Whole Lot More

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Six

Later that day when they got back into Brynne's car, Brynne could feel herself slump back against the leather seats. Whoever knew that a five-year-old could be so damn tiring.

To say they'd all hit it off, would have been an understatement.

Deana and Brynne had a date to go shopping before Brynne and Martin left to go to North Carolina, and Peyton – who'd taken to calling Brynne, Miss Brynne – couldn't stop asking when the next time they'd be over, would be.

They could only imagine how excited she'd be to find out that the next night she was going to be spending with them at their hotel. A "slumber party" was already in the works.

"Do you want to do anything special tonight?" Martin asked, his hand lacing with hers.

"Sleep," Brynne said, "A lot."

"Little One tire you out?"

"Tire me out is not the word for it. I'm completely wiped. How does Deana do it all the time?"

"Guess it's just something you have to get used to," Martin shrugged, "Trust me, I couldn't handle it, either. To be honest, I'm kind of tired myself."

"Well good then. We'll go back to the hotel, order room service, cuddle in bed and watch a movie or something. And then sleep. Lots of sleep. Does that sound good?"

Taking his eyes off the road, Martin smiled at her, "As long as you're there, anything sounds good to me."

*~*

Neither of them had made it through the entire movie, and when they awoke in the morning, the TV sat silently on, the screen blue and blinking at them.

Brynne quietly yawned as she turned around in Martin's arms and smiled. "Morning."

"Morning baby, did you sleep good?"

"I was in your arms, wasn't I?" He nodded. "Then I did. I always sleep good when I'm with you."

"The same goes for me."

Silence spanned between the two, as Martin rubbed circles along her back, making the silence a comfortable one. "What's the plan for today?"

"I don't know," Martin shrugged, "Figured I'd leave it up to you what we do during the day. But tonight, is dinner with my parents and my brother."

"Oh no."

Martin laughed. "What?"

"I'm scared to meet your parents."

"Don't be scared baby, they're going to love you."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because I –" He paused, and rephrased what he had been about to say. "Because I know they will. As long as I'm happy, they'll be happy. Besides, my mother has been talking nonstop about how she wants to meet you."

"Your mother knows about me?"

"My mother knows everything."

"That's kind of... scary."

"Nothing bad," Martin reassured, "I swear. And I swear to you, they'll all adore you. I know it."

"As long as you're sure..."

"I am," Martin told her, kissing her lightly, "So, what do you want to do today?"

"Can we go to the beach?"

Martin laughed. "I should have known that's what you'd want to do."

If the beach would calm her down about the impending visit with his parents, then to the beach they would go.

*~*

The sun was shining bright when they pulled the car into a parking spot and unloaded the bags, cooler and picnic packed essentials for their day at the beach.

Brynne was so giddy to be at the beach again, she was practically jumping in place and telling Martin to hurry up so they could get down there.

She didn't want to miss one ray of sunshine. It'd been way too long since she'd been able to sit out on the beach and get some sun without having to worry about anything... namely the bar.

Which she hadn't thought about the entire time she'd been in New Jersey, she'd been too immersed in learning all she could about Martin's life previous to racing in North Carolina.

Besides, she knew if something went wrong Tara would call her immediately.

"Are you actually going to swim, or just sit on the beach in the sun like a girl?"

She slid her sunglasses up on top of her head and gave Martin a look, causing him to laugh. "I'm going to sit in the sun, of course," she grinned, pushing her glasses back down on her nose and taking off on a run towards the sandy beach.

Martin just shook his head and grinned too, it felt great to be in this environment with her; to see her more relaxed than he'd ever seen her before. And that alone made her even more beautiful.

*~*

–Few Hours Later–

Martin came padding back from the salty, ocean water through the sand to where Brynne lay sprawled out on a towel, soaking up the sun's hot rays, hovering over her and dripping cold water all around her body on the dry towel.

"Bry baby," Martin whined, "Aren't you going to come and swim with me?"

Brynne slid her glasses up on top of her head and rolled her eyes at her boyfriend. "I'm enjoying the sun, Martin."

"But I'm bored!"

"Aw, poor Martin. Maybe we should have brought Peyton to play with you, because sometimes I swear you're worse than a little kid!"

In all honesty, it wasn't that he was that bad, it was just he wasn't used to having this much down time to do whatever he wanted to. So now that he had an entire week, he didn't know what to do with himself.

"She would have a blast," he told her, "She absolutely loves the water and the beach. She'd spend all her time here if Deana would bring her."

"Well maybe before we leave we'll have to bring her here with us. Buy her some ice cream, have some fun in the sun and give Deana a little break."

Martin took a seat on the towel beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, placing a kiss on her forehead, "Sounds like a plan to me. Now, are you going to come swimming with me before we have to leave?"

"Are you going to continue asking me over and over?"

"I can be pretty annoying when I want to be," he grinned, "Besides I know if I keep asking over and over, eventually you'll get sick of hearing me ask you to come swimming and you'll just give in."

"Martin!" she whined, "I'm comfortable where I am, and I don't want to get wet! Especially before I have to meet your parents."

"Live a little, baby." And before she knew what was happening, Martin had hauled her up into his arms and was running towards the water, carrying her the entire way.

The minute the two of them hit the water, all that could be heard was Brynne's squealing as she slapped at Martin's chest to try and get out of the cold water. It was useless though; she was enjoying it, and there was no way she could deny it.

Unbeknownst to them, all the attention on the beach had turned towards them, and everyone smiled at the young couple who was so obviously in love.

