Page 214 of Cloudy With a Chance of Bad Decisions

“You won’t get to brag about me to your friends anymore.”

Mom pulled back briefly to glare at me. “I will brag about you no matter what you’re doing—no matter where you’re doing it.”

My eyes burned.

“I want you to do what will make you happy—not what you think will make me or anyone else happy. You’ve always been such a sweet, loyal boy. You put everyone else first. But maybe it’s time to do something selfish. Maybe it’s time to choose your own happiness.” She wasn’t the best with words. Wasn’t a philosopher. Wasn’t a psychologist. Wasn’t my therapist.

And yet…her words struck a chord. Like she’d reached inside my chest and enveloped my heart in her embrace directly. I was no longer cold. No longer half as worried—even if I was nervous. So fucking nervous.

Maybe it’s time to choose your own happiness.

“Alex…makes me happy,” I confessed. “Even when he pisses me off, he makes me happy.”

“I know.”

There was a lump in my throat that I couldn’t seem to swallow. It clogged me up from the inside, made me feel like a stuck drain. “What if he doesn’t want me too? What if I implode my entire fucking life?—”

“Then we’ll pick up the pieces and build something new.”

We’ll pick up the pieces.

We.

As though she considered my problems hers. Like I was part of a team. A family.

God.

Had I really let myself forget what that was like? Suddenly, the We Hate Brendon Club made a lot more sense. All this time…had they been waiting for me to remember that I wasn’t alone? That I could rely on them? That they were in my corner?

I was struck again, the levity of that driving the breath right from my lungs.

“If he wanted me…wouldn’t he say something?” I asked, trembling. “He’s the most honest person I’ve ever met. I…trust him. Don’t you think he would?—”

“Alex is a nice boy,” Mom said. “But he’snotperfect. Maybe…” Mom’s voice was loving, her rubbing continuing. “A lot of these worries could be solved if you’d talk to him?”

I quaked as I nodded. “I know. I just?—”

“Brendon did a number on you, I know.”

“That’s not it.” For once, Brendon hadn’t factored into this at all. “I’m scared I care more about him than he cares about me. That I’ve misread this. That I’ll ruin what could be a good memory by being honest.”

“Honesty very rarely, if ever, ruins good things,” Mom promised.

Mom’s advice was helpful, but difficult to implement. As I retired to our tent after showering off my emotional funk, I couldn’t seem to get my mouth toopen. Not when Alex was already stressed, and on the phone—despite the late hour—talking to a vendor.The night before the wedding.Apparently the company that was supposed to be dropping off the chairs for the guests early that morning was pulling out.

It was wildly inappropriate and unprofessional. Which was what Alex told them, an angry fire in his eyes, his jaw jumping with tension as he sprawled on our mattress, legs spread. Immediately, I took a step back, ready to retreat and give him privacy but he shook his head. Deliberately, while he was politely, but sternly telling off the vendor, he patted his thigh in invitation.

I took a seat, pleased when some of the stress in his frame eased the moment he had me in his lap. His lips found my neck, a single peck that sent a shiver down my spine.

“I understand that you are apologetic,” he responded, kissing my neck again. “But beingsorrydoesn’t change the fact that my sister’s wedding is tomorrow morning and we now have no seating. If it’s a matter of money?—”

He and the vendor went back and forth for a while until they found a compromise. Benches would be delivered as opposed to the original chairs. Which was frustrating, but workable.

Alex hung up the phone with a groan.

“Jesus Christ.” He looked stressed, sweat at his temples, his hair mussed from the way he’d been angrily tugging on it. “That was a nightmare.”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, shifting on his lap to alleviate the pressure between my legs. Apparently, listening to him go all “corporate” on the phone while I was straddling his thighs really did it for me. His voice went growly and flat with anger—a tone I’d never heard him take.

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