Chapter 32
I narrow my eyes at Becks’s back as he rattles the key in the door, unlocking the dead bolt of the tinted glass door at the office side of one of the buildings.
“Are you starting a new company?” I attempt a guess for the twentieth time in the past three minutes.
“Will you shush and be patient?” Becks drops his hands, leaving the keys in the lock, and turns to take my face in both of them before pressing a chaste kiss to my lips, which does the job easy enough.
I just bite my bottom lip and nod my head to try to hold back the next guess, which is already on my tongue.
Becks turns back to the door, and the click of the lock sliding open breaks through the night around us. The only other sound is the clicking of hooves as the horses shuffle their antsy feet. He ushers me into the darkened office, his hand placed on the small of my back to urge me forward. We clear another doorway when all of a sudden I’m hit with a tsunami of sound and fluorescent lights.
“Happy boob voyage!” The room of people erupts in a chorus as I stumble backward into Becks, staggered from the sheer shock of the surprise. It takes a second for me to process the scene in front of me.
We are in some sort of warehouse where blow-up inflatables are skirting the perimeter of the space—huge slides and bounce houses—and one in particular that sits in the middle of the room makes me laugh and shake my head. It’s a huge blow-up boxing ring, complete with oversized inflatable gloves—in pink.
I laugh—my cheeks hurting from smiling so wide—but it’s once I finish looking at the large scale of the room that I’m able to focus on the details. My heart swells so full of love that even though Becks’s feet stamped my shadow out, it full on evaporates when I see everything in front of me.
Everyone that I could want to send me off is here: my parents, Rylee and Colton, Danny sans Maddie, Rylee’s parents, Lexi’s friends, colleagues from PRX, old college pals…. I’m stunned speechless at the sheer number of people standing here, all cheering and clapping at such an oxymoron of a party.
And all of them are wearing a bra somewhere, somehow on their person. Men have tie-dye bras on their heads, wrapped around their arms. Women have them over their clothing on their chest or wrapped around their waists so that the cups attempt to cover their butts.
I scan the crowd, unable to move as I take them all in, and then I meet Rylee’s eyes. Hers are full of tears as she stands there completely motionless amidst everyone else moving about. We step toward each other instantly and pull each other into a hug. We cling to each other, words spoken through actions and understood from the pure test of time between us.
“I was so worried you’d be angry at me for telling everyone,” she murmurs in my ears as we rock each other back and forth, “but I couldn’t let you think you were doing this alone.”
I pull back and look at my best friend, my go-to girl, and with tears filling my eyes, the smile comes so easily that I know this was meant to be. “Do you think I could ever be mad at you?” I bring my hands up to frame her face and wipe her tears away with my thumbs. “You’d never do something to hurt me.”
I pull her into me for one more quick squeeze and swipe away my own tears, unexpectedly completely okay with this party because it’s like a switch has been flipped in me all of a sudden. Between Becks over these past two weeks and Rylee and all of this love and support, I realize I feel like the old me again.
I finally got her back just when I need her the most.
“Now, quit crying.” I tell her, “It’s time to kiss these ta-tas good-bye in serious style!”
I hear her laugh as I release her only to be turned around by hands on my shoulders so that I face Colton. I burst out laughing when I find her tattooed bad boy with a lacy pink-and-black bra wrapped around his biceps.
“Colton! I think I want to keep that bra for when I get me some new tits,” I say as he wraps me in his arms for a big bear hug.
The timbre of his chuckle fills my ear. “Sorry, Had, but Ry promised me she’ll be wearing this later tonight. You get through this, and you and Ry are going on one hell of a shopping spree for bras, okay?”
I laugh at him as he releases me, but it fades off when I meet the intensity in his green eyes. “You’ve got this, Montgomery. And we’ve got you, okay?”
I clear the lump in my throat, the ever-stoic Colton Donavan showing just a tad of emotion to someone other than his wife. The notion touches me deeply, and I squeeze his biceps and mouth, Thank you, as I’m spun around in another direction.
I land squarely in the arms of my mother, who pulls me in and squeezes me so tight, I can’t breathe, and my tears have nowhere else to go but to leak from my eyes. “I love you so much, my Haddie,” she whispers through her own tears. “We’re going to beat this. No question.”
I nod my head, unable to speak from the emotion clogging my throat. We stare at each other for a moment when she looks down and notices my new necklace. “Wow, so beautiful,” she says to me, and I can’t help the smile that pulls at the corners of my mouth as I think of Lex and our jokes about Mom’s damn necklaces.
For the next thirty minutes, I feel like I’m on a constant spin cycle, being pulled from one pair of arms and well-wishes to the next. My dad, then Danny, and so on.
My cheeks hurt from smiling, and my heart overflows with the love and support surrounding me. Love and support I thought I could do without but now realize how much I need it.
I hug an old friend from PRX when I turn around and come face-to-face with Becks, his arm around the shoulder of an older woman. When she looks up, there is no mistaking the resemblance between mother and son.
She’s beautiful, with hair the same color as him, tall in stature and graceful in her movements. When Becks nods my way, she turns her face so her eyes meet mine, and the smile that spreads on her lips is so full of warmth and welcoming that the nerves I’d normally have meeting his family are nonexistent.
“Mrs. Daniels?” I ask, holding my hand out.
“Oh shush,” she says, stepping forward and pulling me into her arms. “I do hugs, so get used to it.” She squeezes me tight and keeps her hands on my shoulders when she steps back. “So nice to meet you, Haddie. She’s so beautiful, Beckett,” she says, looking over to her son with an approving smile, which makes him roll his eyes and me laugh at his discomfort.
“Nice to meet you too. Sorry it’s in this fashion.”
“Nonsense. It’s Trisha, and don’t you go apologizing to me!” She furrows her brow just like Becks does, and it warms my heart. “I’ll let you go, but I wanted to come meet this girl my Becks here was telling me I had to make lasagna for. I know if he’s sharing it, he must really like you.” She pulls me in tight and hugs me again, her mouth close to my ear when she speaks. “It’s okay to use my boy when you need strength. His back won’t break if you do, but his heart just might break if you don’t.”
She presses a kiss to my cheek as she steps back again, her hands sliding down my arms to grab my hands. She squeezes them as I accept the advice she’s just given me and realize how true it is.
“My Becks here is a good man…. I’m all for him ruining your lipstick, but if he ruins your mascara, you need to come let his mom know so I can put him back in his place.”
“Oh, Jesus, mother!” Becks barks out, cheeks flushing, and it’s rather adorable.
My grin spreads from ear to ear as I look at Trisha, her eyebrows raised to make sure that I’ve heard her request. I nod my head. “I will.” I laugh out.
“Now, go be with your friends. My boy is going to walk me out because I just wanted to meet the girl I’m making dinner for once you feel up to it. So nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
Trisha starts to walk away, Becks already beginning to scold her, when she stops and turns to look at me. “You wouldn’t happen to have a pair of pink flip-flops, would you?”
I look at her for a moment, my forehead scrunched up in confusion since she’s thrown me for a loop. “Yes, several. Why?”
Trisha’s grin spreads to megawatt proportions as Becks swears again. “Perfect. I just knew it!” she exclaims as he walks her toward the door. I can hear her voice chattering away excitedly the whole way there.
What the heck was that all about?
I turn around and take in the whole scene. My friends, my family, all of them are here to support me, and I feel truly blessed. I wander over to the table of food, only slightly aware that I have only so many hours left I can eat before my presurgery food cutoff time.