be there, so I guess it won’t be so bad.”

“What about Dean and Caroline?” I ask. “Should we invite them?”

“Caroline’s pregnant so I’m not even sure she could and it’s super short notice,” she says.

“It’s up to you.” I give her a quick kiss on the lips and then step back. “If you don’t want to invite them, then fine. But, I mean, you do get married only once, you know.”

Her lips creep into a malicious grin. “Oh, I plan on getting married a lot. At least ten to twenty times. You’re just my practice husband.” She playfully nudges me with her shoulder.

I embrace her and catch her off guard as I tackle her to the floor like I used to when we were kids. My hand snaps out before we hit the carpet and I catch her weight. Then I hold my body up slightly away from her so I don’t crush her.

“Micha.” She laughs, her legs opening up so my body falls in between them. Her fingers span across my shoulder blades as I press on her lower back, our legs entangled. “Get off me. We’re too old for this.”

“No way,” I say. Heat radiates between our bodies and her hair is sprawled around her head and across the carpet, and the tears that were in her eyes moments ago are gone. “We’ll never be too old for this. Ever. I will still tackle you when we’re ninety years old.”

She stares up at me for a moment, her expression unreadable, her pulse hammering through her fingertips. “You make me happy,” she says in a shaky voice.

It may seem like such a simple statement, but for Ella to admit she’s happy is a huge, major, life-changing event and gives me hope that everything will end up okay.

“And vice versa,” I say and then kiss her.

Chapter 13

Ella

Telling Micha’s mom was a piece of cake. Well, except for the part when I told Micha my strange thought process about having the wedding in Star Grove because I’d feel closer to my mom. That was a little weird. But Micha being… well, Micha, he made me feel okay about feeling that way. Lighter. Which is good, because there’s a chance that after I tell my dad, not just about the wedding but about my grandmother and the box she sent me, the lightness may shift to graveness.

Micha goes over to my house with me, our fingers entwined like we’re kids about to tell something really bad to our parents. But we’re not kids and getting married isn’t a bad thing, but sometimes talking to my dad can turn that way. Although it hasn’t in a while. He’s actually been really nice and chatty lately.

When I enter the house, I nearly drop dead on the floor because it’s clean. There are no alcohol bottles littering the yellow and brown countertops. He’s bought a new kitchen table, too, a new-used kitchen table anyway. It’s white and has a bench on one side and two chairs on the other. The floor is still stained, but it has recently been swept and mopped, the air smelling like Pine-Sol mixed with cinnamon. There aren’t any past-due envelopes on the counters or table. I remember the last time I was here how the house was going to get foreclosed but he managed to get it out of it, working overtime and paying the amount past due.

“Wow,” Micha says as he turns in a circle, rubbing his jawline as he examines the kitchen. “I feel like I’ve entered an episode of The Twilight Zone.”

I let go of his hand and cross the kitchen to the table, picking up a decorative ceramic rooster. The head pops off and it starts to make a loud rooster noise as I glance inside. “Oh my God, there’s homemade cookies in it.”

Micha laughs as he strolls up behind me. “You sound so adorable.” He sweeps my hair to the side and his lips caress the back of my neck. “Getting excited over cookies.”

I take a cookie out, put the rooster head back on, and then set it back down on the table. “So what? The only cookies I ever had when I was growing up were Oreo cookies.” I bite down on the homemade chocolate chip cookie and turn around to face him. “And you would always make us share those and then would take the half with all the filling. You always gave me whatever I wanted except when it came to those damn cookies.”

He steals a big bite of my cookie. “What can I say? I may love you but I love frosting just a little bit more.” He swallows the cookie and then opens his mouth to steal another bite but I stuff the entire cookie into my mouth, lifting my eyebrows, giving him an arrogant look.

Arrogance rises on his face too and then he covers my mouth with his, slipping his tongue between my lips, trying to steal bites of chewed-up cookie.

I jerk back, laughing, and making a repulsed face. “You are so gross,” I say, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

He licks his lips and then grins. “I win.”

I stick out my tongue, which has gooey chewed-up cookie on it. “That is what you just ate.”

His tongue slips out over his lips again. “And it was so, so good.”

I shake my head, but can’t stop smiling, and then I roll my eyes at myself because I’m turning into one of those girls who gushes around their boyfriend… fiancé… soon-to-be husband. Reality suddenly slaps me in the face and my eyes widen.

