Chapter 2

Autumn

I stepped to the end of the aisle with Emmet, who gripped my hand tightly. It was just the way he did it when we were kids and about to do something difficult. It put me in mind of the time we had walked down the railroad tracks past the Hardy’s tobacco farms and jumped off the trestle into the creek, and the time we ran all the way home from the park because we thought a pack of wild dogs was after us.

It was funny, the things you could remember in no more than a second, and with our first steps, I gripped his hand tightly in return.

I still wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing, but I trusted Emmett more than I trusted my own heart. I had hoped he’d tell me to come to my senses, but since he hadn’t, I resigned myself to my fate and the decisions that I’d made. There was no turning back now.

He was strong beside me, and I wanted to fall into his arms and beg him to hold me, but instead, my eyes turned to the end of the aisle where they should have been focused all along. I saw Jason, who nudged his younger brother and gave him a wink. I was sure they were probably saying something immature about the honeymoon, but then Jason straightened up, squared his shoulders, and looked more like the man I needed him to be.

I wasn’t entering into the marriage lightly and had voiced my dreams to Jason enough that he should have understood what I expected from our lives together. I had dreams, and he’d assured me he did, too, and that our wedding wouldn’t change them.

We stopped at the end of the aisle, and I held onto Emmett’s hand a little tighter.

Pastor Gregor’s voice rose above the crowd. “Who gives this bride away?”

“Her parents and I do.” Emmett turned and looked deep into my eyes. His kiss on the cheek felt so much like a farewell that I wanted to stop the ceremony and make sure that he wasn’t going anywhere.

He broke free of my hand and, with a smile, stepped away to sit on the end of the aisle with Jason’s family.

Jason took my hand and leaned close to whisper, “You look so hot, baby.”

The pastor cleared his throat, and then, after a little bit of an eye roll which I should have seen as my cue to run, he began talking about marriage as a holy union. I tried to focus, but I couldn’t shake that last kiss from Emmett and how final it felt.

As Pastor Gregor talked about how precious marriage was, I felt even more uncertain that I was doing the right thing, but with all of the eyes upon me, even Emmet’s who seemed to be encouraging me, I knew there was no escaping.

Before I knew it, Pastor Gregor had moved on to Jason’s vows, and he seemed so sincere as he spoke them that I felt a pang of guilt in my gut.

“For as long as you both do live?”

“I do,” Jason said.

I breathed a sigh of relief, and the part of me that was unsure of him was suddenly better with his heartfelt “I do.” He’d said the words with such conviction that it healed any doubts and brought me back to the moment.

“Now if you will repeat after me.” He began reciting the lines that we’d rehearsed.

“I, Autumn Elizabeth Cooke, take you, Jason Lynn Adams.” I stumbled a moment as I looked back to Emmett. His eyes widened as he saw me struggling, and he began to mouth the words. I spoke each one, just as he prompted, until the very end when I turned to Jason and met his eyes. “I do.”

The pastor concluded the ceremony and pronounced us husband and wife.

“You may now kiss your bride.” Father Gregor closed his bible as Jason pulled me close, his grin so wide he could barely work his lips to kiss me at first, but when he did, he dipped me down, kissing me deeply for the entire room to cheer. All but Emmett. As I righted, our eyes met, and he seemed so distant that I knew I needed to talk to him.

Jason whisked me off my feet and carried me down the aisle to the dressing room, where we were going to prepare for the reception. “Can you believe we’re married?”

“I know, right? It seems crazy.” I had waited my whole life for that moment, and although I still had high hopes, it all seemed rather anticlimactic.

Jason locked the door. “You are so sexy in that dress, but I can’t wait to peel it off of you.” He rushed to me, kissing me and pulling me tight against him.

“Jason, you’re going to wrinkle me all up.”

“Come on, let’s fuck, baby. We’re newlyweds; this is what people expect us to be doing.” His hand roamed down, and he started hiking up my gown.

“Not in the church, Jason. That is still frowned upon, no matter what.” I pushed his hand away as I met his eyes and gave him a disapproving look.

He reached down and gripped his bulging pants. “I can’t go out there like this.”

“You’ll have to. We have to go to the reception.” I wondered if he hadn’t married me just so he could have more convenient sex. “There are people I want to see and thank, not to mention that our entire families are out there; some of which I’d like to meet, and others I haven’t seen in ages.”

“Come on, Autumn. It won’t take five minutes.” He let out a huff as I met his eyes and pulled away.

“How romantic.” The look in my eyes challenged him to our first fight as husband and wife, and when I turned to walk out, he grabbed my arm.

“Aw, Autumn. Don’t be mad. It’s our wedding day. I just wanted it to be memorable. I’ve missed you.” I’d only been away from him for one entire day, which wasn’t out of the ordinary for us, but he continued on as if we’d been apart forever. “I thought about you last night and how happy I am to be with you. What a great life we’re going to have.” He looked into my eyes and was so sincere that I couldn’t help but smile.

I believed every word, and it only made me more eager to get to the reception and enjoy ourselves with our friends and family.

“We will have a great life. How could we not together?” I leaned in and kissed his lips, but in my heart, I was still more concerned with Emmett and what was going on with him. “Let’s go out there.”

“Fine, but tonight, you’re all mine.” Jason kissed down my neck and then nuzzled my ear. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” We took a moment to hold each other, and then as we turned to walk out, I took his hand. “Did you notice anything wrong with Emmett?”

“Emmett? No. He seemed all right to me. He’s probably just thinking that now that we’re married, I won’t have time to hang out with him.” Jason had a point. Emmett had always felt like a third wheel at times, even though he never was in mine and Jason’s eyes, but he had been distant since I told him we were going to be married.

We went out into the hallway and headed for the reception room doors. “That’s probably it. I just wondered if there was anything else.”

