Hot Mess Express (Spruce Texas Romance Book 9), page 30
Pete couldn’t care less about any of that. The second he parks the car, he’s out of it and hurrying to Juni’s door without even any of his luggage. I guess I shouldn’t be one to talk, because I’m out of the car nearly as fast, except it’s to Unit 3 that I make my way.
I barely lift my fist to knock when the door swings open.
And there he stands.
My Anthony.
I know it’s the same Anthony I left. Same dopey blue eyes that first caught my attention. His cute, lopsided lips that tugged right on my heart the first time I saw them form a smile because of me.
But he exudes more confidence, even when just answering a door. The way he stands. The fit of his jeans, his plain t-shirt that doesn’t have any stains or rips in it, showing at first sight all the extra care he puts into himself now.
Then he goes and ruins it all by squinting at me and saying, “It’s about time your ass got here. Been waitin’ all mornin’!”
I grin.
Actually, that doesn’t ruin it at all. Old Anthony’s in there, too, no matter what he wears or how confident his stance. He’ll always be Anthony—a hot mess to the bone.
I come right up to him, wrap my arms around him, and lift him straight off his feet. Anthony grunts, surprised, and wraps his legs around my waist by instinct, wide-eyed.
“Someone’s been workin’ out,” he mutters, amazed.
I don’t let another second go by without my lips on his. When I kiss Anthony, my heart ignites like the sun beaming at my back. I can’t have imagined how good it would feel, to finally have this boy’s lips back on mine where they belong. To have this guy in my arms. To have his arms around me. To be reunited with the man, maybe the only man ever, who succeeded in breaking down every last one of the walls around my heart.
He pulls back. “Hey, hold your horses there! Don’t we need to get your things? Haven’t even given me the chance to take you on a grand tour of my new place yet!”
“The bed,” I growl, “that’s where the tour starts.” Then I dive back into his face and kick the door shut behind me.
Juni calls it an innocent “welcome back to Spruce” party.
Anthony calls it an elaborate trap to keep me and Pete here in Spruce forever.
Whatever you call it, Trey and Cody show once again that the two of them are the most hospitable, generous pair of husbands on the planet, as they graciously offer their house as the venue. I was assured that the guest list is small—just a few friends from around town that we had met—but I guess word gets out in a place like Spruce, because there are a lot more new faces in this house tonight than I’ve seen in one location before, even considering the few times we’ve been to the crowded Tumbleweeds.
One of the first people I meet is the bigger-than-life mayor herself Nadine Strong, both of whose sons are married to men, I’m reminded. Only one of them is here—Jimmy, who apparently has a rough past with Anthony back in high school—but he gives me an earful about his football coach older brother Tanner, who is in the middle of planning a big wedding vow renewal ceremony with his husband Billy. I guess they were one of the first out couples of the town, Trey and Cody themselves just behind them, and are like local celebrities here.
But I don’t spend long with Nadine or her son Jimmy before I’m pulled into a chat with the clique of gossipy nurses, including Marybeth and Carla, who are dying to know if me and Anthony are “official” yet. “Oh, Trey was tellin’ us both that you were a medic in the Army. Is that true?” asks Marybeth. “That … is … amazing,” sings Carla, gagging on that news. “We’ve got a spot warmed up for you at the clinic if you’re thinking of relocatin’ your handsome butt down here for good,” Marybeth goes on. “Don’t we, Carla? Dr. Emory is a total dream to work for.” Carla offers a meek grimace in response, mumbling, “Wouldn’t quite go that far …”
Then suddenly I’m chatting with Kirk and Bonnie, a married pair with a troublemaking nine-year-old, who’ve gotten close with Juniper over the past few months, as they live in the trailer park across the street from Happy Trails. Then I’m pulled into another conversation by the back door with a loud group of ladies from the church who are on their sixth glasses of wine and have a whole lot of opinions about the state of Spruce, about Anthony, and about why I’d make a fine and wonderful addition to the town.
