Autumn Adventure (Summer Unplugged #6) (4 page)

After checking in our hotel, I’m exhausted from the drive. I lean against Jace while we wait in the elevator to take us up to our new hotel room. “It’s not that late,” I say, bursting into a yawn. “Why am I so tired?”

“Traveling will do that to you. I’m tired, too.” He wraps an arm around my waist to support me, and soon we stop on the fifth floor.

Now that we are finally near the Grand Canyon, I thought I’d be jumping up and down, begging to rush out to see it. But exhaustion has seeped into my bones and now the idea of falling onto a strange bed and sleeping for hours sounds like a dream come true.

Our hotel room isn’t as fancy as the one in California, but it’s clean and it smells nice and that’s really all you need. I wanted to help Jace carry in our luggage, but once he opens the door with the little plastic key card, my body gets a mind of its own and walks straight to the bed, falling down on it, face first.

I wake up from a weird dream where something keeps kicking my stomach. Of course, as I stretch and yawn in the unfamiliar bed, my dream fades away and I realize the kicking sensation came from the baby inside of me, not a dream. I look around for Jace and find him sleeping, fully-clothed and on top of the sheets, next to me.

He looks so peaceful. It’s a shame I’m about to wake him up.

“Hey.” I nudge him in the arm but it doesn’t do anything. “Jace,” I whisper-yell, snuggling closer to him as I tug on his shirt. “Wake up, Sunshine!”

His eyelids flutter and he smiles, still half asleep, when he sees me. “Tell me it’s not really morning,” he says, rubbing his eyes.

“I don’t know what time it is,” I say. “It’s still daylight and I think it’s around noon?”

Jace reaches into his pocket, taking out his cell phone to check the time. “Try five-thirty,” he says, frowning.

I sigh. “I’m sorry, babe. I feel like we’re just sleeping away our honeymoon.”

“So, what? It’s our honeymoon, we can do what we want.” He closes his eyes and presses his lips together. He’s so cocky—knowing I’ll kiss him with such confidence that he doesn’t even look at me. I can’t help myself…I lean over and kiss him. When I do, he pulls a ninja move and grabs me around the waist, pulling me on top of him in the bed. I squeal, and kiss him harder.

He nuzzles his face in my neck, trailing soft kisses up my skin until he reaches my ear. “Want to make up for all that time we missed?” he whispers. His throaty voice sends a chill down my spine and sets my insides on fire.

“Yes, sir,” I whisper back, positioning my forehead so that it’s on top of his. His hands slide down my back, gripping my hips. It’s such a dominating grasp—his massive strong hands holding me in place, just inches from my most sensitive parts. I love when he’s in control, how he knows everything I like and how he makes sure that making love to him is the greatest thing ever.

But one day I’d like to be the greatest thing to
him
.

With my legs straddling him on the bed, I lift up onto my hands and give him an alluring smile, pretending at least, that I am in control here. I reach back to my waist, grab his hands with mine and slowly pull them off of me, setting them on the bed. “Aww, but I like touching you,” Jace says, frowning.

“Too bad,” I say, wiggling my eyebrows. “I’m in charge now. Take off your shirt.”

With my bold statement out in the air, Jace pulls off his shirt, tosses it to the floor and repositions himself so that his hands rest behind his head, giving himself a good view. I pull off my shirt and let it fall on top of his. Then I unhook my bra, surprised how nervous I am even though Jace has seen me naked dozens of times. Something about the way his eyes watch me, a mixture of raw desire and admiration flowing from his gaze, sends me into so much anxiety that I want to chicken out. But I don’t. I pull off the bra and then slide my hands up his chest, letting my breasts graze against his skin as I kiss his neck.

“Mmm,” Jace moans, taking one hand out from behind his head.

“Nope,” I snap, taking him by the wrist and pushing his hand back to his head. “No touching. I’m in charge, remember?”

“Aww, that’s just mean,” he says with a smile that tells me it’s anything
but
mean.

I go back to his neck, kissing it the way he kisses mine, and then lightly trailing my tongue down to his collar bone. His chest tightens when I reach the dip between his shoulder and neck, so I spend extra time on it. With his hands behind his head, his biceps are freaking huge, and the sight of him in all of his shirtless, muscular glory, sends me into a heated lust that might not last long enough for me to keep teasing him.

Slowly, I lift up, letting my breasts touch him again, until I’m sitting up straight while straddling him. I bring my arms together, making sure to press my boobs together, while hiding my stomach, and begin unbuttoning his jeans.

He watches me with a wicked look of desire. His gaze is so strong that I can’t look away. When I get his jeans unfastened, he lifts his hips, allowing me to pull them down and out of the way. “You’re next,” he says, nodding to my shorts.

