Brandon's Notebook (A TMMM Bonus Material)

Journal 11: All In

She was giving up a year of her life to me—I wanted to convince her it was going to be worth it, not counting the million dollars she gets out of it. More importantly, I wanted her to be happy. 

Just like everything else in the world, there's a process—a formula—to get her there. A honeymoon to remember, whether we fulfill our marital vows or not, is one of those first crucial steps.

Problem is, I've never been married before. I haven't really had any longterm, serious relationships either. Many of the gifts that went into my brief affairs were courtesy of Marissa's tasteful choices. She knew me well enough to pick something I would get if I had the time and chance to do it. 

Project Honeymoon isn't exactly something I could ask her to plan for me. That just didn't feel right. But she was there to make notes for all the necessary arrangements the plan would require.

As for ideas, there wasn't a shortage of them when one sat in a group of five romantic-hearted women. Well, maybe four, since Marissa was as perfectly neutral as she'd always been in the last eight years she's worked for me. She threw in some suggestions though, and by the time our secret meeting was adjourned, I had enough ideas I could write a guide book to the perfect honeymoon.

Alone at last, I sat in my office and stared at the half a dozen sheets of paper I'd scribbled on, trying to finalize a list. They were all great ideas but I needed only the ones that were, at heart, unique and specific to Charlotte. This was all about her, after all.

I sat there for God knew how long, staring at the wallpaper on my laptop and trying to fathom the girl beaming at me, beyond the pixels that made her up on the screen, and certainly beyond the black text that will link her name with mine on a legally binding document of marriage.

For a girl who wore her heart on the sleeve, Charlotte was an enigma.

It was a late, restless night for me, the list still unfinished, and the sight of her the next day, glowing like the sun but at such a distance I could never get close enough, didn't help my disposition. The fact that she and Jake certainly warmed up to each other well enough that they were as thick as thieves nearly turned me barbaric. 

We were at the church we were getting married at, rehearsing our wedding, and she was giving me the cold shoulder while Jake got her bright smiles and sweet laughter. 

And my traitorous best friend, the one I'd known most of my life and who'd never once tried to steal a girl away from me since it was never worth his trouble and because there were so many others for him to choose from, was soaking it all up. He had a smug grin on his face, tempting me to rearrange it. He wasn't specifically doing it to goad me. It was a no-brainer that he was smitten with my girl, because like me he was completely defenseless against her arsenal of mischievous charms, but he should really try harder to stay away. If he's incapable of it, I'd be happy to bodily remove him from her side and toss him halfway around the world.

I had to tamp down on my temper though. The last thing I wanted was for everyone to notice that Charlotte and I were barely talking to each other when we were just days away from our wedding. After the disastrous engagement party, I didn't want to do anything that would put her in the spot again. Me mending my friendship with Simone had embarrassed her. It probably wouldn't look too good either if I started to systematically dismember Jake for being too friendly with her. So I stood there and bore it, trusting that she would soon satisfy herself with my punishment. 

She'd reluctantly admitted she wanted to linger at the church after rehearsals, to take some pictures and enjoy the countryside scenery, and since I was her fiancé, she couldn't dispute it when I declared that I would stay with her and take her home.