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Stacey followed her into the hotel room and began to unzip the dress bag that held Emma’s change of clothes.
“Leave them,” she said. “I want to know what’s going on.”
“Em, it’s nothing.”
“Nothing? I don’t think so. He’s calling you Cee and acting as though he knows everything about you.”
“One he’s drunk, two he’s southern, and three he’s a player. Of course he’s going to act like he knows everything about me; it’s a ruse to get me mad so he can soothe my ruffled feathers.”
“Okay but if he does anything to upset you, I want to know. I don’t care if he is Miles’ best friend. I won’t stand meekly by and let it happen.”
“Trust me; I can handle Jake ‘The Jet’ Warren,” she told Emma but as she turned around to grab the hanger for the wedding dress she added a silent prayer for strength, losing him once, even on purpose was bad enough, she didn’t think she’d be able to handle it again, not without losing it completely.
Chapter 2
Emma was changed and ready to toss the bouquet. She took a long look at where her friends were standing behind her before turning around to throw it.
Stacey knew she’d aim it directly at her, so the moment Emma turned around she stepped away from the crowd and backed up until she was at the very back of the group. She didn’t want the bouquet any more than she wanted a root canal, but as always, her luck ran black, and she found herself with a large bouquet of flowers lying in her arms just moments later. She groaned inwardly at the smiles and laughs she got from being the catcher.
Emma caught her eye and she moved silently towards her.
Stacey shook her head and asked, “You knew I’d move, didn’t you? You deliberately aimed these at where I’d most likely run.”
“You’re not the only one who knows the way your brain works.” Emma shrugged and gave her a wink as Miles got a chair for Emma to sit on for him to remove the garter. Soon the guys lined up on the floor, most pushed out there by their girlfriends who were dying for rings of their own. Stacey held her breath and prepared herself for the inevitable, Jake to catch the garter.
She couldn’t help the groan that came out when he did, and she turned her back on the crowd silently asking the heavens why.
“Just once you’d think you’d all be on my side,” she said aloud.
“Did you say something?” Emma asked once the laughter died down.
“Nope,” she smiled. “Well now that that’s done with…”
“Oh no,” Emma said walking her out onto the floor, “you remember Jenny’s wedding, don’t you? I caught the bouquet and when I tried to get out of the dance once Tony caught the garter you said, and I quote, ‘It’s tradition’.”
“Tradition sucks,” she said once they were standing in the middle of the dance floor. Jake had placed the garter on his arm, but the guys were egging him to slide it up onto her leg. She backed away just enough that Jake took it as a challenge and consented.
“Nowhere in tradition says that I have to do this,” she told Emma when she laughed.
“What are you scared you might begin to like him?” she joked.
“Fine,” Stacey said sitting down on the chair they’d pulled forward again. She leaned down and gently lifted the hem of her dress just enough to show her leg up to her knee whispering to Jake as she did, “One millimeter above that and you’ll be praying a three-hundred-pound linebacker had just sacked you.”
Jake laughed his eye so full of mischief and raw hunger she felt a shiver run down her spine. “What do ya say, teeth or hands?”
“If you like eating I’d suggest your hands,” she said with a glare, and as if someone had heard her plea just a little too late earlier and decided to help her now, Jake slowly took the garter and slid it up her leg with his hands. He reached her knee and with a knowing grin pushed it ever so slightly further up letting his fingers graze her skin and send heat searing through her body.
The crowd cheered mixtures of higher, but Jake pulled her out of the chair and the DJ started the music, the slowest, longest song of the entire night. The song that had been theirs from their first date, the victory dance after the state championship, the song she couldn’t listen to anymore because it left a hollow feeling where her heart should be. He pulled her in tightly and began to move in perfect rhythm to the beat.
“Jake,” she whispered barely breathing against his hold, “let go.”
“I did that once and I regretted it immediately, but by the time I could do anything about it, you were already gone,” he said lowering his head down to her slightly.
“Jake, please.”
“Now that brings back memories.” He grinned with half closed eyes. “If I recall correctly that what you always said right before…”
“Jake!” she hissed praying no one could hear what he was saying.