“Sure don’t take long before you get eaten alive by the town,” says Anthony like a way-too-late warning when I’m in the kitchen helping myself to some chips and dip. I’ve met about ten other faces whose names I can’t even pretend to remember—their faces a blur, too. “Is this all too much?” he asks, worried. “I told Juni this would happen if we tried to have a party. No such thing as a small get-together in this town.”
“I’m enjoying it,” I assure him. “Might need a refresher course on about half their names. I think I met a Frank somewhere …”
“Frankie Lopez. He emceed the bachelor thing this summer.”
“Oh, okay. And … Cole, I think?”
“One of the other bachelors. Good guy. Annoyingly handsome. His boyfriend’s here, too, a shy guy who works for the newspaper. Look, you can do this at your own pace,” he tells me with a pat on my back. “Spruce is gonna try to devour you, but that’s just ‘cause you’re a shiny new toy, and no one really got a good chance to meet you last time you were here.”
“Well, I did meet a few friendly faces on my morning jogs,” I remind him. “The Marvin brothers at the market …”
“Lee and his stern-ass older brother Gene, yeah.”
“Then there were a couple of guys with the last name Love … Timothy, I think one of them was …?”
“They run Country Lovin’, whole bunch of Loves, too many of ‘em, but they make the best damned crepes in the state.”
I pop a chip into my mouth and face Anthony. “But despite all of these amazing people … there are still a couple of very, very important ones I have yet to meet properly … in the flesh.” I give him a look, bringing my face close. “Video chats don’t count.”
He makes a face when he realizes who I mean. “Alright, okay. Don’t you think I plan for you to meet ‘em? They already regard you as the big hero who saved me from becomin’ a dumpster fire this summer. Shoot, no need to go sealin’ the deal so quick by meetin’ them and making my own parents wish you were their son instead of me.”
It’s true. I’ve met them exactly two times via video call. They adore me. It was obvious. I’d become their adopted second son by the next video call already.
But I sure do plan to seal that deal when I finally meet them in person. Maybe as early as tomorrow, if tonight’s plan goes without a hitch.
And if Anthony lets me.
He’s awful skittish about letting me meet his parents …
I peck Anthony on the lips suddenly, startling him. His face goes funny. “Uh, too soon?” I ask, realizing we hadn’t exactly done any PDA in Spruce before.
To that, Anthony instantly dismisses his own sheepishness and returns my peck with a full-on kiss of his own. “Who the hell am I kiddin’?” he asks against my lips. “Everyone knows. And I want everyone to know. I …” Kiss. “… am …” Kiss. “… crazy ‘bout you, Bridger.”
The next kiss we share makes me forget I was just eating chips and dip.
And the kiss after that makes me forget we’re even at a party.
ABBA’s Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) explodes from the Bluetooth speakers in the living room, and I’m so consumed by our kissing, I don’t even notice the whole house singing and dancing along to it with a drunken Juni leading them while hugging Pete against her side like a plushie toy.
After a few hours more, the crowd visibly starts to thin. Soon, only the core clique of Pete, Juni, Cody, Trey, Anthony, and myself remain in the house.
Oh, and also Trey and Cody’s parents.
Who have been seated at the little table by the back door with mugs of coffee, cozily chatting since the last guests left.
And suddenly, after months and months, Trey has reached his seemingly unachievable limit. “Guys, I’m sorry, Dad, Bethie, I’m so sorry, but I … I just can’t anymore.”
Cody, Pete, and myself are sharing Army stories to a glued-together Anthony and Juni in the kitchen when the long overdue outburst happens. We fall silent at once, and then Cody is to his feet to save his husband. “Hey, uh, Trey, honey …”
“It’s gotta be said. It’s driving me crazy. Neither of you will be straightforward with me. And I’ve tried,” Trey goes on, lifting his hand when his husband comes up to his side to hush him. “I gave you two so many opportunities to tell me. To be forthcoming. To give your sons a heads-up at the very least. My husband keeps snickering and finding it funny—”
“No, I haven’t!” Cody interjects.
“—but this is serious, and I’ve got to know. Now.”
