4 - Brody
“Brody. Brody,” Kacie whispered loudly, her voice just strong enough to break into my nightmare of Viper covering me in feathers at my bachelor party. “Your phone is ringing.”
I rolled toward her and grunted without opening my eyes, not yet fully awake.
“Brody!” She smacked my shoulder. “Wake up.”
“Huh, what?” I sat up, trying to focus.
“Your phone is ringing. Again. It’s rang like three times in the last twenty minutes.”
“Oh.” I reached for my phone and squinted at the screen. “It’s my mom.”
“Hello?”
“Do you have any idea how it feels to go to my monthly book club and have the ladies there tell me they read online that my only son is engaged? Let me tell you something, Mister, it feels really shitty!” My mom yelled into the phone.
Crap. She never yelled. She never swore. Double whammy.
“Mom, I’m so sorry. We were gonna come by today and tell you,” I lied, shrugging at Kacie, who was glaring at me now that she realized I hadn’t told my mom. “It just happened a couple days ago, and we’ve been so busy since then.”
“Busy? You’ve been busy?” She drew out each word and emphasized each syllable.
F*ck.
“You’re right.” I sighed, feeling awful that I’d forgotten to call the one person who should have received the first call. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Mom.”
Kacie lay down and snuggled into me as I begged my mom for forgiveness.
“So.” She sighed in defeat. “How’d you do it? Propose, I mean.”
She was done yelling at me, but I could actually feel her sadness through the phone. I pictured her sitting at the kitchen table with a crinkled, tear-soaked tissue in her hand. My chest ached. Putting my hand over the phone so she couldn’t hear me, I whispered to Kacie, “Do we have any plans today?”
She rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling, trying to remember. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Mom, what are you doing today?”
“Nothing, just some picking up around here, maybe a little weeding if the rain holds off.”
“Remember when I was little, before we traveled for hockey all the time, and every summer we would go to the Chocolate Festival in Long Grove?”
“Mmhmm, that was always fun.” Her voice sounded a little more upbeat at that memory.
“Well, it’s this weekend. What if me, Kacie, and the girls come get you and we all go to that? Just like we used to, except now instead of you and your kid, it’s me and my kids?” Kacie threw her arm around me and hugged me tight while I continued, “Then Kacie can tell you about the proposal in person while I feed Lucy and Piper so much chocolate their bellies will ache for a week.”
“Brody,” my mom spoke softly, “that sounds absolutely wonderful.”
“Great! We’ll pick you up in a couple hours?”
“Perfect.” I could tell she was smiling now when she talked. “See you then.”
Two hours later, we were in Kacie’s Jeep, heading toward my mom’s. I liked when Kacie drove. Her tan legs reached out toward the pedals, the sun glistened off her copper hair as it whipped round and round her head, and don’t even get me started on the way the seatbelt sat so perfectly right in the middle of her breasts. With my sunglasses shielding my eyes, she had no idea I stared at her constantly. Sometimes I got so wrapped up in watching her movements, I forgot where we were going—and who we were with.
“Did you hear me?” Lucy squeaked from the backseat.
I turned to the side so I could hear her better. “I’m sorry, baby. What did you say?”
“What is Chocolate Fest?”
“The Chocolate Fest… Well, it is what it sounds like. Long Grove is this little town that’s full of shops and restaurants and toy stores.” Their faces lit up when I said toy stores, but I just kept going. “During the festival, they close off all the streets and people set up different carts and they sell all sorts of chocolate desserts and chocolate-covered things. There are magic shows and dancers and pony rides. It’s gonna be so much fun!”
Piper gasped. “Pony rides?”
“Yep, pony rides. Do you like ponies?” I asked.
“I love them.” She sighed.
I looked over at Kacie, who glared at me out of the corner of her eye. “Absolutely not,” she warned sternly.
“What?” I laughed innocently.
“I know you, Murphy. I know what you’re thinking and the answer is absolutely, one hundred and fifty percent no.”
She called me Murphy. That had the same effect on me as when I said something about the barn to her.
“There she is!” Piper yelled as we pulled into my parents’ property. My mom was standing on the porch, watering her flowers. When she saw us pull up the long driveway, she put the watering can down and waved at us.
Kacie parked her Jeep and we all hopped out as Mom made her way down the steps. Lucy and Piper ran right over and threw their arms around her waist, nearly knocking her down.
“Hi, girls!” She bent over and hugged them back. “How have you guys been?”
“Good,” Piper answered.
“We’re gonna live in a castle!” Lucy yelled in excitement.
My mom’s head snapped up as her eyes darted back and forth between Kacie and me. “Something else you forgot to tell me?”
Kacie crossed her arms across her chest and cocked her hip to the side, staring at me. “Go ahead, big shot. Tell her what you did.”
“I didn’t do anything.” I laughed, narrowing my eyes at her. “When we told the girls we were getting married, to make it easy for them to understand, I compared us to Cinderella and the prince.”
“So then,” Kacie piped in when I refused to tell any more, “they started dancing around and cheering that we’re all going to live in a castle. I stopped them and explained that no, we won’t be living in a castle, and all they had to do was look at him and…” She paused and motioned for me to finish.
“And I promised them a castle.” I shrugged.
“Brody Michael!” my mom shouted. “You can’t promise things like that to little kids. They’re never going to forget it.”
“Thank you,” Kacie said to her, clearly feeling vindicated.
“You know me, I never think that far ahead. I’ll figure something out. Just watch me.” I waved off both of those skeptical women as I walked past them into the house. “I gotta take a leak real quick and then we’ll go.”