'Miss yuo...' I grinned at his purposely misspelled message. Tracey frowned. "Either I'm drunk, or he's drunk." She giggled at his next message. 'I cnnot wait be you husbnd.'
She lightly bumped against my shoulder as the rest of our group clued in on what we were doing. "What's up, Em?" Ashley asked.
Tracey answered for me, "Teren drunk texted her." Ashley raised her eyebrows at that, knowing perfectly well that Teren couldn't get "drunk." I lightly smiled and shook my head at her, reading the next one. Tracey busted up laughing and I turned bright red. 'Cnt wait to fuk you.'
Oh, I was so smacking him for that one. Teren didn't generally talk to me like that...and, while I kind of liked it, I knew he'd done it mainly to amuse my girlfriends. Drunk texting. Just another form of his near constant charade to convince the world he was just a typical guy. How little the world knew.
Tracey beside me was doubled over with laughter as she repeated the text to the entire car. Everyone joined in on the laughs, my mom including, which made my blush deepen and I considered reading the rest when I was alone. Tracey jerked the phone away though and typed in a quick reply. I could only imagine what she'd just told him. Before I could get the phone back, she opened and read the last one. 'Ben's sick...going home.'
I smiled when I saw the message was just ten minutes ago, he'd be home when I got home. Tracey frowned though. "Ben's sick?" She looked over at me, peeved. "How am I supposed to have drunk sex, if he's sick?" She stuck her lip out as she handed me back my phone. "Jerk off," she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest.
The laughing car turned their attention to her and I relaxed. Teren was right, he could fake being drunk, and, except for Hot Ben, everything was fine.
When I finally did get home, I found him in our bedroom with his head tilted to the side, listening intently to something. I knew it wasn't me, since I was clearly in the room with him, and I furrowed my brow for a second. Then he shifted his attention to me and the look of concentration faded as he grinned at me like an idiot. My confusion fell off of me as I took in the adorable look on his face. I raised an eyebrow curiously, as I set my purse down on my nightstand. "What?" I said quietly.
His grin not leaving him, he raised his phone in his hand, the text Tracey had sent open on the screen. Not looking the least bit drunk, since of course, he wasn't, his grin turned devilish. "Really? You're gonna do...that, to me tonight?"
I causally walked up to him standing next to our bed and glanced at his phone. Seeing what Tracey had told him I'd do, my cheeks heated, but looking back at his eager face, I tilted my head and gave him a seductive grin. Not answering him, I simply dropped to my knees.
Teren had the most adorable grin on his face as we got ready to leave for the ranch early the next morning. I really wasn't sure if his grin was because we were getting married tomorrow, or because of what I'd done for him last night. I couldn't keep the grin off my face as I thought about that. Tracey would be so proud of me.
We picked up my sister and then met the others at a gas station on the edge of town. Tracey had on the darkest sunglasses I'd ever seen, and her face was the look of someone who'd already thrown up a couple times this morning. I did sympathize with her; I'd thrown up a couple times this morning as well, just for completely different reasons. We leaned up against each other companionably as Teren filled up his car.
Ashley slung her arm through mine, looking tired, but not nearly as green as Tracey; she hadn't nearly overdone it as much as Trace, or Hot Ben for that matter. The three of us girls watched Teren laugh at Ben and smack him on the shoulder. Ben winced in pain, his eyes covered by equally dark glasses and a hand on his stomach, like he was going to lose it on Teren's shoes. I laughed, remembering what Teren had confessed to me this morning. He'd sneakily switched out all of his drinks for Hot Ben's empty ones. The rest of the guys had either been so drunk, or distracted by the nearly nude girls, that no one had even noticed.
Ben had unknowingly drunken all of his drinks and Teren's as well. It was a miracle that boy could still stand. I told Teren it was a good thing Tracey was never going to find out about that; she'd stake him for sure.
Eventually, Teren explained to a slow looking Ben the general area of where we were going, and Ben shuffled off to his car with an equally slow looking Tracey. As Ashley and I got back in Teren's car, I hoped that Ben could maintain focus long enough to not lose Teren on the highway.
Surprisingly, we all made it to the ranch together. As both cars drove down the super long gravel driveway, we passed under the huge, white wooden arch proclaiming the family name and I sighed contently, knowing I'd soon be a part of that family. Maybe recognizing what my sigh meant, my sister reached up from the seat behind me and slung her arms around my neck. We both giggled while Teren smiled at us.
As we got closer to the spread, I shook my head lightly and took in the beauty that was the Adams ranch. Sitting between the foothills, at the base of Mount Diablo, it was as close to idyllic as one could get. Green trees filled in the cracks between the valleys, where water obviously gathered in streams and pools. Teren and Ben would probably be spending some time this weekend fishing in those watery spots, regardless of the chill in the air. Boys would tolerate all sorts of adverse conditions for their hobbies. Men were weird that way.
Various colored cows lazily munched on some long tan grass, watching us as we passed. Farther in the fields, we could see even more cows basking in the early morning rays. That was one thing the family kept fully stocked on at all times - cattle, food for more than one species.
As we pulled into the driveway, I heard Ashley whistle lowly. "Wow, I don't think I'll ever get used to this place."