By this point, Cody’s mom has a hand over her chest, her jaw dropped, likely thinking the worst. Trey’s father looks puzzled, his eyebrows stitched together, his grip on his mug tightening as he studies his son with mounting concern.
Then the question comes at long last: “Are you two getting married? Are you about to make your sons step-husbands?”
A long silence follows the question.
The longest silence I’ve ever experienced in real-time.
Anthony buries his face in my chest, not wanting to watch.
Pete and Juni are all but missing a bucket of popcorn, the way they’re glued to every second of this live theatre in front of them.
Cody’s face is crunched up into the most awkward grimace.
At last, like musical notes from a flute, Bethie lets out a flurry of laughter from her gut that shatters the whole room apart.
Trey seems more disturbed by the laughter than the silence.
Until finally she puts his fears to rest. “My sweet son-in-law, you adorable young man, Trey … no. No, no, no. Your father and I are not getting married. Not ever again.”
“Of course not,” Trey’s father Mitch comes in, breaking out of his spell of puzzlement. “I made a vow never to marry again. Ever since your mother passed, son.”
Bethie reaches out suddenly for Trey’s hand, pulling him out of his seeming daze. “And I wouldn’t ever … not ever, not even by chance … dream of replacing your amazing, wonderful mother in any way whatsoever.”
“Wouldn’t mind you replacing the memory of my shit-stain dad,” mumbles Cody at Mitch, emboldened by his alcohol. Then he whispers an apology and steps back, allowing them to resume.
With Bethie holding and squeezing Trey’s hand, I watch with relief as he finally begins to relax. “Well, I …” He looks back and forth at them, from his own father to Cody’s mother. “I just don’t understand. All the gossip circling back to me. About you two. And all of the … the secret dates you’ve been going on. Visiting each other’s houses at all hours …”
“Oh, look at your son,” chuckles Bethie, shaking her head as she turns to a partly amused Mitch. “Now he’s the adult chiding the mischievous pair of us …”
Mitch smiles warmly back. “That’s my son for you, wiser than us all.” He picks up his mug for another sip.
“No, we’re not getting married,” Bethie assures him one more time. Then her face straightens. “But we are havin’ sex.”
Mitch chokes into his mug, spraying its contents out.
Juni and Pete gasp, continuing to watch the scene like a movie in real life. Cody bursts into laughter. Trey is sputtering nonsense, incapable of forming an actual sentence, while his dad’s face turns a color I’m not sure is humanly possible. Anthony, who has since decided to pick a side, lifts his glass of Coke in a kind of salute of respect for Bethie’s admirable frankness.
I doubt there’s any hope for saving this surprise ending to our unusual night, as the conversation certainly doesn’t end there, only succeeding in driving Trey even more crazy, his questions multiplying, as well as his exasperation with his dear husband’s unstoppable booms of laughter.
Ironically being the only one out of the four of us who didn’t drink, Anthony drives the four of us back home to Happy Trails, with me and Pete in the backseat and Juniper up in the front, still cackling endlessly about how our night concluded. We figured it was appropriate to leave Trey and Cody with their parents to put to rest their big stepbrothery nightmare for good.
For some reason, Pete seems awfully fidgety in his seat. I keep eyeing him while Juni is going on and on about a funny story that Mayor Strong told her at the party about Anthony’s eventful time in the bachelor pageant, but Pete’s whole mind is somewhere else. He’s breathing funny, too. I swat at his leg and he doesn’t notice.
Then, without any assistance from me, he straightens right up like someone just pricked his ass with a needle. “Juni?”
Midsentence, Juni stops her story and spins around in her seat to smile at him sweetly. “Yes, Petey baby?”
Petey baby.
Anthony and I share a look through the rearview.
It’s a term of endearment we hadn’t heard before.
They have many.
“I, uh … I just wanted to say, like … I’ve … I’ve been thinking. A lot. I’ve been …” He swallows, his mouth dry, and swipes a hand over his forehead and through his hair. “I did a ton of thinking in Kansas. Back home. Home in Kansas. And I realized a few things.”
