Page 38 of Side Out

Bridget looks at me, and all I do is shrug. I’ve told her I want nothing to do with planning this thing. Shit, I don’t even want to be the groom in it, but here I am going along with some life-long plan other people have created for me.

“I’m thinking I want a spring wedding.” She holds her hand out with the obnoxiously-big ring on it, waiting for me to take her hand in mine. With all of our parents staring, I reluctantly oblige. “What do you think, Honey? Do you think you can wait that long to marry me?”

“Somehow I’ll manage,” I answer softly.

I could wait forever to marry her because I don’t want to be marrying her.

The only person I would even consider marrying is thousands of miles away from me, and is actively pissed the hell off at me.

“Spring wedding it is then. Shelby said she’s going to have it all planned, and Father”—his eyes grow wide—“I’ve already talked to her about some of the things I was thinking, and she told me to expect it to be around a hundred.”

He practically spits his wine out. “Grand?!”

I swear my mom gasps, but she manages to cover up the sound.

“Yes. The guest list alone is going to be five hundred people, and Iwill nothave a buffet at my wedding, so the catering bill alone will eat up a good portion of the budget. And then there’s the dress.” Hearts practically bounce out of her eyes at the mention of a wedding dress, despite the fact that her parents look like they might throw up.

“O-okay, well…” Ronald sounds like he can’t breathe. “Well, we may have to discuss this and cut the guest list down if you’re wanting it to be this extravagant.”

She sits back in her seat, crosses her arms, and begins to pout like a toddler that didn’t get a toy at the store. And everyone lets her.

“Well, I didn’t know my question would open that big of a can of worms… ” Bridget’s mom laughs, trying to diffuse the tension, and I take that as my cue to down my whole glass of wine and promptly fill it back up well above the acceptable fill line.

The disdain in Bridget’s eyes as she watches me down this second glass is clear to anyone watching us interact. Still, this marriage is nothing but an expensive business transaction to most people at this table.

She leans over and whispers to me, “I know you have to drink to tolerate me, but this is embarrassing.”

I raise my eyebrows in question and whisper back to her, “Coming from the one embarrassing both of us.”

When we both pull away from one another, each set of parents’ eyes are on us. My mom looks concerned, and my dad just looks lost. Her parents are seeing for the first time how badly she treats me and that my capacity to tolerate it is about at zero.

* * *

Bridget and I flew the red-eye and got back to Pensacola late last night. I’ll admit, I downed too many bourbons on the plane and am feeling both the exhaustion and my hangover this morning.

I start back at the school tomorrow with the women’s volleyball team’s first practice of the season in the morning and football practice in the afternoon. Knowing I’ll want to pack a lunch and possibly a dinner, I decide now is as good of a time as any to go to the grocery store.

I stop to get a coffee on my way, hoping it’ll work some kind of a miracle on my body.

It doesn’t.

And when I walk into the local grocery store, I stop in my tracks about two aisles in when I see a familiar head of messy black hair. Even though it’s just the back of him, I’d recognize that tall, lean body anywhere.

Jackson.

I haven’t seen him in months. But I’ve dreamt about him. Over and over again.

His legs are stretching his already-tight shorts to the max. Thankfully, he has a cut-off T-shirt on, or the defined muscles on his arms might have ripped them right off. Don’t get me wrong, he’s always been in good shape, but this… this is on a whole other level.

And that tan… my god that tan.

It’s been so long since I’ve seen him, and I truly don’t know how he’s going to react to seeing me. He didn’t want anything to do with me when he left, he made that abundantly clear.

But before I can debate running from the store, he spins on his heel, and the eyes that I’ve missed so much lock with mine. I dont think I’ve ever felt as vulnerable as I do in this very moment.

“Theo?”

I take a couple hesitant steps forward. Allowing both our carts to keep the distance between us. “Y-you look so good. Montana must have treated you well.” Fuck, the light that’s been missing in his eyes is back, and seeing it makes me so happy. But, I feel equally as sad because I’m the one that dimmed that light in the first place

---