I smiled back at her as Teren parked his car beside Halina's sporty European car. I knew exactly what she meant. The place was breathtaking...and huge. It consisted of three buildings, forming a U shape around a pool area in the back. The side buildings were low and long one-stories, while the main building was a huge two-story dwelling that dwarfed Teren's place. Every building was capped with Spanish tile roofs that gleamed blood-red in the sun, symbolic and perfect. The rest of the building was made up of warm, honeyed wood and white stucco walls, embedded with smooth river rocks along the bottom, so it resembled a seamless stone wall, sort of castle-like, and also perfectly symbolic. If any of the humans visiting this weekend realized what kind of people they were really visiting, they'd have found it as humorous as I did, I was sure.
We stepped out of the car as Ben parked beside Teren. He and Tracey stepped out of their car with comically slack jaws. Teren grinned and I giggled at their faces. I suppose I'd looked like that on my first visit too. Locking arms with Ashley, I walked over to a still stunned Tracey. She looked at Teren oddly and then looked over at me, whispering, "You never told me Teren was loaded."
I saw Teren's lip twitch and knew he'd heard that. I grinned and shook my head at her bewildered face. "Because it doesn't matter, Trace." I watched his lips widen as he flashed his eyes to me in-between a conversation with Ben.
Ashley laughed at Tracey's still confused face. Finally Tracey shook her head and said, "Why the hell are you still working for that bitch? You could probably buy the company."
Teren laughed, switching it to a cough mid-chuckle, and I grabbed Tracey's arm leading her to the house she couldn't seem to get over. "They're not that rich...besides, it's his dad's money." I wasn't entirely sure how his family had amassed such an amount, or whose it was technically, although they seemed to live a communal lifestyle...or a "nest" lifestyle, to put it in vampire terms, and probably considered whatever they had to be everyone's. It was sort of a sweet way to live. Assuming everyone liked each other, which luckily, his entire family immensely loved each other, nearly worshipped each other. That was sweet too.
We all followed the granite steps to the huge wooden overhang above the front doors and I noticed the potted roses trailing up each one of the massive support beams holding the structure up. I grinned at the white beauties that the vampire women had put up for me. Nervous-excited energy flitted through me at the thought of tomorrow. Teren reached over and grabbed my hand, hearing my body's change, and registering that I was nervous or excited or maybe both. He smiled at me encouragingly and moved his other hand to open the door.
The door swung in before he had a chance and I suppressed a grin at his mom's impatience. Ben took a step back with the unexpectedness of that, and his face went a shade of green over his sudden movement. Groaning, he put a hand on his stomach and I narrowed my eyes, praying he didn't toss his cookies on my beautiful new roses.
He kept it together though, and slapped on a gorgeous smile that almost made him seem normal, and not on the verge of being sick. I shook my head and turned to greet Teren's...my...family.
"Emma," Alanna beamed, as she, for the first time ever, ignored her son and swept me into her arms first. Her long black hair swished around my body as she humanly slow wrapped me in her cool embrace. I returned the gesture, feeling tears sting my eyes already. Oh, boy, I was never going to make it through this weekend.
She pulled back from me, eyeing me warmly, and then shifted her attention to Teren. He grinned and greeted her just as warmly as she'd greeted me. Yes, one thing this family had in spades, was love for each other.
When she pulled away from him, he swiftly hugged his dad standing at Alanna's side, and then swished his arm out to indicate our friends. "Mom, Dad, this is Tracey and Ben, and of course, you remember Emma's sister, Ashley." Ashley had visited me at the ranch not too long after Teren's conversion. Alanna and Jack gave her soft smiles of acknowledgement before he finished his introductions. "Guys, this is my father, Jack, and his wife, my step-mother, Alanna."
Tracey and Ben threw on polite smiles as they shook Jack's hand and I mentally reminded myself about Teren's cover story. Alanna, Imogen and Halina, all looked too young to be his mother, grandmother and especially, his great-grandmother, so, to the outside world his birth mother had died a few years ago and his father had remarried, to a younger woman no less. Imogen and Halina were being "sold" as Alanna's sisters. That story would work for several years, I suppose, until eventually Teren's never-ending youth would have to have him be Alanna's sibling as well. That would be a weird lie to say, she was just too much a mom to me.
Tracey was looking back and forth between Alanna and Teren, a clearly confused look on her still sickly face. I understood. Alanna and Teren were nearly carbon copies of each other; the resemblance was almost eerie. But he'd just established that he and Alanna weren't blood related. Tracey was trying to figure that out. I smiled, picturing her astonishment when she met the other vampires; they were all eerily similar. That was one unfortunate part of the story. You just had to buy that they weren't related to Teren, even though they looked just like him. Again, I suppose Teren could be altered in the story to be their brother...and again, weird.
With Jack looking ecstatic at having another fishing partner in the house, he clasped Hot Ben on the back, which made Ben wince horribly, and we were all led into the foyer. Tracey let out a low "wow" as she looked around the house. I smiled as I looked around too. The grand double staircase, the beautiful French doors that opened up into the impressive living room, the art along the walls, including the achingly stunning sunset that Halina had painted, and the nak*d, crying woman fountain in the center; it was beautiful and meticulous and classy, much like Alanna.