Whole Lot More

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty

Brynne snuggled closer to Martin when he cell phone started blaring the following morning. Her head screamed, her hair was a mess and she had the hangover from hell.

But it was all worth it for the amount of fun they'd had after Martin had won the All Star Race the night before.

"What the fuck is that?" Martin grumbled, still half asleep.

"My phone."

"Well, answer it..."

"I can't," Brynne whimpered, "My head hurts too much to move."

Martin laughed. "That, my dear, would be your hangover. You were pretty damn drunk last night."

"Uh huh."

"But baby, if you answer your phone then that hideous sound will stop shrieking through your head."

Brynne knew he was right. It took all her strength to roll over and reach her phone and took even more to flip the phone open and answer it. "'ello?"

"We're going shopping. Get your drunk ass ready."

"Julie, shh..."

"I'm going to be there in a half hour Brynne, so your ass better be ready to leave then, or I'm going shopping without you and going to pick out the most hideous looking thing for you."

And then she hung up leaving Brynne wanting to strangle her and left her wondering how the hell Julie was even coherent this early in the morning. She'd been knocking them back and keeping up with her last night, so why the hell did she feel like this and Julie was perky as hell?

"What did Julie want?"

"Miss Perky Ass informed me I have to be ready in a half hour because we're going shopping. What in the hell do we have to go shopping for? Not that I don't love shopping... just not when I have the hangover from hell."

"Oh shit," Martin sighed, "About that shopping trip..."

She sat up as quickly as she could manage, holding a hand to her head and gave her boyfriend a look. "I don't like the sound of that..."

He smiled slightly, "Well... we kind of have a sponsor dinner to go to tonight. A formal dinner. Everyone at DEI, plus a few more teams is going to be there."

"Great," Brynne grumbled, "This should be fun."

*~*

A quick shower, some hair gel and a change of clothes later, Brynne was on her way to being a new person. But it was definitely going to be a real long day.

She had enough time to choke down a bagel and a cup of coffee before Julie came knocking on the front door.

She let her friend into the livingroom and ran back up the stairs to grab her purse, but she couldn't help but laugh when she saw Martin sprawled out across the bed, once again asleep.

Her purse was haphazardly dropped next to the bed – more than likely dropped in haste in her drunken stupor the night before, and with a quick kiss to Martin's forehead she was headed back down the stairs and met back up with Julie right where she'd left her.

"So what's up?"

"I don't know," Julie shrugged, "Some sort of formal sponsor dinner is all Dale told me. But he said formal doesn't mean boring, and for the two of us to get something hot." Brynne rolled her eyes with a laugh. "Besides, it's on him," Julie said, holding a credit card up in her hand.

Giving two girls a credit card that wasn't their own was a dangerous thing, and Brynne was sure Junior would soon realize that.

But in the meantime, the two girls would have a fun day full of shopping. "Let's get started then," Brynne smiled.

*~*

A few short hours later they have everything they could ever need: new purse, shoes, accessories to go with everything. All they hadn't found was the one thing they'd actually originally come to get. Their dress.

All the stores they'd been to had either had nothing they liked in the right size or had nothing they liked period. Brynne had found one dress she had loved, but wasn't about to pay nearly one thousand dollars for it.

She had to draw the line somewhere, and that's where it was most definitely drawn.

Now, they found themselves standing outside a little boutique right in the middle of downtown Charlotte. The displays in the window were cute, and if they had dresses that were even half as cute as the pink outfits, they'd be sold.

There was a bell above the door that announced their presence the minute the door opened. A little old lady walked around from the back and smiled at them. "Hello dears, what can I do for you?"

"We need a couple of formal dresses. But we don't want boring. We want formal, classy but still hot at the same time."

"Ah, impressing some fine young men?"

"Trying to."

"I remember those days. It might have been a very long time ago and in a completely different world from now, but I remember, for sure." She smiled at the fond memories in her mind before indicating a couple racks in the far corner. "Follow me though, and we'll see if we can find you something you girl's like."

The rack's ranged in what they held, but almost immediately Brynne's eyes landed on one dress. It's body was black, and looked as if it fell almost to her knee. And it was perfect.

Grabbing it from the rack, she was amazed when she realized that it seemed to be in her size, too. If that wasn't a sign telling her to buy it, she didn't know what was.

"Find something dear?"

"I think I'm going to try this one on," she told both Julie and the old woman, "What do you think?"

Julie smiled, "I think it's perfect. It'll drive Mr. Truex wild."

The dress itself was v-neck, but not too extreme to the point where everything would hang out, and the bottom was frayed in varying lengths.

She held it up in front of herself and nodded, knowing that she wanted it. As long as it fit alright.

"Right this way, dear."

Following behind the old woman to the dressing room, she locked herself in and quickly shed her t-shirt and jeans, replacing them with the dress.

