next to Dakota. Her mother was talking to his mom, and everyone seemed too focused on the two of them to have noticed her very forced reentry.
Kaylee started wiggling to get down, and while she wanted the extra comfort from holding her baby sister, Cally didn’t have much of a choice but to let her go. Dakota leaned over and whispered in her ear, “What was all that about?”
It seemed her near escape attempt wasn’t completely unnoticed. She just prayed that it didn’t extend to the two sets of parents that were currently planning out her life. “I was trying to run from her, she’s going to kill me,” Cally answered with half the truth of what was running through her mind.
She watched his face and knew he didn’t believe her for a second. He was going to ask them later, but the truth was once she had seen Savannah, she just knew she was going to be roadkill, so she started running. She just wasn’t going to mention that the other reason she was going to run was because his parents were here talking to hers, and she felt completely lost in this mess.
When Cally saw Savannah and Jay starting back toward the front door, another hard, fast wave overtook her. She was ready to run, and the only thing holding her still was Dakota’s arm on her shoulders. He leaned over and whispered, “She won’t do anything.”
Yeah, that’s what he thought. The sister from Hades was going to flat out kill her when they were alone.
Her father was feigning some interest by asking, “Where are you two going?”
Savannah shot her an evil look and then looked innocently to him. “We’re meeting up with some friends to hang out.”
Their parents never asked where they were going or when they would be back unless someone else was around. They really didn’t care unless they needed one of them to watch Kaylee, which was more often than they admitted. She looked over at Dakota and just waited for them to leave. She clearly wasn’t going anywhere unless Dakota said so, and she had no interest in even being here with this group planning out her life like this.
Giving up, she just sat there, still and quiet, while everyone seemed to plan what was going to happen to her life—when they would get the license and how they would schedule the wedding, what everyone was going to wear and who would be there, and everything that they would need to do and get. It seemed Dakota and both of their parents were planning everything, and all she had to do was sit there and let them. Clearly, she wasn’t going to get a say in any of this.
After a while, she just gave up. She had stopped caring what they were saying and planning. It was clear she wasn’t going to get a say in anything, so she just sat there and watched Kaylee playing on the floor. It had to have gotten late, because her little sister started getting tired and carried around her “nite-nite” blanket. Cally used it as an excuse to get up, anything to get away from what was going on. Yeah, sit here and listen to five people planning out her life for her or putting her baby sister to bed? No contest.
She picked her sister up and carried her to bed. Cally put on her favorite Barney movie and the three-year-old laid down without a fuss. She slunk down to the toddler bed, and as much as she despised that damn dinosaur, she started watching it. Kaylee was asleep, almost instantly, but she had no desire to go back out there and decided that Barney was the lesser of the two evils right now.
She knew she had gotten away with hiding longer than she should have. She just didn’t want to go back out there and wasn’t going to unless someone came in here and told her that she had to. No one needed her, and she doubted anyone even knew she was gone. When she had left, Dakota was just as deep in the conversation as the rest of them, and they hadn’t even gotten to the part she knew was going to spark an argument—her moving into his parent’s house after they got married. She still didn’t understand that one; what did it matter where she lived?
Cally wished that she could get to her own room without anyone seeing her; even to Savannah’s room would be better than this. When she looked up, it was to see Dakota standing in the doorway watching her. She looked at him, questioningly, still not sure what to say.
“You want to get out of here?” he asked in his deep rich voice and seeming to know something that she didn’t.
Cally just huffed, “Do I have to sit out there listening to them all night?”
He shook his head. “I was thinking we could meet up with Jay and everyone, maybe hang out for a little while.”
She couldn’t help but chew on her bottom lip as she debated that one. Where there was Savannah, there was a party, and where there was a party, there was sure to be something to take her mind off this insanity. Getting out of here tonight sounded like the best thing to happen to her all day; at least from her mindset, it would be the best thing to happen since he sprang this marriage proposal on her.
She pulled herself up and headed out the front door with Dakota on her heels. No one seemed to notice or care that they had left. The truth was she really didn’t want to go back in there, and any excuse to get away from all that was a good excuse at this point.
They were pulling out of the drive when she finally asked, “Why didn’t they say something when we left?”
“I knew you had enough, so I told them we were going to go out for a while to celebrate.”
“Where are we going?” she puzzled, praying that it wasn’t going to involve more wedding plans or people that would want to kill her.
“They went up to the boardwalk. Most of them have to work tomorrow, but those that don’t will be there.” He laughed. Yeah, murdered at the boardwalk! She could see the headlines now: “Sister Kills Sister Surrounded by Thousands of Families with Young Children that Are Now Scarred for Life.” Details at eleven.
They pulled onto the main drag of the overcrowded beach town, and it was clearly packed with tourists. But when they got down to the end of the long street, she saw a parking spot, and they pulled in. Three cars down were three black trucks, all with their gates down and a good sized group sitting there, laughing and talking. These were not her normal school friends; they were Savannah’s. Most of them were either twenty or twenty-one and had all gone to school together. Cally was the youngest in the group, and she never really fit in, except with Dakota.
The first person she saw was Savannah in the back of Jay’s truck, talking and laughing with a group she didn’t know. Jay was standing next to the truck as they walked up, and when his eyes met the two of them, she felt like lead weights had just been added to her soul. All he did was, at that point, hold his drink up and loudly cheer, “Congratulations!”
Everyone looked at the couple, and most started cheering, and one asked, “What’d I miss?”
Savannah looked as evil as the devil as she hissed, “They’re engaged, and from what I hear, their getting married before the summer’s out.”
Cally hated being the center of attention, and right now, she was and she wanted nothing more than to run and hide in the darkest hole she could find. Cally sat on the back of one of the trucks as everyone started talking again, and she seemed to fade from their minds. She watched as one of the guys gave her a hard evil look as he stormed off.
She looked back to one of Savannah’s friends and asked, “What was that about?”
She leaned in and handed Cally a drink as she questioned, “You don’t remember, do you?”
She shook her head as the girl quietly explained, “When we took you to that party a few months ago, you were talking to him for a while before you started talking to Dakota. He got furious and walked out. A few of us went after him. He and Dakota nearly got into a fight over it.”
Cally looked back to the retreating figure, not remembering what had happened that night. “I didn’t know that.”
The girl just laughed. “I’m surprised you remember anything from that night.”
She couldn’t help but laugh as she opened the can saying, “They said it was just 7-UP. I didn’t know.” They had fed