Life at Best

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Brynne and Julie had just left Lily Greenthumbs Wedding and Event Floral Design in Uptown Charlotte when Brynne's phone rang from within the depths of her purse. She rooted around for it and grabbed it out, quickly answering. 

"Hello?"

"Hey."

"Well hey yourself..."

"What are you doing?"

"Julie and I just left the florist in Charlotte... we had to finalize all the flower details for the wedding with the ladies there."

"Are you guys done with your wedding stuff now?"

"I'm not sure, let me ask her." Brynne put her hand over the microphone on her phone and looked at Julie, "Did you have anything else planned wedding-wise for today?"

"Nope, that was all we needed to do today. Why, what's up?"

Brynne shrugged, "I'm not sure, but I'm assuming Martin has something planned..." Julie grinned as Brynne turned back to her phone, happy that the two of them were still continuing on with their relationship and it hadn't been a one-time thing or just the alcohol fueling it that one night.

"Julie said we're done for today babe, so what's up?"

"Want to go out with me tonight? I know we leave for the track for the weekend tomorrow, but I don't want to wait to see you until then."

"Well what did you have in mind?" Brynne asked.

"It's a surprise. I'll pick you up in a couple hours and we'll head out."

"Martin," Brynne whined, "I hate surprises..."

"Well baby, you'll love this one, be ready in a couple hours... I'll text you when I'm on my way. I love you; I'll see you in a little while. Oh and why don't you pack your bags for the track and you can head to the track with me in the morning."

"Getting a bit presumptuous there sir, assuming I'll spend the night again..."

Martin laughed, "I'll see you in a little bit, Brynne."

Brynne groaned when he hung up and Julie chuckled, "He still wouldn't tell you what he had planned would he?"

"No, he wouldn't. And I hate surprises. Although, Martin Truex, Jr. surprises aren't normally that horrible... sometimes they're quite fun."

"Get your damn mind out of the gutter Brynne!"

Brynne laughed out loud, "Says you dear Julie, that's classic coming from you my friend. I'm sorry but I can't take you seriously when you love sex, your mind is always in the gutter and you think about shit like that WAY more than I do."

Julie shrugs, "What can I say? We can blame it on Junior!"

*

Brynne met Martin outside when he pulled up to Julie and Junior's at 6pm sharp with her bag for Bristol in her hand and jumped in his truck, grinning to herself when he leaned over the center console to kiss her like he hadn't seen her in days when in reality it had only been maybe ten hours since she had left his house earlier that morning.

"Hi."

"Hey babe, how are you?"

She smiled, "I'm great."

"What were you girls up to today?" he asked casually as he pulled back out onto the road and started to drive to their destination.

"Wedding stuff... I think we almost have everything all set for the moment, though... Julie booked the caterer, we just have to go and finalize the menus, we figured out the flower situation today and the invitations are officially mailed out... now once we find my dress we will be all set until the couple of weeks leading up to the wedding."

"What will you do with yourselves once all the details are planned? You guys have spent so much time since you've come down on the wedding, I don't know if you'll know what to do with any free time you may have once details are all set..."

"Sit out by the pool with some wine!" They both laughed. "So where are we going?"

"Well... I kind of want you all to myself tonight, plus I figure we haven't really talked about everything yet, and if we're going to make this work between us we need to get everything with the whole Kaleen situation aired out so we can start fresh, and I'd rather do that sooner, rather than later... so I figured we could cook dinner together and just relax at my house... I've got a bottle of wine chilling right now too..."

"Hell Martin, having that conversation we might need to have something a little stronger than wine."

Martin snorted a laugh, grabbing her hand over the console and locking their hands together, "I've got plenty of liquor too... whatever you need baby, I've got it. I just know we need to have this conversation and I'd rather get it over with.  It's something I've come to regret not doing from the first moment I met you; we've wasted so much time because of her, and I've uh – I've ran into Kaleen a few times over the last month or two at the track with random drivers and I want to know that we're in a good, solid place before we run into her somewhere and she tries to shake our foundation – which she will do."

"Mm-hmm." They lapsed into silence, Brynne humming along to the song on the radio, her hand still entangled with Martin's. "Hey, how is Peyton doing? And Deana? I haven't seen them recently or talked to them either."

