Back to Life (27 page)

“For
you and your fiancé from Mr. and Mrs. Tanner,” she said, handing me the pile. I
took them from her and thanked her. As I shut the door, I called out to Rory.

“You
can come out, baby, it was just the maid. Mom sent us some new clothes,” I
said, and she walked back out to me.

“She
did? Aw, she didn’t have to do that,” Rory said, smiling. I set the pile of
clothes on the bed and we both looked through them. Mom bought me a fresh white
tee shirt and I sighed when I looked at the price tag…eighty dollars. I shook
my head and found a pair of designer jeans, a fresh pair of boxers (also
expensive), and a pair of white socks. As I slid out of my old boxers and put
on the new ones, I saw Rory eyeing her new outfit. If I had to give one thing
to my mom, she had great taste and could throw a nice outfit together quickly.
She bought Rory a new bra and panty set, a pair of cute blue jean Capri pants,
and a steel gray peasant top.

“That’s
cute,” I said, slipping into my jeans.

“And
also very expensive. I can’t believe she spent this much on one outfit!”

“I
can,” I said, laughing to myself. My mom wore designer clothes on a daily
basis, and on any given day she was probably sporting an outfit worth anywhere
between five hundred to a thousand dollars. “Hurry and get dressed. You need
food in your system, woman.”

“Okay,
okay. Geez, man, are you going to be this bad if I actually am pregnant?” she
said, slipping on her panties.

“Oh,
I’ll be worse,” I said, and she rolled her eyes. I slid on my tee shirt and sat
on the bed to put on my socks and shoes while Rory continued getting dressed.

“Well,
I’m glad she didn’t buy me shoes too, because the ones I have will look really
cute with this,” she said. Suddenly, there was another knock at the door.

As
Rory quickly finished getting dressed, I teased, “I bet that’s your shoes right
now,” I joked, and when I opened the door, the maid was there again holding two
boxes. “See? I told you,” I laughed, as I took the shoe boxes from her and
thanked her. “You better wear them too, you don’t want to hurt her feelings,” I
joked.

Rory
smiled and shook her head. “I swear,” she said, and her mouth dropped open when
she opened the box. “Oh my God, these are so cute!” she said, taking a pair of
grey sandals much like the ones she was wearing yesterday out of the box. She
held them up to me. “Look, they have little bows and everything!”

“They
will look cute on you,” I said, taking my shoes back off and putting on the new
Nike Shox my mom bought me. As soon as we were both dressed and brushed our
teeth, we grabbed our things and walked out of the room and down the stairs.
The smell of delicious food came wafting down the hall and got stronger the
closer we got to the kitchen. I took Rory’s hand in mine as we entered the
kitchen. “Good morning everyone,” I said, and saw everyone sitting around the
breakfast table, all in new clothes as well. We were the last ones down.

“Good
morning you two. I was wondering when you both would come down,” Grayson said,
winking at me. “You two must have been exhausted after last night.”

I
saw Rory blush. “Dad, come on,” I said, pulling out a chair for Rory, and I sat
down next to her.

“What?
We are all adults here, and we all know how you two probably celebrated your
engagement,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee. “That’s what your mother and
I did the night I proposed to her.”

“Oh
my god, Dad, please,” I said, and Rory chuckled loudly. “You are making me lose
my appetite.”

“Sorry
son,” he laughed. “So, what would you two like to eat? Marta made Eggs Benedict
and Belgian waffles.”

“Ooh,
Eggs Benedict sounds really good,” Rory said, and I smiled at her.

“Getting
cravings already?” I whispered in her ear, and she smiled and shoved me
playfully. “I’ll have the same,” I said.

“So,
did you kids sleep well last night?” Mom said, taking a bite of her foot.

“We
did, thank you. It is so beautiful here, I could wake up to the sounds of the
ocean every day,” Rory said.

“Well,
you all should come out here more often,” Mom said, and Marta, the maid, set
our plates in front of us. Rory wasted no time and began digging into her food.

“Mmm,
this is so delicious,” she said, almost moaning.

I
grinned and nudged her in the shoulder and she smiled back at me. “So, I know
it’s still early, but have you two thought about setting a date for the wedding
yet?” Mom asked.

Dad
laughed heartily. “Vivian, darling, they haven’t even been engaged for twenty
four hours yet.”

“Well,
the sooner the better for me, but it’s ultimately up to Rory when we get
married,” I said, and my mother smiled.

“The
sooner the better? I’m not going to get a phone call in the middle of the night
that you two ran off to Vegas and eloped, am I?” Mom asked, worry lines
wrinkling her forehead.

“Oh
no, of course not, Vivian,” Rory said. “It’s just that Liam and I have really
come so far in the time we’ve known each other, and we just love each other so
much that neither of us wants to wait that long,” she said, taking my hand. “I
was actually thinking maybe we could have the wedding in November, if that’s
okay with you,” she said, looking at me.

“November?
Why November?” I asked, kissing her hand.

“Well,
in November it will be six months since we met, plus that will give us four
months to plan something nice. Also, we’ll be married before all the big
holidays so we won’t have to spend them in separate apartments.”

I
smiled. “Okay, November it is then,” I said, and I leaned in and kissed her.

My
mom smiled brightly. “Well, okay then, that sounds wonderful! Maybe we can get
together next week and go over some of the details,” she said.

I
thought Rory might protest, but instead she said, “You’re sure you’re not too
busy?”

“Of
course not! My only son is getting married to a girl that I already consider my
daughter. I would be happy to help in
any
way I can,” she said. Even
thought she didn’t come out and say it, I know that she wanted to pay for it
all since Rory doesn’t speak to her parents anymore. However, one thing I knew
for sure was that when Rory and I got married, I was paying for all of it. Not
only did I make an okay amount of money on my own, I also had a trust fund to
draw on if I had to, so we had an unlimited amount of money to pay for our
wedding.