In the movies, the undressing scenes are always so sexy and well-choreographed. In real life, let’s be honest: there is no sexy way to take off your shorts while sitting on top of a guy on the bed.

I roll to the side and try to slip off my shorts as quickly as possible. Despite my stern glare to stay put, Jace breaks the rules and as quickly as I’m undressed, he’s rolled over on top of me.

“Hey!” I try to wriggle but he pins me to the bed with his arms on either side of my shoulders. “Not fair! I was supposed to be on top and in charge.”

“You are in charge. Every single thing you do drives me completely insane with how badly I want to be inside of you right now.” He kisses my breast and then slowly looks into my eyes. “In what way are you not in charge?”

After what was probably the greatest love making session on earth, Jace and I kick back on our hotel’s patio and research touristy places to visit while at the Grand Canyon. I’ve been feeling a little nauseous in the private jet lately, so although the helicopter tours of the canyon sound amazing, I think it’s best to opt out.

Also, the hiking tours that last several hours probably aren’t the best, either. These ankles tend to swell after a few hours on my feet. I sigh and hand the tablet back to Jace. “We can’t fly in a helicopter, we can’t take a hike. This whole pregnancy thing is really bumming me out and ruining our honeymoon.”

“Just think of this as a research project. Now we know what they have available, and when our son is old enough to walk and enjoy the sights, we’ll come back on a family vacation and do all of these things.”

“Well in that case, let me cross gambling in Vegas off the list,” I say with a smirk.

“We’re not old enough to gamble,” Jace says, reminding me of a fact I had totally forgotten. There goes my newly acquired daydream of playing slot machines all night.

Unfortunately, with the reminder that I’m only nineteen, all of my unwanted thoughts from earlier in the week come crashing back into the forefront of my mind. We aren’t even old enough to gamble and yet here we are, married and having a kid. A gas station clerk can’t sell me a case of beer but I can legally create and bring a brand new human onto this earth. How messed up is that?

Thoughts of those stupid comments I read online about how Jace threw away his life by marrying so young come barreling through my subconscious, reminding me yet again all of the reasons why I should be ashamed of myself.

I’m a career ruiner and soon to be the mother of someone who probably wasn’t ready to be born into this life. I should be picking out college applications and buying textbooks and planning which sorority to join.

“What’s going on in that mind of yours?”

I look over, eyes wide. How, in just sixty seconds of deep thought, could I have forgotten I was sharing the patio with my husband? “Nothing,” I say quickly, throwing him a little smile.

“Nice try,” Jace says, reaching over and poking me in the knee. “Seriously, don’t be worrying about the stuff you can’t do here. We can spend the day bowling in the hotel’s bowling alley if you want. I don’t mind either way.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” I say. Jace smirks and I close my damn mouth before it says another word.

“I know,” he says, leaning closer to me. “I just said that shit so you’d deny it and hopefully tell me what’s really on your mind.”

I groan. “I hate you.”

“I love you,” he says back in a singsong. “What’s wrong, Bayleigh Adams? Is this not the honeymoon of your dreams?”

I shake my head. “It’s not that. I mean, it kind of is. But. No.”

Jace leans back in his patio chair, hands resting behind his head. “Tell me or I’ll tickle you.”

I know there’s no use in denying him what he wants to know. He’ll just get so annoying in his attempts to beg it out of me, that I’ll end up telling him anyhow. So, screw it, I think. He’s my husband and he kind up gave up the right to be spared all of my worries and thoughts when he married me.

I tell him everything, starting with the tablet snooping and ending with how my biggest fear is that everyone is right and we were idiots by getting married so young.

“
That’s
your biggest fear?” Jace asks once I’ve finished my monologue of crazed babbling. “Tell me this, Bay. Did you think we were too young to be getting married a week ago?”

I shake my head. “We’re young, but I didn’t care. If anything, I thought it was romantic because now we can spend our entire lives together.”

“Good,” Jace says, letting out a breath. “That’s how you feel and that’s how I feel. So tell me why it hell it matters what someone else thinks? Especially someone on the damn internet?”

I open my mouth but can’t think of anything to say. “Well, when you put it like that…” I say, trailing off with a shrug. “I guess it doesn’t matter. But I hate reading stuff like that.”

He grabs my hand. “Then stop reading it. The day I packed up my shit and went to Salt Gap for the summer was the day I quit reading idiot’s opinions on the internet. I haven’t looked back and I haven’t started caring again since.”

“You’re right,” I say. “As always.”

He squeezes my hand and gestures out toward the open air with his other hand. “This is our life. This is me and you. What we do is our own damn business and anyone who tries to give us unsolicited advice can go to hell.”

I smile a big, toothy smile. “I like you, Jace Adams.”

