“And we can’t get the money back—it’s too late—so we thought it might be nice, with friends and family around us, to make that commitment, especially in front of our children.”

And suddenly I was feeling emotional because I’d done nothing except lie to her, lie to Colton, cause harm to Jason, and allow Grandma to sink her claws into an innocent young man who might not make it through the night without getting taken advantage of.

“Mom.” I sighed and fell into her arms. “I’m so sorry! You guys deserve this, you deserve a chance to renew your vows. I feel selfish, and stupid. I was throwing a fit and—”

“Oh, sweetie.” Mom laughed. “We’re used to that.”

“I’m sorry for that too.”

“Honey, the heart wants what it wants.” She peeled my arms away from her body and held my hands out in front of me. “Never apologize for fighting until your last breath for what you want in life. That’s how things happen, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

Mom’s eyes twinkled. “You have to want love more than your next breath. Love shouldn’t be something you jump into because it’s the right time in your life or because your friends are all married. It should be something that happens naturally, and in the end it turns into the supernatural because suddenly you can’t imagine waking up every day without that other half. You no longer want to be an individual but a team. There is no coexisting in marriage—it’s a partnership—and you have to want it, you have to sometimes make yourself want it, but the need has to be before the want. Do you get what I mean?”

“Kind of.” I nodded.

She slapped her hand over my mouth and pushed me against the bed, both plugging my nose and making it so I couldn’t breathe out of my mouth. Holy crap, my mom was killing me. She’d officially snapped. I knew I was the bad kid, knew it!

I thrashed about for what felt like minutes when really it was like ten seconds.

Jenna watched in absolute horror.

Then Mom pulled away her hand. As I gasped for air and stared at Mom like the lunatic she was, she leaned over and whispered, “You have to want it as much as you want your next breath—you have to want Colton as much as you need air to survive—love is survival.” With that she pulled back, stood, and offered a bright smile. “So why don’t we get you dressed?”

And my parents wondered why their kids hadn’t turned out normal.

What’s worse?

She made absolute perfect sense.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

COLTON

I was nervous as hell.

It wasn’t like the wedding was going to be real in the sense that we had actual licenses to sign or anything—but for me it was real. If she wanted to do it over again, I wouldn’t blame her. Didn’t all girls want a chance to plan their own wedding?

But to pass this up?

An opportunity to tell her how I felt, in front of her friends, her family, my family, everyone she’d ever grown up with, including some of Jayne’s angry friends, whom someone had clearly given alcohol to, if their loudness was any indication?

Somehow it just seemed right.

It also seemed right that we’d alter the ceremony a bit. I mean, it wasn’t like I was going to go all crazy and make Max dress up as a dragon I had to slay or something . . . First off, we wouldn’t have been able to find a costume in time, and second, the wooden sword wasn’t big enough to look impressive—according to Max.

“Colton,” Reid yelled. “How many lights you want up here?”

Reid was the only one who wasn’t afraid of heights; then again, his depth perception was suffering severely. I had no idea what was in those small pills but it was enough to keep Reid in flight mode while he hung lights in the tree.

“Don’t go too high,” I yelled up at him.

“No worries!” He climbed to another branch. “If I fall I probably won’t feel it anyway.”

“Truth,” Max said, suddenly by my side, handing me a glass of wine.

I took the wine and sipped. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“Finished.” He shrugged.

“No way.”

“Way. Though Jason was more of a hindrance, so I told him to go sit in the corner.”

I looked in the direction in which Max was pointing. Sure enough, Jason was in the corner, a bag of peas held to his head with his good arm, and a bottle of wine next to his feet.

A wave of sympathy washed over me, and I nodded. “Rough day for him.”

“Ha.” Max rolled his eyes. “Living with Milo, I’m surprised he made it through adolescence.”

“Hey.” I nudged him. “You’re her best friend, how do you make it?”

“My parents own a liquor franchise on top of the hotel chains, meaning I get free booze,” he said. “And I have these handy-dandy little earplugs I put in when she starts singing off-key or quoting Star Wars—they work wonders—and I’ve learned she has at least five different facial cues for when she’s asking me a question or merely filling the atmosphere with the sound of her own voice.”

I stared at him for a minute. “The things you say both terrify and enlighten me in so many ways.”

“Truth.” He clinked his wineglass with mine. “So guests should be pulling in. Should we get Reid down from his perch?”

“Yeah.”

“Reid!” Max yelled up at the tree. “You need to come down now.”