I
just sat back and ate my breakfast as Rory, Mom, Marissa, and Samantha
discussed wedding plans as the men ate in silence.

Rory

“So,
what time do you think you’ll be home tonight?” I asked, loading another dish
into the dishwasher. “Because, don’t forget, we are supposed to meet your
parents and Brody and Marissa for dinner at Noir et Blanc at six o’clock to go
over some of the wedding plans.”

Liam
came down the hall dressed in dark black jeans, a black Henley, and was sliding
on his favorite black leather jacket. “Well, my shift is over at five since I’m
pulling desk duty this week, but if something comes up I might be late, you
know that,” he said, coming up behind me and kissing me on the neck.

“Well,
hopefully it won’t. I don’t want to go to that stuffy restaurant without you,”
I said, the last dish in the dishwasher, and I shut the door and pressed the
start button.

“I’ll
be home as soon as my work is done, I promise,” he said, and I spun around and
planted a kiss on his lips.

“Okay,
well you need to go then, because if you have work to do, the earlier you get
there the earlier you can come home.”

He
smiled. “I love it when you say ‘home’,” he said. It had been three weeks since
the fourth of July, and Liam had hounded me every day for a solid week before I
agreed to move in with him. It was so hard to leave Marissa because we’d lived together
for almost eight years. However, we were both moving forward in our lives so we
felt it was the right time for us to take the next step as far as our living
arrangements were concerned.

“I
love it too,” I said, and I kissed him again, but this time it was just a quick
kiss. “Okay go, because you need to get to work and so do I. Get a move on,” I
said, and I smacked his ass as I headed toward the door.

“Come
on, this is your walk-in client day. You could just play hooky and go to the
store and you know,
take another test
,” he said, smiling. Since I first
moved in two weeks ago, Liam was hounding me to take a pregnancy test almost
every day. I had already taken two and they were both negative. My period was
due tomorrow, but he wouldn’t listen to me about menstrual math and he was just
certain that I was already pregnant.

“Liam,
we’ve been over this. Even if I am pregnant, it would be way too soon to tell,
and we had unprotected sex for the first time a week before I was ovulating.”
Even though we’d had
lots
more unprotected sex since then, I just
couldn’t get him to calm down. He made me eat super healthy and already had me
taking vitamins. He definitely had babies on the brain.

He
stared at me blankly. “You know that means nothing to me,” he joked. “You are
pregnant, I know it.”

“If
you are so sure, then why do you want me to take a test?”

“For
confirmation, and so I can take a picture of the positive test so we can start
on the baby book.”

I
laughed at him. “I’ll think about it, okay? Come on, seriously, you need to get
going. See you tonight?”

“Absolutely,”
he said, and he kissed me passionately for a quick moment before releasing me.
“Goodbye, I love you!”

“Love
you too!” I called as he walked out the front door. I gathered my things and
was getting ready to head out for the day when I got a text message on my
phone. It was from Marissa. It read,

Hey girl, I’m kidnapping you for a day of shopping, my
treat! Liam let me in so go to your front door because I’m on my way up. Luv you,
xoxo

I
shook my head and smiled. It was really weird for her to take the day off from
work just for us to go shopping, but we hadn’t seen each other in five days, so
I decided to just go with it. I sent a quick text to Samantha to let her know I
was taking the day off, and I put my work bag back in the hall closet. I put my
phone in my jacket pocket when I heard a knock at the door. I grabbed my keys
and opened the door expecting to see Marissa…and that was the last thing I
remembered before everything went black.

“God,
when the fuck is she going to wake up? It’s been fucking three hours, this shit
is getting boring!” a male voice whined through his nose. “The other one won’t
say anything and all she does is fucking cry. At least when the redhead wakes
up it will be fun. I heard this bitch is feisty.”

“Shut
the hell up, man. Even if she did wake up, we have to wait until she gets here
before we touch her. You know the rules,” another male voice said. “Besides, I
think she’s waking up now.”

I
lifted my head and opened my eyes…my head felt like it was splitting in two. I
looked around and tried to focus on where I was. Nothing looked familiar to me.
When I moved my head, my skin felt tight and itchy around my temple on the left
side of my head, and I could only guess that I had dried blood crusted to my
face. Once my eyes focused, fear crippled me as I saw Marissa sitting tied to a
chair to my right with tears pouring down her face. She looked over to me, her
eyes wide with terror.

I
struggled against what was restraining me, and I then realized I had been rope
tied to a chair. We were in some kind of abandoned warehouse, and two men were
sitting backwards on two folding chairs directly in front of us. I didn’t
recognize them at all, and I had no idea why they would do this. “Marissa? Are
you okay? Did these assholes touch you?”

One
of them laughed out loud, and Marissa jumped. “See? I told you she was feisty.”

I
glared at them. Both of them were stocky and overweight, but one was bald and
the other one had spiky blonde hair. “Fuck you!” I yelled. “You assholes are so
fucking stupid. If you knew where to find me, then you also know that my fiancé
is a cop, right?”

Baldy
answered first. “Oh, we know all about your pretty boy fiancé, little lady. By
the time he finds out what we’ve done to you and your hot little friend over
there, we’ll be long gone.”

Okay,
keep calm, Rory. Keep them talking. You don’t see any guns on them, so just
keep them talking long enough to get loose and then you can kick their asses and
get Marissa the hell out of here.
“Oh,
you really think you’re going to touch me or her without a fight?”

“I
love it when a woman fights, baby. Give me all you got,” Baldy said.

Spiked
Hair Guy growled. “Paul, shut the fuck up. Don’t say anything else until she
gets here.”