“Oh, I love realizing things,” sings Juni with total sincerity.
“I realized my life up there … it isn’t for me. My parents, they do just fine without me. They’re happy. And I’m … I’m just … oh, who am I kidding? I don’t think I’ve been happier in my whole life than when I’m—”
A boom cracks through the car, surprising us all.
The vehicle veers suddenly to the left, then the right, and the left again. Anthony, spooked, turns the wheel and comes to a dead stop at the side of the road, wide-eyed, breathing heavy.
After a second, he sighs. “Lick a dick … think we just got a flat. A fuckin’ flat.”
Pete droops his head, mortified.
Somehow, I don’t think it’s because of the flat.
“Hey, Pete?” I put a hand on his back, giving it a rub.
“I’ll change the tire,” he states, sounding out of breath, before flying out of the car, leaving Juni blinking after him, dazed.
I take a breath. Pete’s spiraling, and I don’t know why. I reach forward to give Anthony a pat on the shoulder—he returns it with a worried smile through the rearview mirror—then I nod at Juni, who still looks like she’s waiting to realize something.
“Sit tight, you two,” I tell them. “I’ll go and help Pete.”
“What was all that about?” Juni asks no one specifically, then turns back around in her seat, sitting forward with a pout.
A minute later, I’m outside by the opened trunk as Pete gets out the spare with a grunt. “Uh, Pete?” He’s totally in his head, looking oddly distressed, almost angry as he works in silence. “Do you need a hand, or—?”
“I got this,” he snaps, getting to work replacing the back tire, passenger side.
The street is too dark, so I pull out my phone and use it as a flashlight for him, crouching down by his side. “What was that? Were you seriously about to propose to Juniper? … In the car?”
“No,” he snaps, wide-eyed, looking freaked out. “Why? Did it seem that way? I wasn’t proposing. Why would I? Shut up, you’re distracting me. Shit.”
Then he’s back to working on the tire in silence.
I take a patient breath. “It sounded an awful lot like you were confessing that she’s the love of your life.”
He stops what he’s doing and shuts his eyes. “I just wanted to see … to see if she … might …” He sighs. “Bridge, man, I think she might not want to be with me … something she said at the party.”
“What’d she say?”
“That Spruce had run its course.” He looks at me now, his eyes shining in the harsh light from my phone. “I think she’s leaving.”
“Leaving?”
“Yeah. I think she plans to leave when we do. But I …” He runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know if she’s leaving because of me, or if she’s testing me, waiting for me to stop her, or if she’s uncertain herself … I don’t even know for sure if she is leaving. It’s just what it sounded like. And if she leaves, then maybe I shouldn’t propose to her. Maybe she’s not the one. What if I’m being an idiot about this and Juni was never seriously into me in the first place? What if this is all in my damned head?”
“Hey, hey, don’t worry.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve got this, no matter what happens. I’ve seen the way Juniper looks at you. She loves you. But this place isn’t her home, either. Maybe she wants to go back to Kansas with you. Did you consider that?”
“But I don’t wanna go back to Kansas.”
“Wait, what?”
“At least … not yet. That’s what I was trying to tell her. In the car. I …” He swallows, then meets my eyes again, only this time he looks ashamed. “I … I wanted to tell you, too.”
“You’re not going back home?”
“It’s not official yet. It’s not a plan or nothing.” He looks down at the ground, fiddling with his tools, then squints at me. “Hasn’t it crossed your mind before, Bridge? Not going home? Our families being alright … without us?”
My grip on the phone loosens, lowering the light slightly. I let out a sigh. The answer is probably all over my face.
“See?” he presses on. “You considered the same thing, right? Anthony’s here in Spruce. Your man. Your world.”
“I know.”
“What if we stayed? That’s what I was thinking. Considering. But then she went and said that. And all night I’ve been trying not to let it get to me, but …” He sighs. “I think it’s something bad.”
I frown, unsure what to say. “Pete …”
“Just hold the light up a bit, will you?”
I do. He resumes changing the tire without saying any more. The silence of the night drowns out everything else, including our own thoughts.
