Page 136
***
Downy and my mother kept giving me weird looks all night, but my soon-to-be mother-in-law and father-in-law absolutely adored me.
Something I was absolutely certain of two hours later.
“You know who this is, don’t you?” my mother asked me.
I blinked, turning to face my mother and Downy fully.
“Who? What are you talking about?” I asked in confusion.
“You remember that summer we came to Beavers Bend? The time when mom forced me to go, and I stayed with that kid the entire time?” Downy asked.
I did remember. It’d been terrible.
My mother and father had done nothing but fight for hours about how Downy didn’t spend any time with the ‘family.’
And I’d been the one to take the brunt of that.
Meaning my father forced me to stay away from them in an attempt to get away from the fighting.
I’d spent the entire time outside, watching.
I watched as Downy and that ‘kid’, as he liked to call him, had a grand ol’ time, and I didn’t.
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “Why?”
Downy grinned.
“I didn’t put two and two together until I saw his parents,” he pointed at Jacklyn and Ryan. “They haven’t aged as much as him,” he pointed at Drew. “I specifically remember you telling me that you would marry him one day.”
That’s when my mouth opened.
I had said that, but I hadn’t put two and two together until Downy had just pointed it out.
“You married that woman, and I told you it wasn’t a good idea!” I pointed out to Drew.
Drew then laughed his ass off, as well as his parents, as understanding dawned.
I’d told him the same thing the day he’d told his parents that he was marrying his ex-wife.
“We brought up that comment for years,” Jacklyn said as she wiped her eyes free of the tears that’d formed during her laughter.
I grinned.
“I aim to entertain,” I informed them.
Drew pulled me into the curve of his arm.
“You definitely please me, baby,” he whispered into my hair.
I looked up at him, at his smile and the light shining in his eyes, and squeezed him tight.
Attie looked over at me, and she winked before mouthing, “Told you.”
I stuck my tongue out at her, and then enjoyed the rest of my night in the arms of the man that I knew since the age of nine that I’d one day marry.
I was happy indeed.