“Even if I pay for your honeymoon?”
“Even if you…hold on, expenses, too?”
“Promise not to get too wild with my credit card?”
“Never. And you’ve got yourself a deal.” Trinity reached to shake my hand, and I took it, laughing. She turned to Tennessee, scrunching her nose. “I really am sorry about everything, Nessy. I was so wrapped up in making this day the best of my life, I totally forgot that I was making it a miserable few weeks for everyone else, you included. You’ve been there for me, even when I didn’t deserve you, and I will never forget that or take you for granted ever again. I promise to do better.”
“Me, too.” Donna Turner wedged herself between Trinity and Wyatt, giving Tennessee an intense kicked-puppy look. “The wedding stress is no excuse. We were so unfair on you and Cruz. I’m so sorry, honey.”
Behind them, I could see my dad poking my mother to enter the human circle we’d formed. She tried to swat him away, but he only gave her a more solid push.
She stumbled into us, pouting.
“Guess I have my own apology to hand out.” She rolled her eyes like a sulky teenager. “I may or may not have been wrong to tamper with Cruz’s love life. It’s just that he’s always been so perfect and I had his entire fairytale planned for him. So when he went off-script, I got so…so…”
“Mad?” Tennessee finished for her.
“Yes!”
“I know, same here. Half the time we were together, I asked myself what the heck he was doing.”
My mother gave a low, appeased chuckle. “It never occurred to me that he’d have different plans. Does seem a bit controlling, put that way.”
There was a brief silence before Rob shrugged and said, “This may be one of the rare times when I don’t have a reason to apologize to anyone, but in the spirit of being the town’s new favorite fuck-up, now that Nessy is showing promising signs of being Dr. Costello’s dutiful and esteemed wife, I’m sorry, too.”
“What for?” Bear asked, frowning.
Rob put a hand on the teenager’s shoulder. “Well, son, I can’t be sorry for the day you were conceived because that turned out to be the only thing to keep me going during the dark days—these last few weeks changed my life. But, uh, let’s see. I guess I’m sorry for not giving Bear my obvious, undisputed athletic gift.”
“Your humility, too,” Tennessee pointed out.
“I’m glad for you, bro.” Rob shook my hand. “And thank you.”
“For what?”
“For officially crowning me Fairhope’s newest hottest bachelor. Unless you have second thoughts and want to try to make it work again?” Rob winked at Tennessee.
She pushed his chest away, laughing.
“In your dreams, Gussman.”
We made baby number two under the same bleachers where I got pregnant with Bear.
It happened after we came back from eloping in Vegas （the thought of having a full-blown wedding made me want to throw up. Plus, I simply couldn’t take the chance Dalton and Jocelyn got an accidental invitation. I couldn’t stomach any more conversations about vaginal lip-lifts and foot fillers. And, I still had nightmares about that cruise and all the two-penis lies I’d spewed there）。
Bear was still at Rob’s, my parents were out of town, and Wyatt and Trinity were looking at houses in Knoxville, closer to his new job.
Cruz and I were bored, and he suggested we go catch a Fairhope High football game. Show support for the local team.
“Ah, I don’t set foot in that football field,” I said. “Not since the day I got knocked up there.”
At first, he laughed it off.
Then, when he realized I was serious, he said, “But Bear’s a student there…？”
I winced. “This is why I got him into video games and skateboarding and discouraged any type of field sport.”
“You’re a crazy woman.”
“I’m well aware.”
According to Dr. Cruz Costello, the best way to get rid of a phobia is to face it head-on. The following day, we snuck onto the football field in the middle of the night.
He even wore his varsity jacket, which I found kinkily hot （also, extremely tight for the correct size of his shoulders）。 He tugged me under the bleachers and did all kinds of things to me, and this time, I did come.
Twice.
Okay, three times.
He really knows how to use his tongue.
When he finally pulled a condom out, I knocked it out of his hand.