Page 11 of Chasing Forever
The gasps that ring out around the table give me a small feeling of accomplishment, like I just won the Nobel Peace Prize, because I’ve managed to shock my family. With so many of us, it’s nearly impossible to keep anything a secret. Emmett’s triumphant smirk and his sweet wife Briar’s empathetic expression tell me that both of them already knew. How, though, is beyond me.
“You were in the closet,” Bennett accuses, his jaw slack.
I don’t even want to think about the heartache I heard in my brother’s voice while I hid in the closet in Brooks’s room.
“Wait? What are we missing?” Sadie asks. Disappointment fills her voice that I didn’t tell her, my best friend, about drunk-marrying the sheriff in Vegas.
Heat floods my face as I look at Emmett, my younger cousin, silently blaming him for my late-night poor life choices. Him, of all people getting married and finding love—it made that small seed of doubt inside me bloom into something reckless last night. That fear that I might never find someone—or worse, that I’ll never be able to trust someone again. And somehow, the only thing I remember from early in the night is the simple way Brooks looked at me and made me believe, for a stupid second, that maybe I could. I can’t believe I put myself in this position. I feel like a complete idiot.
“Why don’t you answer?” I mutter to Emmett, since he seems to know everything, and I’m desperate to deflect.
Briar groans and glances at her new husband. Emmett’s about to answer, but Briar puts her hand on his to stop him and straightens in her chair.
“We went to pick up our pictures—did you all see that screen with the newly married couples on the wall?” Briar doesn’t wait for anyone to answer before she continues. “We saw the picture of you and Brooks walking out of the chapel, married, late last night.”
Her forehead crinkles, and her lips press down. Sympathy. The one emotion I loathe more than pity when it’s aimed directly at me.
“What are the chances?” Brooks mumbles.
“Pretty high since you went to the same chapel as us.” Emmett’s eyebrows lift.
He’s not wrong, but choosing the same chapel wasn’t even close to the dumbest thing we did last night.
“There you have it.” I clap my hands together. “Now, I need to ask you all not to tell all our parents because Brooks and I would like to keep this between us until we can get it annulled.”
Silence descends across the room.
Which is how I know I’m truly screwed.
Silence in my family is more unnatural than a snowstorm in July. As I scan their faces, they’re all giving that same look—and it’s pointed more at Brooks than at me. The one that says, Sorry, man.
Even Sadie’s lips are tipped down as she concentrates on her lap.
My shoulders drop. “Oh my god, what?”
Sometimes I hate that I can’t just allow them all to have their feelings and sit back down, eating the lunch Emmett and Briar have planned for us. Maybe I was never that way, but I feel as if I had a lot more patience for what people thought about me or the things I did before the asshole came into my life.
No one answers me.
“I’m going to go to the bathroom. Come with me, Lottie?” Sadie slides her chair out, placing her napkin on her seat.
And this is how you know my family is truly dumbstruck. Not one of them makes a joke like, Does she have to hold up your dress? They know exactly what’s happening. Sadie, my calm, nurturing best friend, will guide me into the bathroom while they sit here and tell Brooks how sorry they are that he drunk-married the one person in the family who’s emotionally broken, while Sadie tells me that it’s okay I made a mistake, and she’ll help me survive the aftermath.
With a growl of frustration, I turn to follow her, but Brooks’s finger runs along the back part of my forearm, sending a jolt of goose bumps slithering up my skin.
What the hell was that?
I follow Sadie toward the bathroom, hearing the hushed conversations starting before I’ve even left the room.
“I’m not answering anything,” Brooks says, and I stop dead in the doorway.
I circle back around to see him leaned back in his seat with his hands up in front of him.
“And respectfully, I know you’re all her family, but this is between her and me.”
As if he knows I’m still within earshot, his gaze lifts to mine, and my eyes sting with tears. All he does is give me a slight nod and a half smile.
Everyone knows Brooks Watson is a good guy. Hello, he’s the sheriff. I think sometimes I forget that just because he shares blood with the man who practically put me on a spit in the middle of town square, but he’s not anything like his brother.