Immediately she sucked in a breathe. It was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Just as she'd expected, the length fell to just an inch or two short of her knee. The v-neck was low enough to show some skin, but not enough to let everyone see everything.

It was classy, yet still hot.

She opened the dressing room door and smiled as she walked out, doing a circle in front of the old woman, who was smiling also.

"Oh my, it's perfect."

"I thought so, too."

"And the perfect size to show off your body."

Brynne grinned, "I definitely want it."

"Well go change back into your clothes dear, and I'll ring this up for you, and then we can go check on your friend and see if she's found anything she likes."

It didn't take her long to change and get the dress back on the hanger, feeling completely refreshed as she walked out of the dressing room and back towards the rack of dresses, where Julie stood, a red dress in her hand.

"Find anything?"

"I want this one," Julie said, indicating the red dress in her hand.

Julie was a lot more daring with what she'd wear than Brynne would ever be. The dress was blood red, fell to her knee and was spaghetti strapped, showing off enough skin to keep even Dale, Jr. satisfied.
Yet, for some reason in her mind it fit Julie to a tee.

"Well then dear, let's go try it on and see what it looks like."

"Oh, I don't need to try it on. It's perfect. The size is perfect. The color is perfect. It's just perfect. Besides, we don't have much time before we have to go and get ready."

"If you insist," the older woman said, shooing them towards the front.

"I do."

The woman rang the tags into the cash register and Julie whipped Junior's credit card out with a grin. Boy, did it ever get use that day.

*~*

All of their numerous shopping bags were loaded into the red Trailblazer Julie had borrowed from Junior, and the two took off, satisfied with what all they'd gotten on their shopping excursion. No base had been left uncovered.

"I kind of feel bad for Junior... he's not going to know what hit him when he gets the bill for this."

"Eh, he won't care. And if he does, well... he's the one that gave two girls his credit card and told us to buy what we needed. He should know better than that, especially having a younger sister."

"That's completely true, and doesn't make me feel so bad. Now, how about some food?"

"I'm starving! I swear, shopping makes me hungry."

"Steer us in the direction of some food, then."

*~*

Conversation was kept light through the most of their meal, and Julie figured it was just because they were trying to eat and get back in time to get ready for the night.

It wasn't until she noticed that Brynne had hardly touched her food that she realized that something was up.

Brynne had been fine over the last few days, so busy that she hadn't given herself any time to think. But now that she did have time, her mind was curious. Martin's mother's words kept ringing through her head the last few days.

Linda smiled, "It's so good to see Martin with such a nice girl. Most times he ends up with the ones that are after his money, and that last girl... she was terrible."

"His last one?"

"Yeah," Linda said with a shrug, "Her name started with a K. Katelyn. Kandy. No, it was Kaleen. Kaleen. She was terrible. I swear she was only after his money. No one liked her, either. She came off as way too fake to me, and even his friends in North Carolina and here didn't like her."

"Kaleen, he's never mentioned her."

"Last I saw her was last summer sometime. I don't know when they broke up, but I'm glad they did. You have so much more couth than she did, and manners."

She didn't think she'd have thought a second thought about it if she hadn't of found a picture of Martin and some girl sitting around the house. It had been in a double frame, one picture from the Busch Banquet in December, and the other being from an obvious after party from the Busch Banquet.

It wasn't so much that she'd found the picture, but more that she'd never heard Martin mention this girl, and it was obvious that he'd still been together with her when they'd first started talking back in December. Yet, she'd never heard about her.

"Something's wrong."

Brynne looked up at Julie and smiled slightly. "Do you think you could do me a favor?"

"Of course."

"Ask Dale about a girl named Kaleen. One of Martin's exes."

"I've never heard of her before..."

"Yeah, me either. That's what kind of bothers me. He was dating her when him and I first started talking. His mother mentioned her to me when we were in New Jersey and I found a couple pictures of the two of them together in his house. I mean, I know it's obviously over between them, but his mother made her sound like she wasn't very nice and it just makes me curious why I never heard about her..."

"I can do that. Are you going to ask Martin about her?"

"No," Brynne shook her head, "I don't necessarily think I'm entitled to know anything about her except she's his ex... I just want to know what his mother meant about her being not so nice."

*~*

The red Trailblazer pulled into Martin's driveway, unbeknownst to the little black car parked on the side of the road.

Brynne got out, carrying her shopping bags into the house, and Julie pulled away, heading towards Junior's house.

But still the little black car didn't move.

Inside the car, Kaleen sat with a smile on her face, a hand on her stomach and her eyes switching between the front door of the house and a picture of Martin and herself clutched in her hand.

She'd let Martin think that everything was fine, and that she was going to back off and let him live his life with his new girl toy.

But when he least expected it, she'd be there. She'd send his world crashing around him, and then she'd be there to pick up the pieces and get back what was rightfully hers.

Martin.

*~*