“Oh, you like me?” He says, his voice flaring with sarcasm. “That’s good, I think. Let me consult the internet real quick and see what I should feel about this topic of you liking me…” He lifts the tablet and I grab it out of his hands.

“Oh my God. Way to ruin the moment, you big dork.”

His eyes sparkle in the sunlight and it makes my heart go all fluttery in my chest. “Hey, did you know the word dork means a whale penis?”

“Ugh, you’re so gross!” I say, followed by, “Wait, seriously?”

He shrugs. “That’s what everyone says. Weird, huh?”

I get up from my patio chair and make my way over to his, maneuvering across the tiny balcony so I can sit in his lap. One thing I love about Jace is how any time I get near to him, his body will shift and make room for me, as if by instinct. I never have to ask if I can sit by him, he just lifts his arms and wraps them around me. I don’t have to hint that I want a hug, or pucker my lips first—he’s always one step ahead of me. Always aware that I’m standing right there, and always happy to give me affection. Those are the reasons I love him.

“I know how we’re going to see the Grand Canyon,” he says a few moments later.

“How’s that?”

“We’re going to drive up to the South Rim, find a place to sit and watch the sun set.”

I draw in a breath of the warm Arizona air and let my head rest against the front of his chest. “I know it’s not hiking or rafting or something crazy,” he continues, stroking his fingers through my hair, “But it’ll be fun.”

I nod. “It’ll be perfect.”

Perfect is an understatement. Is there a word that means perfection times a million? Jace opens a bottled water from the cooler we brought and hands it to me. I take a small sip because this moment is so wonderful and I’m not going to ruin it by rushing off to the bathroom. Plus—I look around—I’m not even sure there is a bathroom around here. There are touristy places all over, but Jace and I have ventured far away from where we parked and found an isolated place all to ourselves.

We have a multicolored striped blanket that we purchased from a gift shop spread out on the rocky ground and a Styrofoam cooler, from the same gift shop, filled with drinks and snacks. We wanted to go for that picnic vibe, but as it turned out, there was nothing particularly appetizing to eat at the shop we found. Unless jerky made from exotic animals was your thing.

As a pregnant girl who had, up until now, only ever heard of beef jerky, it was
so
not my thing.

We sit on the blanket, legs stretched out in front of us as we watch the sun hover around the horizon, making everything glow pinkish-orange. The canyon is without a doubt, the single most beautiful thing I have seen in my life.

I spread out the brochures I had taken from the airport kiosk and read some facts aloud to Jace. “So apparently the canyon is about six million years old, but that’s considered pretty young, according to this paper.”

“How the hell is that young?” Jace says with a snort.

I keep reading. “Well, the Colorado River has been flowing for seventy million years so I guess the canyon is a little baby in comparison.”

“Crazy,” Jace says with a shake of his head. “People travel all over the country to come stare at a massive piece of land that would swallow them whole if they fell in…and it’s only a baby in Mother Nature years.”

“We are so tiny and meaningless on the whole scale of things.” I squint my eyes, trying to look as far into the distance as I can, but even with my excellent vision, I can’t see the end of the canyon. “Makes you wonder why humans even bother looking at something so massive that all it does is remind us of our insignificance.”

“I disagree.” He leans back on his hands, letting his head lean over and rest on top of mine. “I think that being reminded of how small we are can help us to truly appreciate everything we have, and the people we love and share it with in this world.” He kisses the top of my head and I lean back against his chest.

“I’m happy I share this world with you,” I say.

He squeezes me closer. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Hours later, when the sun has set and we’ve made it back to our rental car, we’re flipping through the GPS, looking for food. “Have you noticed that pretty much all we do when we’re together is hang out and eat?” I ask.

Jace gives me a look from the corner of his eye. “We do another thing, too, ya know.”

“You know what I mean,” I say, sticking out my tongue. “Sorry we’re so boring.”

“Nah, you can’t think of it like that. One day soon we’ll be chasing around a baby all day. I like to just sit back and enjoy my time with you now, while I have it. We have the rest of our lives to be un-boring.”

“And then when our kid is grown up and we’re retired, we’ll go back to being boring,” I say, eyes wide with pretend excitement.

He grabs my knee and squeezes it. “Can’t wait.”

Back at our hotel, we hit up the onsite bowling alley and my new husband gets the luxury of watching my terrible bowling skills. First, I choose a ball from the rack simply because it’s a sparkly pink and looks gorgeous under the spinning disco lights.

It has the number sixteen engraved on it next to the bowling alley’s logo, and the three holes are so big, I could have fit my big toe inside of them. I hold the heavy ass ball with both of my hands in front of my chest. “Uh, how am I supposed to bowl with this thing?” I ask, watching the lanes next to us to see how the more experienced people do it.

