Slow Burn

Chapter 32

I narrow my eyes at Becks’s back as he rattles the key in the door, unlocking the dead bolt of the tinted glass door at the office side of one of the buildings.

“Are you starting a new company?” I attempt a guess for the twentieth time in the past three minutes.

“Will you shush and be patient?” Becks drops his hands, leaving the keys in the lock, and turns to take my face in both of them before pressing a chaste kiss to my lips, which does the job easy enough.

I just bite my bottom lip and nod my head to try to hold back the next guess, which is already on my tongue.

Becks turns back to the door, and the click of the lock sliding open breaks through the night around us. The only other sound is the clicking of hooves as the horses shuffle their antsy feet. He ushers me into the darkened office, his hand placed on the small of my back to urge me forward. We clear another doorway when all of a sudden I’m hit with a tsunami of sound and fluorescent lights.

“Happy boob voyage!” The room of people erupts in a chorus as I stumble backward into Becks, staggered from the sheer shock of the surprise. It takes a second for me to process the scene in front of me.

We are in some sort of warehouse where blow-up inflatables are skirting the perimeter of the space—huge slides and bounce houses—and one in particular that sits in the middle of the room makes me laugh and shake my head. It’s a huge blow-up boxing ring, complete with oversized inflatable gloves—in pink.

I laugh—my cheeks hurting from smiling so wide—but it’s once I finish looking at the large scale of the room that I’m able to focus on the details. My heart swells so full of love that even though Becks’s feet stamped my shadow out, it full on evaporates when I see everything in front of me.

Everyone that I could want to send me off is here: my parents, Rylee and Colton, Danny sans Maddie, Rylee’s parents, Lexi’s friends, colleagues from PRX, old college pals…. I’m stunned speechless at the sheer number of people standing here, all cheering and clapping at such an oxymoron of a party.

And all of them are wearing a bra somewhere, somehow on their person. Men have tie-dye bras on their heads, wrapped around their arms. Women have them over their clothing on their chest or wrapped around their waists so that the cups attempt to cover their butts.

I scan the crowd, unable to move as I take them all in, and then I meet Rylee’s eyes. Hers are full of tears as she stands there completely motionless amidst everyone else moving about. We step toward each other instantly and pull each other into a hug. We cling to each other, words spoken through actions and understood from the pure test of time between us.

“I was so worried you’d be angry at me for telling everyone,” she murmurs in my ears as we rock each other back and forth, “but I couldn’t let you think you were doing this alone.”

I pull back and look at my best friend, my go-to girl, and with tears filling my eyes, the smile comes so easily that I know this was meant to be. “Do you think I could ever be mad at you?” I bring my hands up to frame her face and wipe her tears away with my thumbs. “You’d never do something to hurt me.”

I pull her into me for one more quick squeeze and swipe away my own tears, unexpectedly completely okay with this party because it’s like a switch has been flipped in me all of a sudden. Between Becks over these past two weeks and Rylee and all of this love and support, I realize I feel like the old me again.

I finally got her back just when I need her the most.

“Now, quit crying.” I tell her, “It’s time to kiss these ta-tas good-bye in serious style!”

I hear her laugh as I release her only to be turned around by hands on my shoulders so that I face Colton. I burst out laughing when I find her tattooed bad boy with a lacy pink-and-black bra wrapped around his biceps.

“Colton! I think I want to keep that bra for when I get me some new tits,” I say as he wraps me in his arms for a big bear hug.

The timbre of his chuckle fills my ear. “Sorry, Had, but Ry promised me she’ll be wearing this later tonight. You get through this, and you and Ry are going on one hell of a shopping spree for bras, okay?”

I laugh at him as he releases me, but it fades off when I meet the intensity in his green eyes. “You’ve got this, Montgomery. And we’ve got you, okay?”

I clear the lump in my throat, the ever-stoic Colton Donavan showing just a tad of emotion to someone other than his wife. The notion touches me deeply, and I squeeze his biceps and mouth, Thank you, as I’m spun around in another direction.

I land squarely in the arms of my mother, who pulls me in and squeezes me so tight, I can’t breathe, and my tears have nowhere else to go but to leak from my eyes. “I love you so much, my Haddie,” she whispers through her own tears. “We’re going to beat this. No question.”

I nod my head, unable to speak from the emotion clogging my throat. We stare at each other for a moment when she looks down and notices my new necklace. “Wow, so beautiful,” she says to me, and I can’t help the smile that pulls at the corners of my mouth as I think of Lex and our jokes about Mom’s damn necklaces.

For the next thirty minutes, I feel like I’m on a constant spin cycle, being pulled from one pair of arms and well-wishes to the next. My dad, then Danny, and so on.

My cheeks hurt from smiling, and my heart overflows with the love and support surrounding me. Love and support I thought I could do without but now realize how much I need it.