"They're good... I haven't seen them either, not since the last time we saw them together... things got crazy with our breakup and Kaleen having Kinsey and I wasn't really in any situation to leave North Carolina to go to Jersey and visit them. We'll have to call them and bring them down for a visit... Peyton will be so excited you're back and Deana will be too, she wanted to kick my ass when everything blew up."

He parked the truck and ran over to Brynne's side, opening her door for her and taking her hand to help her out of the truck. He kept their hands tangled together for as long as he could until he physically had to let go of her hand so they could work together to make dinner, comfortable commentary between the two. It wasn't until they were sitting down and eating that something triggered in Brynne's brain.

"You said after Kaleen had Kinsey you couldn't really travel back home to see Peyton and Deana, but you came to New York looking for me..."

The forkful of food headed for Martin's mouth stopped as he just stared at her, "Your dad did tell you that I came to New York looking for you?"

"Of course he did. My parents may not have approved of me coming here, but they knew how much I loved you, and my father knew how upset I would have been if you came and he never told me and I found out... why did you think he didn't?"

Martin cleared his throat uncomfortably, "Well, I just expected you to call or text or email or something... I just expected to hear something from you after that, but there was just... radio silence."

"No, I called you Martin."

"What are you talking about Brynne?"

"I definitely called you... it wasn't the same day... in reality, it may have been three or four days later, but I called you..."

"I never received that call or saw a missed call from you and believe me I checked every day, multiple times a day.  Trust me I would have answered or called you back."

"You didn't answer the phone, but someone else did."

His fork hit his plate as he just stared at her like she was a complicated jigsaw puzzle he couldn't figure out. "What are you talking about? Who would have answered my phone besides me?  My phone goes everywhere with me."

"Um... Kaleen. Kaleen answered your phone."

"Kaleen did WHAT?!"

Brynne was entirely uncomfortable. She didn't know what was going on, but something was up, and it was making her completely uncomfortable. "Um, Kaleen answered your phone Martin... it's kind of the reason you didn't hear from me again and I acted how I did when I came down here. I – uh – I thought that you had gotten back together with Kaleen and that's why she was answering your phone."

"That fucking bitch - " Martin took several deep breaths trying to rein in his temper and not ruin his night with Brynne. Kaleen had already ruined enough for him – for them – he didn't need to let her ruin anything else and the rage he felt deep within would do just that. He needed to save the rage for the right person and explain to Brynne exactly what kind of a person Kaleen was. "It explains so much though baby. I'm so, so, so incredibly sorry. I never even thought about it, but I gave her the perfect opportunity – I went over to put together Kinsey's crib and get the nursery together the day Kinsey came home because Kaleen didn't already have it all set up and I left my phone downstairs. You must have called and she must have, fuck - "

"Martin it's fine, there's nothing we can do about it now. Everything is okay now, okay? Don't blame yourself... please don't blame yourself.  There's nothing that's going to change it or make a difference, and in the end we ended up here, back together anyway."

"Brynne do you know how much damage that did and how much trauma that probably caused you? Just because she can't get it through her head that I want nothing to do with her anymore and I haven't wanted anything to do with her in a long, long time. She's using my kid against me... what else can you call the shit she does? I mean, I can't see my daughter unless I go over to her house? Unless I take the two of them out in public so the three of us look like a happy, little family? Fuck that! I want nothing to do with her and I really wish she wasn't Kinsey's momma so I didn't have to deal with her... what kind of a psycho manipulates someone's life like this?!"

Brynne stood up and wrapped her arms around Martin from behind, her chin resting on the top of his head, just trying to soothe him and calm him down.  She didn't think she had ever seen him so angry before.  She really hadn't meant to set him off, but she thought it was important that he knew that she hadn't ignored his visit to New York, she would never do that to him, no matter what happened between them.

"I think it's time we finally did something about Kaleen, babe. Maybe it's time you finally went down and filed papers for visitation arrangements and finally showed Kaleen she really no longer has that pull over you anymore..."

Martin pulled Brynne down on his lap and kissed her deeply. He couldn't believe he had gotten so lucky to have this woman in his life twice.

*

Normally the parties went down outside the Harvick's bus, but this weekend it was outside Junior and the soon to be Mrs. Junior's motorhome. Everyone had converged outside their bus in the lot at Bristol to celebrate their engagement (and soon to be wedding).