“Holy shit, I’m going to be Ella May Scott.” I breathe, not sure whether I’m panicking or just surprised.

Micha’s mouth sinks to a frown, the arrogance dissipating. I’m not sure if it’s because he just realized that too or because of my alarmed statement. I open my mouth to say something, but then my dad enters the kitchen and my words get stuck in my mouth.

Despite the clean sight of the kitchen, my dad still looks grungy and rough around the edges. He’s wearing an oversized plaid jacket over a holey navy-blue shirt and his jeans have paint on them, along with the boots he’s wearing because he works as a painting contractor now. His face is unshaven and he looks a little heavier than the last time I saw him a year ago but his eyes are clear, not bloodshot, and while he does smell like cigarette smoke, it’s not mixed with the smell of booze.

He stumbles over his boots when he sees me standing in front of the table and then catches himself on the door frame. “Holy shit.” He takes a good look at me as he blinks. “What are you doing here? I thought you couldn’t make it home this year for Christmas?”

I huddle closer to Micha, almost as a defense mechanism. Even though I know my dad is doing much better, I can’t entirely forget the past. When he was drunk. When he blamed me for my mother’s death. When he wouldn’t even look at me because it hurt him too much.

“Yeah, we had a change of plans,” I tell him as I feel Micha’s fingers brush my own.

My dad lets go of the door frame and steps up beside the counter. “Well, I’m glad, Ella,” he says awkwardly, a trait that is very common whenever we’re around each other. He massages the back of his neck tensely, glancing around the clean kitchen. “If I would have known you were coming, I’d have stocked up the cupboards and stuff with food or something.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “We’re actually staying over at Micha’s house anyway.”

My dad’s gaze flickers back and forth between Micha and me. “Well, that’s good, I guess.”

Silence draws out between us and I can’t help but think about what my mom said in the journal about him. How she wasn’t thrilled to be marrying him. How her mother didn’t want her to marry him. How depressed she was. Did he know about all this? Because he once told me things weren’t always bad, that things used to be good between them. Was it because my mom hid her depression and dark thoughts from him? Is that how I am with Micha since I can’t seem to talk to him about my fears of getting married and having a future?

Finally Micha clears his throat and jabs me in the side with his elbow.

“Oh yeah.” I shake my thoughts out of my head. “I actually have something to tell you.”

My dad looks bewildered as he leans against the counter and folds his arms. “Okay.”

“You remember how I told you a couple of weeks ago that Micha and I were getting married?” I rub my finger along the stones of the ring, trying to calm the nervousness in my voice. I don’t even know why I’m nervous, other than that I’m worried that my dad is going to say or do something that will ruin the amazingness I’ve been feeling lately. I think it’s just scars from my past that are causing the worry, but they’re still there.

My dad nods. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, we were going to get married in San Diego, but we decided to come back and have the wedding here,” I tell him. “This weekend actually, on Christmas day.”

His eyes enlarge and then travel down to my stomach. “Ella, you’re not…” He shoots Micha a dirty look as he stands up straight and looks around the kitchen, avoiding eye contact with both of us, appearing uneasy even for him. “You’re not…”

As it clicks what he thinks I throw my hand over my stomach. “What? No. I’m not… I’m not pregnant. God.” I can’t believe he’d think that. I’ve been careful not to let that happen and have been on the pill for a year now.

He frowns, looking unconvinced. “Okay.”

Micha chuckles under his breath and I narrow my eyes at him. “This isn’t funny,” I hiss, but laughter threatens its way up my throat, too. I know it’s not funny, especially since I found out that my mom and he got married because she was pregnant with Dean, yet it is. He’s acting like a dad and it’s hilarious because I’m twenty years old and this is the first real time I’ve seen him come even remotely close to playing the part.

“I promise she’s not pregnant, Mr. Daniels,” Micha says, shooting me a quick grin. “We just decided it was time.”

Mr. Daniels? I mouth at him. Really?

Micha nonchalantly shrugs and gives me an innocent look, mouthing, What?

My dad’s gazes flicks back and forth between Micha and me. “But you’re… you’re so young.”

“So were you and… mom,” I point out with hesitancy because it goes against what I’m trying to prove, but he doesn’t know that I know about mom being pregnant when they said I do.