I hug an old friend from PRX when I turn around and come face-to-face with Becks, his arm around the shoulder of an older woman. When she looks up, there is no mistaking the resemblance between mother and son.

She’s beautiful, with hair the same color as him, tall in stature and graceful in her movements. When Becks nods my way, she turns her face so her eyes meet mine, and the smile that spreads on her lips is so full of warmth and welcoming that the nerves I’d normally have meeting his family are nonexistent.

“Mrs. Daniels?” I ask, holding my hand out.

“Oh shush,” she says, stepping forward and pulling me into her arms. “I do hugs, so get used to it.” She squeezes me tight and keeps her hands on my shoulders when she steps back. “So nice to meet you, Haddie. She’s so beautiful, Beckett,” she says, looking over to her son with an approving smile, which makes him roll his eyes and me laugh at his discomfort.

“Nice to meet you too. Sorry it’s in this fashion.”

“Nonsense. It’s Trisha, and don’t you go apologizing to me!” She furrows her brow just like Becks does, and it warms my heart. “I’ll let you go, but I wanted to come meet this girl my Becks here was telling me I had to make lasagna for. I know if he’s sharing it, he must really like you.” She pulls me in tight and hugs me again, her mouth close to my ear when she speaks. “It’s okay to use my boy when you need strength. His back won’t break if you do, but his heart just might break if you don’t.”

She presses a kiss to my cheek as she steps back again, her hands sliding down my arms to grab my hands. She squeezes them as I accept the advice she’s just given me and realize how true it is.

“My Becks here is a good man…. I’m all for him ruining your lipstick, but if he ruins your mascara, you need to come let his mom know so I can put him back in his place.”

“Oh, Jesus, mother!” Becks barks out, cheeks flushing, and it’s rather adorable.

My grin spreads from ear to ear as I look at Trisha, her eyebrows raised to make sure that I’ve heard her request. I nod my head. “I will.” I laugh out.

“Now, go be with your friends. My boy is going to walk me out because I just wanted to meet the girl I’m making dinner for once you feel up to it. So nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

Trisha starts to walk away, Becks already beginning to scold her, when she stops and turns to look at me. “You wouldn’t happen to have a pair of pink flip-flops, would you?”

I look at her for a moment, my forehead scrunched up in confusion since she’s thrown me for a loop. “Yes, several. Why?”

Trisha’s grin spreads to megawatt proportions as Becks swears again. “Perfect. I just knew it!” she exclaims as he walks her toward the door. I can hear her voice chattering away excitedly the whole way there.

What the heck was that all about?

I turn around and take in the whole scene. My friends, my family, all of them are here to support me, and I feel truly blessed. I wander over to the table of food, only slightly aware that I have only so many hours left I can eat before my presurgery food cutoff time.

I grab an appetizer from the table, making small talk with everyone, and accept a cocktail when it’s placed in my hand. When in Rome, right? I reach the end of the table and the laughter starts again when I see the cake. It’s the torso of a woman, with a matching bra and panty set, but it’s what’s written on the abdomen of frosting that cracks me up. “Save your bumps, check for lumps.”

“Funny, right?” Becks’s voice is in my ear as his arms slide around my waist and pull me back into him.

I close my eyes and accept his warmth and the calm that comes with his touch. “Thank you,” I whisper into the crook of his neck, my eyes squeezed close as I accept the risk he took throwing this party tonight.

“Well, Rylee helped a lot, so she deserves most of the credit, but we figured you were worth it,” he teases, pressing a kiss to my temple.

“A lot worth it!” Rylee’s voice is to my left. I turn, still in Becks’s arms, to face her and belt out a laugh to find her with a trayful of shot glasses filled to the hilt with amber liquid. “If this toast was needed at any time in our lives, it’s tonight,” she says with a gleam in her eye, referring to our salute, which has stuck with us through college parties, bad boyfriends, and all the things life has thrown at us.

I step out of Becks’s arms and help her place the tray on the table so nothing spills. When I turn to hand one to Becks, I notice that almost everyone in the room around us is double-fisting full shot glasses like the ones on the tray. I guess I was too absorbed in my boob voyage cake to notice.

Ry grabs a glass and hands me one. “You ready?”

I grin with a nod to her. “Ready as I’ll ever be.” And the look she gives me tells me that she knows I mean more than just slinging back shots.

“Okay, everyone! On the count of three. For my best friend, my sister from another mister … time to make cancer your bitch.” The crowd around us hoots and hollers, me included as we all raise our first shot glass in the air. “One, two, three …”

“One for luck and one for courage!” The entire room erupts into a synchronized toast before falling silent as they toss back the first and then the second shot. Cheers erupt, followed by people swearing as the burn hits their throats.

