Page 8 of Without You

“Yup. He asked me on a Wednesday night if I would be his wife. Friday, I looked at him and said, ‘why not now? I’m sick of waiting’.”

“No. Were your families and friends upset?”

“Oh, yeah. We received a ton of shit about it, especially from his sister, but then we reminded them that we saved them the planning and money that goes into a wedding and they saw how happy we were so they didn’t care. Plus, it was my second marriage so I was like meh, let’s just be married. Having a big wedding the first time didn’t pan out so well for me in the end.”

“I’d say it did,” Owen reminds her. “If that one hadn’t been what it was, we wouldn’t have met.”

“True. And thank goodness I hightailed it out of here to come to you, right?”

“Right.”

“Anyway, we had a small family-only reception with both sides but it was mainly a barbecue up at the lake, where we live. Owen owns a resort in Northern Minnesota, not sure if you knew that.”

“We own it,” he corrects and Cami smiles.

I notice Owen hasn’t once taken his eyes off her. “Everyone brought gifts that we told them we didn’t want but they ignored us, and I wore a pretty little white sundress.”

“So sexy,” Owen says, still watching his wife. “Damn, that dress.”

Cami giggles then continues, “Yeah, he kind of couldn’t keep his hands off me and we ended up having sex in our bedroom during the party.”

I smile at them because this is a great story and I want to keep hearing more.

“Did anyone know?”

“My brother-in-law,” Owen says, grinning. “But he just high-fived me.”

“Nice.” I laugh. “Do you regret not having the big wedding and reception?”

“Heck no,” Cami replies instantly. “Owen and I already lived together when he finally proposed.” She emphasizes the word finally, making Owen grin. “We didn’t want to wait any longer after that. We snuck away to Vegas, got married, came home with a marriage license and these,” she lifts her hand to show her tattooed wedding ring finger, “and couldn’t have been happier. We didn’t have to wait around to start our marriage and seriously saved some mega bucks and headaches. It’s not that I never wanted a wedding but it was perfect for us and I wouldn’t change it for anything.”

“I love that,” I gush.

“So what was that all about?” Owen asks about what I assume was Brody’s appearance.

Cami bursts out laughing. “She broke up with him because he’s a mechanic, basically. He got drunk, showed up here tonight, and totally pulled a ‘Friends in Low Places’.”

Owen barks out a laugh. “If what he was saying is true, she’ll be regretting that.”

“He wasn’t lying. Brody’s not like that,” I tell them.

“He isn’t,” Cami agrees. “He’s a good guy. He’s the one with that black truck you have a hard-on for,” she teases Owen.

“Oh, no kidding? Makes sense, then. That thing is awesome. I saw it two days ago and can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Dork,” Cami snorts.

“He kept looking in your direction and I was about to come kick some ass then I realized he had eyes for this one.” He points at me.

“That’s what I told her. He was looking at you like he had some ideas running through his head, if you know what I mean.”

I squirm in my seat, not uncomfortable with the idea. Oh no. With the prospect of it.

“Shut up,” I murmur, a little embarrassed and not wanting to make a scene. I’m also a little worried that Hannah will hear or that she’ll be mad at me for some reason, even though I didn’t do anything. It’s not like I knew Brody was coming here tonight.

Cami and Owen laugh at my expense and she nudges me with her shoulder.

“You saw it, too, right?”

---