Page 26 of Choosing Forever
I tap her arm and encourage her to leave the room with me before saying anything else. Others have already started to filter out, and I’d feel bad about spacing out long enough to miss Penny’s final statements if I wasn’t a bit grateful for that.
Once we’re back in the hall and on our way outside, I say, “I’m not suspicious, just . . . surprised. It seems really out of place, doesn’t it? All things considered.”
“Maybe it was always the plan and we just didn’t know it? The fire could have sped things up.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“I think we should at least give it a fair shot. I’d love to be able to go to the drive-in again. Especially with Bryce.”
My heart warms and aches at the same time. “It was always a good date night spot.”
“Exactly! I was too young when it was open that I never got a chance to go at all, really. Let alone with a date.”
Our age gap is hard to notice most of the time, yet it’s also why it’s sometimes easier to talk to Daisy than it is to Poppy or even Bryce.
Daisy wasn’t around to see me and Darren together. Everything she knows now, she was told after getting with Bryce, and that means she doesn’t know the ins and outs of our history. To her, the drive-in was just a fun date spot. But to me and everyone else in their group, it’s the place I fell in love with Darren and where he slid a ring on my finger that I didn’t take off for four years.
“It was a great spot, Daisy. You’re right. A reno might be what it takes to bring the place back to the front of everyone’s minds,” I tell her.
She beams at me and pushes the school door open. “This is going to be really, really fun. I can feel it in my bones.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her that she probably just jinxed it.
9
DARREN
I palmmy beer while staring at the photo Sasha sent me. The chatter happening around me at the table in Peakside is muffled, ignored again.
Abbie’s sitting on an oversized reclining chair in a home theatre. She’s grinning for the camera while her five fingers are deep in a bucket of popcorn. I love seeing her smile like that, but the bite of envy appears the way it always does when I see her at Brad’s place.
Sasha’s fiancé is loaded after a long, successful career in real estate, and he doesn’t have a shortage of toys or luxuries to make sure everyone knows it. Bryce loves to say that Sasha clearly grew to have a type over the years we were together. I know better than to think she chose Brad because he was anything like me.
She hates me. Has for a long time now.
Really, she probably chose him because he’s a more successful version of me. That’s if it had anything to do with me at all, which, when it comes to her, things usually do. It’s become tradition.
“Is that my beautiful niece?” Poppy asks, sneaking a look at my phone.
Sandwiched between me and Garrison, she’s been very snoopy all night. I’ve lost count of how many times she’s heard my phone buzz and asked who I was texting.
I tilt the screen so she can see the photo properly. “It is.”
“Oh. She’s at Brad’s.”
“Geez, Pops. Don’t make it sound any more disappointing,” Anna teases.
The wife of Cherry Peak’s homegrown country star smiles at my sister, the corners of her eyes crinkling with humour. I glance over at Brody, her husband, and find him taking a sip of beer while staring boldly at her. It’s almost too intimate of a look, so I dart my eyes to the end of the table, where Bryce and Daisy have taken up only one chair beside Johnny and Rory.
My best friend already has her eyes on me despite the hands she has roaming over Daisy’s thighs. I cock a brow. Bryce does the same. I scowl. Bryce copies.
“It is repulsive,” Bryce says, brow still lifted and lips flat.
Daisy shakes her head. “You can’t say that about Abbie’s stepdad, Frosty.”
“I can and I will. He’s a turd. The only time he’s ever around Darren is to rub something in his face. Why else is he always sending Abbie home with upgraded versions of everything she already has?”
Swallowing, I soothe my dry throat with foamy beer.
