I stood up from my chair, ready to walk away without saying a word, but I changed my mind. Looking directly at my parents, I said, “If either of you mentions marriage or babies in front of Brooke, neither of you will be invited to our wedding.”
15
BROOKLYN
“Did Reece tell you that he’s been looking for apartments so he could move closer to St. Trewery?” Colin asked while slowly feeding Kim.
He wasn’t talking to me, yet I spoke before his parents could. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I looked at Reece. Some sort of weird pinch squeezed my heart.
When did we start keeping things from each other? He used to tell me everything the moment it happened, and I used to do the same.
I still hadn’t told him about transferring to St. Trewery, but that was because I wanted it to be a surprise, not because I forgot to mention it. Moving an hour away certainly wasn’t going to be a good surprise.
Reece shifted his weight and cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I was going to,” he answered. “But you were so busy with skating and college that I forgot to mention it.”
“How do you justforgetto mention moving out?!” I was busy, yes, but we still saw each other daily. We had plenty of time talking about other things and having sex, but he couldn’t mention this? “I thought we weregoing to move outtogetherlike we talked about. When did you change your mind about that?”
If he had just told me I would’ve understood. Driving back and forth between Staten Island and his college was a waste of time, I knew that, so it made sense that he wanted to move out. I would’ve helped him look for an apartment.
Reece moving out meant we wouldn’t have seen each other daily anymore, but I still would have understood why he wanted to move closer to St. Trewery. It just would’ve been nice if he had told me.
Reece sighed, sliding a hand down his face. “Can we talk about this later?”
“That doesn’t sound like she’s going to say yes,” Kayden said just before he got shushed by every single adult at the table. “Wow.” He held up both of his hands, laughing. “So that’s why we always sit at a kids’ table. We’re not allowed to talk here.”
“Yeah, adult talk is boring anyway,” Kieran threw in, rolling his eyes. “All they ever talk about is money, their jobs, and how Dad always dumps his hockey bag in the living room and leaves it there for at least two days before hefinallythrows it in the washing machine. Then Auntie Sofia says Uncle Aaron does the same thing and it’ssoooooannoying. And Emory ends up laughing at everyone because Miles doesn’t play hockey.”
Dad might not, but all three of my siblings made sure to leave their stuff everywhere, so there wasn’t much of a difference.
“Oh, and recently, all they ever talk about is Brooke and Reece,” Kieran added, making sure to look at me. He smiled at me softly, and I honestly wasn’t sure if he just said this to mock me or to inform me about this.
“Kieran…” Colin sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“What? You keep telling me that talking behind someone’s back is a bad thing, so if you don’t want Brooke and Reece to know you’re talking about them, then don’t talk about them!” His eyebrows scrunched together in a mad frown as he turned to look at his grandparents. I’d never seen him angry before. “Grammy, you always say how we have to learn to make our own decisions, but you never let Reece make his own. That’s not a very nice thing to do. If he doesn’t want to marry Brooke, he shouldn’t have to!”
I gasped, feeling my cheeks flush with embarrassment. Kieran’s words hit me like a slap in the face, and though I tried to tell myself that whatever Reece said, he must’ve misunderstood, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
We’d been talking about marriage ever since we were fourteen. While I knew most of those conversations we had were just for the fun of it, we didn’t mean any of it… our most recent ones were pretty serious to me. I thought Reece felt the same way.
“And now that we’re already talking about it…” Kieran looked right at me, sighing. “For the love of whatever’s holy, please get rid of that Erik guy you’re skating with. Reece can’t stand him but he would never tell you this. He keeps crying about how?—”
Before Kieran could finish his sentence, Lily covered his mouth with her hand. It was a little too late.
Suddenly, the air felt heavy with tension, and all eyes were on Reece and me, looking guilty and embarrassed. But the only set of eyes I was interested in were my boyfriend’s.
His eyes were also on me, waiting for me to react, but I didn’t know how.
Colin got up and walked around Lily just to kneel down next to Kieran’s chair, probably to talk to him about howwhat he just did wasn’t the right way to approach a conversation.
Kayden was looking around the table all innocently, though he clearly picked up on the awkwardness because he firmly pressed his lips together.
Kim was asleep on her chair, and right at this moment, I wished I was still her age and slept through this entire thing.
Before anyone uttered a word, Reece had pulled me off my seat and was dragging me out of the restaurant.
As we stood outside, all we did was stare at each other for a solid two minutes. Neither of us spoke.
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. I knew I couldn’t force Reece to talk to me, and I knew that I’d been super busy lately, so I shouldn’t have even blamed him for forgetting to tell me about his plans to move out.