Jason turned his eyes away and then looked back at me with a sigh. “I’m sure he’ll tell you today.”

I pulled his hand, and we stopped in the middle of the hall. “Tell me what?”

“He didn’t want you to know until after the wedding.”

“The wedding is over, so you better start talking.” Jason met my eyes, and I knew with that one look that he wasn’t going to tell me. “Fine, I’ll ask him myself.” I turned and walked into the room with the sole purpose of finding him, but as I opened the door, the deejay interrupted the music and announced us.

Jason and I walked into the crowd of our family and friends, who all clapped and cheered for us. Then it was on to the dances and taking photographs.

It wasn’t until after we cut the cake and the crowd lined up to eat that I saw my mother pull Emmett from a table in the corner where he seemed to be hiding out. He never was one for social engagements and had always hung back from the crowd at birthday parties, too.

“Look who I found.” Mom dragged him across the room behind her. “I think he thought he’d get away without having a dance, but since your father isn’t here to dance with you, I think Emmett should do the honor.”

I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t want to do it, but since he was keeping something secret until after the wedding, I wasn’t so inclined to let him off the hook. “I’d love a dance, Emmett. Thank you, Mom.” I turned and took his hand as he let out a long sigh.

“You know how much I hate this.”

I walked him to the middle of the dancefloor. “Stop being a baby. No one is looking at us. They all want cake.”

At that moment, the deejay announced us. “Autumn has a very special guest, the man who gave her away today, who not only has been in her life for as long as anyone can remember but is also the groom’s best friend and someone we might hold responsible for this occasion. Let’s give it up for Emmett Burke!”

The crowd cheered again, and Emmett’s eyes widened. “Right, no one is looking. They all want cake.”

The slow song played, and Emmett led me around on the dancefloor as I looked up to see my mother standing with the deejay.

“You know this doesn’t mean things have to change, right? We’ll still be together; you’re still our best friend.” I placed my hand on his chest and looked up into his eyes, hoping he’d tell me what was going on.

“We’re growing up, Autumn. Things are bound to change a little.”

“Tell me, Emmett.” I wasn’t going to stop dancing with him until he spilled whatever it was he wasn’t telling me.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Jason told me a minute ago that you’re keeping something from me.”

He threw his head back and took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to cloud the day, Autumn. You’ve waited for this since we were kids.”

“Right, and don’t think I forgot about my first wedding. Or my first groom.” I had dressed him up in one of my father’s suit coats and made him play my groom for the first time when we were about seven.

He gave a half-hearted laugh. “Those times didn’t count.”

“They did. They counted for a lot. And don’t think you’re going to distract me. I want to hear it, Emmett. What’s so horrible that it’s going to cast a horrible shadow on my day?” I laughed it off, not really thinking there was anything he could ever do to cause my disapproval.

“I’m leaving soon.”

“For college? I thought you were going local.” He had been very smart in school, graduating just under me at the top of our class, so I knew he had options.

“I joined the Marines. I signed the final papers yesterday, and I leave in a couple of weeks.”

I felt as if someone threw ice water on me. “So, you won’t be around. You should have told me before the wedding, Emmett. I would have spent more time with you.”

“While you were planning your wedding? I knew you had a lot on your plate with all of this.”

I’d been so busy with my whirlwind wedding; I hadn’t thought that anything would change. I surely didn’t expect him to be moving on to a life that meant he would be going away.

When Jason had proposed to me back at spring break, I had started planning immediately, knowing I wanted to marry him as soon as possible so we’d have the entire summer as husband and wife before us starting college would cut our time in half.

My mother and father had reluctantly given me their blessing, and my father and I had a heart to heart about me working for him and being self-sufficient in case it didn’t work out. He had always wanted me to go to work for him, and now, I agreed. But even with all of that, I’d expected Emmett to always be around, and for that, I guessed I’d not only been thinking selfishly but unrealistically.

I needed to be proud of him and proud that he was making something of himself, for himself. His father sure hadn’t helped him get a leg up. He was an abusive asshole who not only tormented Emmett, but his younger brother Paul, too. Paul didn’t handle things as well as Emmett did, and he was a troubled kid, especially when Emmett wasn’t around to look after him.

“What about Paul?” I couldn’t believe he’d leave him.

“He’s going to be fine. I can’t keep making him my responsibility, or I’ll never have a life of my own. Not only that, Autumn, but we have family who will check on him.”

It still seemed rather sad. I worried that Paul would not survive Emmett being gone, and I wondered if I would, either. “I’ll miss you.”

“You’ll be just fine, too. You have Jason to look after you, and you and he are going to have a wonderful life together.” The music stopped, and he rubbed my shoulders before letting me go.

“It won’t be the same without you around. Promise me that you’ll keep in touch?” I watched his face as it seemed to convey a million emotions, and yet, didn’t change much at all.

“Hey, man, can I have my wife back now?” Jason walked up, and the two shook hands.

“Congratulations, man. I hope you know how lucky you are, and I only hope that one day I have someone as special in my life.”

“You will. Of course, she won’t be as hot or as awesome as my wife, but you’ll be happy.” Jason and Emmett rarely had a serious moment. “I guess you told her?” Jason looked at us.

“Yeah, she kind of pulled it out of me.”

“Well, it’s all good news, right? I mean, you need to get away. It will do you some good.” Jason knew the pressures that Emmett was under at home and how it was affecting him.

“Yeah, I really should be going. I have a meeting with my recruiter.”

“Please stay. You should eat something.” I knew when he walked out of that room, it would be the last time I saw him for a while.

“I wish I could, but I really need to go.” He shook Jason’s hand, and then I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him close to me, catching the stray tear before it ruined my makeup.

“Thank you for everything.”

He gave me one last smile and then walked out of my life.