And hell yes, it burns … but it also feels so good right now. All of this, all of them, because it means I’m alive. The thought causes more than my throat to burn as I blink back the tears that sting my eyes now as the entirety of the moment hits me.

I fall silent as I take it all in, my eyes watching everyone I love around me, and I don’t realize I’ve zoned out until Becks removes the empty shot glasses from my hands. “Sorry,” I tell him, startled at how lost in thought I was.

And I think he can see the emotion that’s running rampant within me because he steps up and brushes a soft kiss to my lips. “I think it’s time to step into the ring, Ms. Montgomery,” he murmurs, trying to break me from my funk by turning our bodies toward the inflatable boxing ring. “You need to get a little practice in…. Hit me with your best shot.”

“You’re on, Country.”

“I’m sure I can find one of those sexy ring girl outfits somewhere you can put on.”

I punch him in the shoulder at the comment and shake my head.

“You’re gonna have to hit me harder than that. You fight like a girl.”

“Exactly. Let’s hope so.”

I hug Rylee for the bazillionth time, assure her I’ll see her in the morning … well, later today, when I wake up from surgery, and shoo her and Colton out of the door of the warehouse.

I blow a breath out to collect myself and watch as Colton opens the door of the Range Rover for her before sliding in himself. Sammy puts the car in gear, and I follow the taillights out of the parking lot, empty at this god-awful hour of three in the morning.

I’m exhausted. Emotionally fulfilled but absolutely exhausted.

And I realize maybe this is exactly what Becks wanted. For me to be so tired that I couldn’t worry about what’s going to happen three hours from now because I was so busy being inundated with love.

How did he know this is exactly what I needed when I didn’t even know it myself?

I shake my head, not sure how I deserve this man after everything I put him through, but resolved that whatever comes next, I’m not giving him up without a fight.

“You’ve got a nasty right hook, you know….” His voice startles me. I didn’t realize that Becks had walked into the office. I thought he was still gathering all of the cards and gifts that friends had brought.

He flicks the switch, bathing the office into darkness as I turn toward him. He steps into the room, a light from the warehouse at his back causing shadows to fall on his face, and I can’t help but be brought back to a few weeks ago: He looked exactly the same the night of Rylee and Colton’s wedding.

And look where that got us.

I just stare at him, so many words running through my mind but none of them is quite right to express the sheer emotion that I feel for him. I thought the cancer diagnosis was going to rock my world, and it did—but not nearly as much as the man before me has.

“You tired?” he asks when I don’t respond to his comment.

“Yeah, but I’m just taking it all in. I can’t put into words what tonight meant to me. I didn’t think I wanted anyone to know, and yet the love I felt … I’m just speechless, so thank you.”

He closes the few feet between us and reaches out to move a strand of hair off my face. “You know I’d do anything for you, right?”

The promise in his words and the look I can see in his shadowed eyes reinforces everything I feel about him. I lean forward and press my lips to his, the taste of him pushing back thoughts of where we’re headed next because right now it’s just Becks and I.

His hands slide up my torso, nerves humming to life from his touch, despite the fatigue. They move over to cup my breasts, causing bittersweet tears to sting my eyes as he leans down and brushes a reverent kiss on each of them through my shirt.

When he lifts his eyes back up to mine, I can see the emotion glistening there, can feel his love palpable and real as it reverberates in the space between us. “Sweet Haddie,” he murmurs as he leans forward to brush those devastating lips of his against mine again, “I love you.”

Every part of my being sighs at the words he doesn’t need to say because he shows me so handily those feelings in everything he does for me. “I love you too.” And when he leans back and looks in my eyes, I know he sees it reflected back at him.

He pulls me into his arms and just holds me tight. I memorize everything about him right now: the feeling of safety, the sense that everything is going to be okay. The little things I can hold on to later when I’m doubting my decisions for putting him through this. And then my mind recalls a lost promise.

“Hey, Country?”

“Mm-hmm?” he murmurs into the crown of my head.

“You said you’d do anything for me, right?”

“Yes,” he answers, drawing the word out as he tries to figure out where I’m going with this.

I look up at him, sure there’s a devilish smirk on my face. “You never fulfilled a certain three-day rule, you know.”

He raises his eyebrows at me, working his tongue in his cheek. “Which one might that be?” He feigns innocence.

“Well, you did call me, so …” I trail my finger down the bare skin at his throat, my teeth working my bottom lip and my body on high alert as it waits in anticipation for what I know he won’t deny me.

He looks over my shoulder at the wall behind me, his playful grin flashing his intent. “If you insist …” he groans at the same time he reaches out to me. Our hands and bodies collide in a frenzy of removing clothes and roaming mouths and unsated need.

“We have to be at the hospital soon,” he murmurs as he lifts me up so that my legs are around his hips and my back is against the wall.

“Time is precious, Daniels. Waste it wisely.”