I just became Camryn Parrish. I can’t wrap my head around the emotions that I feel. I’m crying, but kind of laughing inside at the same time. I feel excited, yet I feel anxious. I look down again at this ring he just slid on my finger, and I know he spent a lot of money on it. Then I glance at his ring, almost identical to mine though it’s a masculine version, and I just can’t be mad at him for them. I just can’t. I hear Marna sobbing behind me, and I can’t help but walk over and hug her again.
“Welcome to the family,” she says, her voice shuddering.
“Thank you.” I smile and wipe my tears away.
Andrew slips his arm around my waist, and the pastor joins us. Once he and Marna start talking and catching up, Andrew and I slip a few feet away from them, and he can’t stop looking at me. It makes me blush.
“What is it?” I ask.
He shakes his head, his smile glowing. “I love you,” he says, and it just makes me want to cry again, but I manage to keep it together.
“I love you, too.”
We spend our honeymoon at our apartment, very untraditionally. Because we want to wait until our first out-of-the-country trip to do a real honeymoon.
“Where do you think it’ll be?” he asks.
We’re sitting outside in two lawn chairs, having a beer and listening to the live music playing on the beach or in the park, in the distance somewhere.
“I don’t know,” I say and take a drink from the bottle. “Want to make a bet on it?”
Andrew rubs his bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “Hmmm.” He contemplates it, takes another swig of his beer, and then says, “I think the first one we pull out of that hat will be…” he purses his lips “… Brazil.”
“Brazil, huh? Nice one. But I don’t know—I have this weird feeling it’ll be something more like Italy.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
We both take a swig at the same time.
“Maybe we should make some kind of bet,” he says, the dimple on the right side of his cheek deepening.
“A bet, huh? Sure, I’m in.”
“All right, if it’s Brazil, then you have to go with me to the beach, true Rio de Janeiro style.” His grin is wicked.
It takes me a minute to realize what he’s talking about, and when it dawns on me, I feel the night air hit my teeth as my mouth falls open. “No. Way!”
Andrew laughs.
“I’m not prancing around on a public beach topless!”
He throws his head back and laughs louder. “No, I don’t think they really do that over there, babe,” he says. “But I mean you have to wear one of those Brazilian bikinis. None of that I’m-self-conscious shit and cover up like you did in Florida. You’ve got a bangin’ body.” He takes another swig and sets the bottle down on the table in front of us.
I ponder it for a moment, chewing on the inside of my mouth. “Deal,” I say.
Looking a little surprised that I agreed to it so easily, he nods.
“And if it’s Italy,” I say with a smirk of my own, “you have to serenade me on the Spanish Steps… in the native language.” I cross one leg over the other. I knew that last part would trip his sexy ass up.
“You can’t be serious,” he argues. “How the hell am I gonna pull that off?”
“I dunno,” I say. “I guess if I win, you’ll have to figure it out.”
He shakes his head and presses one side of his mouth into a hard line. “Fine. It’s a deal.”
34
Raleigh, North Carolina—June
“Surprise!” several voices shout when I walk into my and Andrew’s new house.
Actually surprised, I gasp and my hand flies to my chest. Natalie is front and center, with Blake beside her. My friends from my favorite Starbucks and Blake’s sister, Sarah, who I met two weeks ago when Andrew and I arrived back in town, are all here.
“Wow, what’s the occasion?” I ask, still trying to catch my breath a little because they scared the crap out of me. I turn my head to look at Andrew. He’s grinning, so it’s obvious he had something to do with it.
Natalie, now with auburn highlights in her hair, pulls me into a hug. “It’s your official welcome-home party.” She smirks at me and glances at Andrew. “Why do you think I’ve been acting so who-the-hell-cares-she’s-back the past few days?”
“You haven’t been acting like that,” I say.
“OK, maybe not that noticeably,” she says, “but come on, Cam, couldn’t you tell I was holding something in?”
I guess she does have a point, now that I think about it. She has seemed happy that I’m home, but she hasn’t been overjoyed like she would normally be. I guess I’ve been assuming that maybe Blake had finally tamed her some.
I turn to Andrew again. “But we don’t even have any furniture.”