Jace slips his fingers into the ball he chose, which is blue and also has the number sixteen on it. “You should probably get one that’s not an extra-large hole size, for starters.”

I glance down at the ball again, noticing the XL for the first time. “Hmph,” I mutter, walking it back to the rack. Jace steps up to the lane to bowl, doing that little swooshy bowler walk thing, tossing the ball with precision like he’s some kind of professional bowler. I stand still near the rack of balls, waiting to see where his ball lands.

Directly in the center of the lane, of course. All but one of the pins fall down with an epic crashing noise and Jace turns around, giving me a lip smirk that means
not bad.

It figures that he would be good at bowling. He’s good at everything.

I try out the large, medium, and small bowling balls, only to realize that all of the holes are kind of big. Jace laughs when I shove my fingers into a small one, and they go all the way down. “Maybe they have some baby-sized bowling balls around here,” he says, looking around.

“Shut up!” I say, but I follow him to the other side of the bowling alley where more racks of balls await. Sure enough, there’s an XS ball that fits me perfectly. Of course, when I go to pick it up with my fingers in the holes, I can’t lift it.

“Why is this so heavy?” I whine, instinctively scrunching up my face in a way that I know makes me look like a kid.

“Maybe because it’s sixteen pounds?” Jace says. “That’ll be like twice the size of our baby when he’s born. Here, try a twelver.”

I frown at the greenish-blue ball he holds out to me. “That’s ugly.”

“Are bowling balls supposed to be pretty?” he asks, trying to make me take his choice of a ball by pressing it against my arm.

I tilt my head to the side. “It’s not pink. It looks like puke.”

“Well, we can’t have a puke ball, now can we?” Jace says with a laugh. He drops the ball back down to the rack and we spend the next ten minutes searching for a pink extra small, twelve pound ball. It’s the stupid things like this that make me genuinely happy for having married someone like Jace. I know that no other guy I’ve ever dated would have wasted this much time looking through a bowling alley just to make me happy. And really, I’m not that much of a brat. I don’t
need
a pink ball. But the fact that Jace is willing to do whatever it takes for me just makes me want that ball even more.

Finally we find a pink ball and it’s even more sparkly and pink than the first one I found. At only twelve pounds, I can pick it up too, so double win.

Except the magical sparkly pink ball does absolutely nothing in helping me bowl. My ball goes straight in the gutter on my first try. Jace gives me some pointers for my next try, and this time, with his help I get the ball all the way down the aisle and it knocks over two pins on the right.

Oh well, better than nothing.

We bowl several rounds and eat even more nachos, and before long, the alley is completely empty except for us and another couple who look about my mom’s age. They’re a few lanes down from us and they’re both excellent bowlers. I study the woman as she bowls, trying to memorize her fancy foot step pattern so that I can do the same thing. It doesn’t exactly work, but I do get better as the night goes on.

When I’m out of soda, I grab Jace’s empty cup and mine and head over to the refill station while he bowls. The older woman from a few aisles down walks up behind me, holding an empty pitcher of beer.

“Can’t believe it’s so dead here tonight,” she says, setting down the pitcher and asking the girl behind the counter for another one. “We come here all the time and it’s usually packed.”

“That’s probably for the best,” I say back to her. “My terrible bowling would be too embarrassing if more people were here to witness it.”

She laughs. “Is this your first time?”

I tell her yes and she nods, understanding. “You’ll get better with time. How far along are you?” At first, I’m not sure what she’s asking, but then she points to my stomach. “Oh, um, about five and a half months,” I say, steeling myself for her reply. I’ve had the judgement looks and snide comments before. But this is my honeymoon and I’m not going to let her ruin it.

She looks at me incredulously and then smiles. “Wow, you look good for that far along! Girl, I was a freaking whale by three months.”

I stand there, shocked for a whole ten seconds. That wasn’t rude. It was friendly, even. Sheepishly, I smile back and say, “Thanks. I feel like a whale if that counts for anything.”

She laughs and hands the cashier money for her new pitcher. “You’re gonna feel a whole lot worse soon, but it’ll all be worth it once you get to hold that baby in your arms. Trust me, I have five kids.”

“Wow,” is the only thing I can think of to say. She walks with me back to our lane, telling me stories of her pregnancies. She doesn’t make a single comment about how young I look and when I introduce Jace as my husband, she just shakes his hand and gives him some pointers for dealing with me when I go into labor.

“I like her,” I say as she walks back to her lane.

“I can see why,” Jace says. “That’s like the first older person who hasn’t lectured us on our life choices. Besides our parents, at least.”

I nudge him in the ribs. “Not that it matters what people think, right?”

He kisses me on the forehead. “Right.”