*~*

Brynne had been locked up in the bathroom from the minute they'd gotten back to the hotel room. Martin had had to get changed and everything using the mirror in the main suite, because she was taking forever.

But he couldn't blame her.

He'd met girlfriend's families in the past, and it even scared the shit out of him.

He knew she had nothing to worry about with his family, though. His mother already practically loved her, and she'd never met her before. Plus, he figured, it couldn't get any worse than any of Kaleen's interactions with his family.

Speaking of, he knew he should probably call her, seeing as he'd shut his cell phone off for the week, and he knew that more than likely she'd been trying to call him. When didn't she try and call him?

Leaning his ear against the bathroom door, he could hear Brynne fumbling around in there, and he knew she was really nervous. "Baby, are you okay in there?"

"I'd be fine if my hair would cooperate!" Brynne screeched.

"I'm sure it looks fine, baby. Don't worry about it so much. Besides, my family isn't going to care."

Brynne huffed, knowing he was just trying to make her feel better about the impending meeting, and he felt kind of bad for misleading her on the events of the night. It wasn't just dinner with his family, it was a barbeque, and in his family barbeque meant everyone was invited. Immediate family, distant family, friends, neighbors, everyone.

He was leading her into a party where she would meet so many people she wouldn't even be able to keep them all straight. They were all going to love her, but there were going to be a lot of them.

"How much longer do you think you're going to be, baby?"

"A couple minutes, probably. I'm not quite sure yet, though."

"Okay, I'm going to go out onto the balcony and call back to North Carolina, check on things, okay?"

"Okay," she nodded.

"I'll be back in a couple minutes."

He grabbed his cell phone and let himself out the door to the balcony, turning it back on and expecting it to beep at him when all his missed voice mails popped up. He could only imagine how many there would be.

Ten.

There were ten voice mails. He didn't even bother listening to them, knowing who they were all from. Better to just ignore her, he told himself. Yet, here he was calling her. Even in his mind, it didn't make much sense.

The phone rang six times before her voice mail picked up, and he could tell just how mad she was. "This is Kaleen, leave me a message. Unless you're a cocky ass bastard named Martin who won't answer when I call. The don't leave me a message, I don't want to hear from you." It beeped, and he just shook his head. "Yeah, this is a cocky ass bastard named Martin, whose busy visiting his family who he never gets to see. Thought I'd be nice and call and see how everything is. Now my phone's going back off. Have fun."

He hung up the phone, but left it in his hand and stared at it. She was so damned predictable. Right on cue, not even two minutes later, his phone rang and he rolled his eyes when he saw Kaleen's number. The girl just didn't give up.

"Hello?"

"Asshole."

"Well hello to you, too Kaleen. I thought you didn't want to hear from me."

"I thought you might be interested to know that your damned offspring has been kicking the hell out of me. It's uncomfortable, and I don't want to be pregnant anymore."

He rolled his eyes again, and placed his fingers at his temples; he could already feel the makings of a headache, and he still had to go and deal with his family. "Guess we both don't have much of a choice, huh?"

"Real nice, Martin."

"Hey, you're the one who said you didn't want to be pregnant anymore."

"Yeah well I'm hormonal, what's your excuse?"

Martin breathed deeply, "I called to see how you were, but I can obviously see just how you are. Bitchy and hormonal. So now I have to go and spend time with my family. I'll see you around."

"Martin, wait –"

But Martin had already hung up. Sometimes he just couldn't deal with her; especially not when he was having a good day, because sitting there and talking to her always got him in a bad mood.

He shut the phone off before she attempted to call again and shook his head as he walked back through the doors. His breath caught in his throat when he saw Brynne standing there in a floral print sundress, with her hair framing her face and very little make-up on.

She looked perfect, and he wasn't ashamed to tell her that, either. "You look beautiful, baby," he told her as he kissed her lightly, "Now are you ready to go?"

"As ready as I'm ever going to be to meet your family."

Grabbing her hand in his, he led her out of the room, and down the hall towards the elevator. "It really won't be that bad, I promise."

*~*

The ride was relatively short as they pulled onto the street that Martin claimed he'd grown up on. It was a nice, residential street. Plenty of room between the houses for privacy, but also plenty of neighbors and children around to keep entertained.

They had to park down the block a little ways, though on account of all the cars parked along the curb. Martin explained that someone in the neighborhood was probably having a barbeque. Not a lie, but not exactly the truth.

She'd gone casual with the shoes and just worn a cute pair of sandals, which were a good choice seeing as they'd had to walk to the house.

He slowed down in front of a brown house with white shutters, a basketball hoop up against the house and a couple cars in the driveway. The front door was right at the top of the driveway, and he opened it, the two of them squeezing in through it.

Martin led her through the majority of the house which seemed to be completely empty – that seemed a bit odd to her – and towards what she assumed was the back. The house itself seemed perfect for his family; it was cozy and the perfect size to match them well from what she knew of them. As he pulled her through hallways, she attempted to get a look at the pictures on the wall, but Martin was pulling her too quickly, so she vowed to go back and look at them before she left.

The closed to the back they got, the more noise she could hear. And finally, after what seemed like an endless walk, they reached a large sliding glass door. Martin slid it back and led Brynne out with a hand to the small of her back in a comfortable way. Immediately though, she sucked in a huge breath.

"Shit," she murmured.

There had to be at least one hundred people milling around the big yard. And even better, all attention had turned towards Martin and Brynne as they exited the doors.

*~*