Brynne and Julie stood off to the side of all the hoopla with drinks in their hands, and sunglasses over their eyes. Now that Brynne wasn't sleeping at their house every night Julie felt like she had to catch up with her best friend every once in a while.

"So how was your date last night?"

"We just stayed in at his place," Brynne shrugged, "Low key, but I kind of like it that way. Gives us more time just the two of us. Plus, it was kind of better that way because we kind of got into a discussion about Kaleen that would not have been good to have in public."

"Oh yeah?" Julie's eyebrows rose above her glasses, "How did that go?"

"Good for him and I," Brynne laughed, "Not so good for Kaleen. I told him about how she answered his phone when I called him after he came to New York and he flew off the handle Julie. I don't know if I've ever seen him that angry before. Then we got talking about how he doesn't get to see Kinsey except for under Kaleen's rules and he doesn't have any time to see Peyton and hasn't in months – not since him and I saw her last – because all of his extra time is spent catering to all of Kaleen's demands so he can see Kinsey, so I think I've finally convinced him to go down and file for visitation. He said he's doing it as soon as we get back from Bristol..."

"Wow... that would be huge and change a lot of things. And make life so much easier."

"That it would." The two of them brought their drinks to their mouths and then giggled as Junior waved his hands animatedly at Julie from across the little lot where everyone was set up.

"Hey woman, get over here to me!"

"Well I guess that's my cue! I'll come find you later when he calms his ass down!" Julie laughed and threw her hands up in the air, "Calm your ass down, I'm comin'!"

"Oh I wish you were baby, I wish you were!"

"Get a damn room guys!" someone yelled at them across the lot.

Junior shot them a sideways look like they were stupid, "You realize we're standing right outside my bus right now, right? I could take my woman inside right now and make ya'll listen as we got it on so you better shut your damn mouth!"

Brynne sat on Martin's lap on one of the lounger's and watched their best friends from across the open space with a smile on her face. They were just too cute, and she absolutely loved it. Junior had Julie's hand in his and someone had turned on some music, so he took it upon himself to twist and twirl her around to the music, laughing along the way.

Everyone was dancing around, drinking and eating. It was for sure the greatest NASCAR style engagement party they had probably ever had.

"What were you and Julie talking about?"

She leaned back into his chest and shrugged, "Just catching up. Now that someone is taking so much of my time, she feels like she doesn't always know what's going on with me, so she just wanted to know what's been going on... you know, best friend stuff."

"I could take up less of your time if you want." He smirked, already knowing how she was going to react.

"Um, I think not. I can juggle you both, so don't even think about it, k?" He laughed, his chest rising causing her to move up and down from the vibrations.

"I'm so happy for them," Brynne breathed.

"Me too babe," Martin agreed, squeezing her hand. He leaned his head on her shoulder and moved his mouth in towards her ear, earning a little giggle from her when he tickled her a little. "You know Junior said something to me the other day about how if things would have stayed good, how he could have seen this wedding being a double wedding... and I agreed with him." Her eyes widened and met his over her shoulder and he just shrugged and kissed her cheek.

He had nothing more to say.

He was saved when Junior and Julie pulled wine glasses filled with champagne seemingly out of thin air and tapped them to get everyone's attention on them. "Let me be formal for a minute. Julie and I are thrilled and honored to share our intentions for the rest of our days with you. And let me tell you, it will involve lots of sex, racing and children... lots. Anyway... standing together in front of all the incredibly special people here with us today, makes our private dreams public in a very real way. Thank you for being here, for your love and your well wishes. Julie has made what I previously thought as something that would never be for me, a reality. With her by my side I understand, "Love makes the world go round" and "All you need is love". Whether I'll also understand the importance of themed colors for reception décor, or the bridesmaid dresses is another thing though. But I did enjoy the cake sampling! However, like the best of men, and many of you here, who've gone before me, I'll endure because I know what I want. And that's to call Julie my wife. We'll see you at the church in ten weeks! Now let's drink!"

Everyone cheered and clinked their glasses together, "To Julie and Junior!"

The smile on Julie's face was worth every sleepless night and broken heart and ill feeling and tear Brynne had shed to get here to this point today. Junior felt the same way.

In the most eloquent Junior-like way it was perfect.

***

*sigh* The wedding is coming together!!!