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I grinned at him just inviting himself on a vacation with my family.
“My dad, my brother, my aunts and uncles, as well as our cousins are going,” I told him. “You’d drive yourself nuts in just a few short days.”
He shrugged. “Just know that when we go to Destin, Florida, it’ll be much the same. My dad can’t stop himself from going. It’s like half of his heart lives there, and half of his heart lives in Texas. The second he hears that I’m headed down there, he’s going to be inviting himself along.”
“Y’all do realize that y’all hated each other about a week ago, right?” Jubilee butted in.
I looked at my best friend to see her face a mask of confusion.
I didn’t blame her confusion.
I was confused myself.
But I was also the type of person that just went with the flow. It wasn’t like I was going to tell Castiel to stop hanging out with me. I wanted him exactly where I was. I also wanted to go to Destin, Florida now and ride the goddamn Sea Blaster. So sue me.
“Yeah,” I shrugged. “But that was a week ago. This is now.”
Castiel grunted and repositioned his leg, a look of discomfort on his face.
“I think I need to get a look at this stab wound later,” I mumbled. “Are you sure it’s not infected?”
He shook his head and said, “It’s not. I had it checked out this morning before my run.”
I rolled my eyes. “It was the run, wasn’t it? That was a dumbass move.”
His eyes locked on mine. “I’m not a dumbass.”
“Only dumbasses would run on their wounded leg,” I pointed out.
“Children,” Jubilee said. “Let’s get back to what we were doing before.”
I didn’t want to get back to what we were doing before. I wanted to never get back there.
And my thoughts must’ve shown on my face because Castiel kicked me with his free leg.
“Cremation,” he urged.
I sighed and looked to my best friend. “Cremation.”
That was how it went for the next hour. Castiel would offer his thoughts and opinions, and I would take his advice.
By the end of it, I’d spent three thousand and five hundred dollars on cremation, a memorial service, and flowers.
“The only thing we have to do now is hammer down a time,” she said. “There’s no rush since we’re cremating. You’re sure that you don’t want to do a visitation?”
I was already shaking my head. “I know that you embalmed her for me, but I just don’t think I can do it. I don’t want to see her like that. I want to remember her how she was, full of life and hope.”
I’d barely gotten a glimpse of her at the hospital, and even that would haunt me for the rest of my days.
I didn’t want to go in there and pretty her up. I didn’t even want Jubilee doing it, even though I knew that she would’ve done it happily.
I also didn’t want my dad to have to go through that—seeing her lying there, looking like she was asleep.
“All right.” Jubilee sighed and put down her pen. “That’s it then.”
I swallowed hard.
“I want to wait for my brother to get here,” I said. “He won’t expect us to wait, but I want to. He needs the closure, and I’m fairly sure that he’s going to ask to see her the moment that he gets here. So be aware of that.”
Jubilee nodded her head. “I know. And I’ll be here when he does.”
“But what about your honeymoon?” I asked, horror washing over me.
“Zee and I don’t need a honeymoon,” she said. “We’ll get to the beach…in fact, I’m thinking we need to go to Disney next year with y’all.”
I felt my lips twitch. “He’s going to love that.”
Jubilee shrugged. “He’ll love it because I love it.”
That’s what I wanted.
They were my goal in life—to have someone that loved me like Zee loved Jubilee.
I looked over at the man, Castiel, and thought long and hard about continuing to lean on him.
Castiel didn’t strike me as the type that stayed for long. He was jaded, secretive, and unwilling to ever go there again.
And I say ‘again’ because I knew that, at one point, he was married.
I was reminded of the fact last night when I’d heard him on the phone talking.
Out of everything that I’d heard—which wasn’t much because he was being super quiet as he spoke—I’d only heard the ‘you’re not my wife anymore’ before he stayed silent for a really long time. Obviously listening to whatever this ‘not wife anymore’ had to say.
But that’d been all I’d heard the rest of the conversation, then he’d gone off and run like his life depended on it, coming back an hour and a half later, sweating and much less cranky. While also limping.
Needless to say, I had a feeling that Castiel wouldn’t be sharing his woes with me anytime soon. He may comfort me—and fuck me—but he wouldn’t give me more than that.
