All Grown Up (Eden High)

We were playing it a bit close, but it wasn’t so bad with such short notice. I have a sneaky suspicion that Jace’s mom had been talking to mine because she’s acting kind of motherly and sweet, something I don’t recall her doing or being since I was about five or six. I’m not knocking it though, as long as it benefits my girl, I’m in. I don’t really need her at this point in my life; I already have a family, the one I’d made with my brothers and their women and now mine. But if she wanted in, I won’t stop her.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see when we get there.” We spent the rest of the drive in relative silence until I pulled to a stop in front of one of the most renowned high-fashion boutiques on The Drive. “What’re we doing here? I thought this place was closed.” I stopped her from letting herself out of the car and walked around to help her out.

“It’s a surprise.” I hadn’t told her about the island yet, choosing to leave that for last. I know how much she loves that place and what it means to her. It’s where we declared our love for each other, and as sappy as it may sound, I want our first time to be there as much as she does.

Inside, the owner was waiting for us with an assistant, and I have to admit to feeling for the first time like this shit was real, like I was genuinely embarking on a lifetime with this girl. Shopping for her was one thing, but being here with her like this, helping her choose shit to wear for what was essentially going to be her deflowering, brought everything into perspective.

Jace was always big on the way you were supposed to treat your one and only, even before he met Sian before the others had teamed up with their wives. He’d wired it into our heads that playing the field was one thing, but you never treated anyone but ‘the one’ like this. I knew my place here, what was commanded of me.

So for the next two hours, I paid attention and gave my opinion even though I wanted to shoot myself in the neck by the first half an hour. She was happy, ecstatic in fact, and in the end, that’s all that really mattered to me. She was beaming from ear to ear by the time we headed back to the car.

I checked the time, and we only had about an hour and a half before her hair appointment at Jace’s family estate, which would give her less than half an hour with her family before she had to leave again. Something I wasn’t too torn up about but knew she might.

“Aren’t we taking them in? I wanted to show them to my mom.” I’ve gotten away with keeping my secret because she hadn’t asked why we were buying swimsuits and island wear, not even when the stuff had been packed for traveling, but I hadn’t planned for this, and unlike Jace the Neanderthal, I’m not sure how comfortable I am enforcing my will on her, not before we’re even married anyway. I guess I’m about to learn.

“No!” I looked her in the eyes when I said it with no real expression on my face and was just a little bit surprised when she just said ‘okay’ and waited for me to walk around the car and let her out.

CASSIE

Oh my! I guess Sian was right after all. I’d argued with her that Alex was nothing like Jace, that he’d never try to boss me around the way she put it, but what just happened might be my first inclination that I was wrong. I was still a bit shaky on my feet when he helped me out of the car, but I have to admit to feeling a warmth in my tummy from his take-charge manner.

I used to find it funny, listening to Sian and the others gripe about their husbands’ antics, though inside, I’d wish for some of the same. I always knew that beneath the grumbles were some very happy girls, girls who were once like me, treated as outcasts by the same group of people. Well, not so much Sian, but definitely the others.

Seeing their new happiness and freedom to be themselves had made me wish for things I may never have, and gaining Alex’s love was more than a dream come true, so I’m not greedy enough to want more, but what if…? I shook out of it when he took my hand in his, and we walked to the front door of my childhood home.

It was there, when I walked inside, that the thought of him leaving in a few days once my birthday was over that I felt a true sense of loss for the first time in my life. It’s the oddest thing to describe. He was right here beside me, and yet just the thought of him leaving me again made me want to cry.