Brian took another sip of his red wine as he pretended to listen to the ongoing conversation around him. He couldn’t really concentrate on anything at the present moment. AJ and Felicity had yet to arrive and he couldn’t help but wonder what they were doing. It had been hard for Brian the last couple days with Felicity back in his life. He already felt bad about what he did to her, but watching as every once in a while she’d look at him with all that hurt she felt made him feel like the lowest person in the world. But the thing that got to him the most was the affection displayed between AJ and Felicity. He had come to the final conclusion that he was indeed jealous of their relationship, the same way anyone would be jealous of someone having a relationship with someone you once loved.
“Well look who finally decided to join us,” Nick said causing Brian to break his train of thought. He looked up to see Felicity and AJ walk up to their table hand-in –hand. Felicity looked breathtakingly beautiful as usual. She was wearing a short sparkly, red spaghetti strap dress with a sheer piece of red fabric hung over her shoulders and matching red strap shoes. Her long hair was swept up into a French twist with a couple pieces hanging down to frame her face. Lastly, her make-up was light with just a little lip-gloss added to enhance her lips. Brian always did love her in red; she could always pull it off so well.
“Sorry we’re late,” AJ said as he pulled a chair out for Felicity to sit it. She nodded a thank you to him and sat down.
“What took you so long? Were you two ‘reading’ again?” Howie teased. Everyone looked at AJ waiting for an explanation of the joke, but he just waved it.
“No Howie, we were doing more adult things and kind of lost track of time, if ya know what I mean,” AJ replied with a wink as he sat down next to Felicity. Her face turned almost as red as her dress and she quickly slapped AJ on his arm.
“Alex!” she exclaimed giving him a look.
“Baby, they I know I’m just kidding.” Felicity continued to give him a look but it softened when he reached over to kiss her lips lightly.
There it was again, that feeling of jealousy that arose every time Brian saw the affection between the two. He didn’t want to see it, but he could never look away.
“Actually,” AJ went on as he pored a glass of wine for himself and Felicity from the bottle that sat in the middle of the table, “It was Felicity’s sisters fault. She called like two seconds before we were about to leave.”
“Excuse me but that was a very important call,” Felicity said with a smile. “It’s not everyday your little sister gets engaged.”
Brian about spit out his drink once he heard that. “Little Sara is getting married?” he asked astonished. Felicity looked over at him with a looked at Brian at a loss for words. He had never actually directed a word towards her except for hello or hey since she joined AJ. She had almost forgotten he was there until he spoke.
“Umm… yeah,” Felicity said softly looking down.
“Wow,” Brian said taking another sip of his wine, “she was like 13 the last time I saw her.”
“Didn’t you see her when Felicity saw us in Kentucky Rok?” AJ asked Brian.
“Wait a minute, that was her? Man she sure has grown up.”
“Who is she getting married to?” Leighanne asked as she scooted closer to Brian. Felicity watched as the two got closer and felt that familiar feeling of jealousy creep up on her. She quickly shook it off and went into her purse to get her wallet.
“Jimmy’s father, Eric,” Felicity said pulling out a picture of the three of them and handing it to Leighanne. Brian also looked at the picture and a new stream of questions formed.
“How old is Jimmy?” he asked.
“He’ll be five next month,” Felicity responded as she took a sip of the wine AJ had just poured for her.
“How old was she when she had him?” Leighanne inquired as she handed the picture back to Felicity.
“Sixteen. They were together since their freshmen year.” Felicity paused and looked directly at Brian. “After graduation, I tried to tell her that high school relationships never work out, she was just going to get hurt in the long run, but she ignored me. Somehow they made it through and I think they would of made it even if Jimmy wasn’t in the picture. They were lucky.”
Felicity’s words stuck Brian right were it hurt. He hung his head low in shame. How could he have hurt her so bad? Would she ever be able to forgive him?
The waiter then came and took their orders, ending the conversation. The rest of the night went fairly well. Felicity didn’t speak much, unless she was asked a question. Every once and a while Brian and Felicity would catch each other’s eyes and they would both quickly look away. After the uncomfortable stare, Felicity would kiss AJ on the cheek and he would return with a kiss on the lips. Eventually, Felicity had too much with the situation and wanted to get away for a moment.
“I’ll be right back,” she whispered to AJ as she stood up.
“Don’t be to long,” he replied taking her hand and kissing it softly. Felicity was about to leave the table when a voice called after her.
“Wait Felicity, can I go with you?” Leighanne asked. Felicity looked back at Leighanne and nodded apprehensively. “I’ll be right back sweetie,” Leighanne said kissing Brian’s cheek before quickly catching up to Felicity. “I hope you don’t mind. I just thought this might give a chance to talk. You and AJ are always so hung up on each other I never get to say a word to you.”
“Alex and I are just in that stage I guess,” Felicity said softly.
“I know what you mean. That time when you can’t get enough of each other. Brian and I are still kind of in that stage,” Leighanne replied with a giggle. Felicity laughed in response to be polite but on the inside she was screaming. She did not want to hear about their love life what so ever.
Felicity walked out of the bathroom stall and moved to the sink where Leighanne already was reapplying some lipstick.
“So,” Leighanne said breaking the silence of the room, “how long did you and Brian date?”
Felicity immediately turned to look at the other woman a look of shock on her face. She couldn’t find the words to speak for a few moments until a tiny “excuse me” slipped out.
“Don’t worry, I’m ok with it. Brian didn’t tell me or anything, but he is really bad at lying to me.”
Felicity looked down and swallowed the forming lump in her throat. Having dinner with President Bush and Osama Bin Laden would probably be the thing that was more uncomfortable than this moment. With a shaky hand, Felicity pushed back a strand of hair behind her ear. “Umm, a little over three years,” she finally replied softly.
“Really?” Leighanne asked a little surprised. “He never even mentioned having a girlfriend in high school. How come you two broke up?”
Felicity let out a huge breath and looked down. “Look Leighanne, I know you are just tying to be nice, but with you being Brian’s wife and everything I don’t think it would be the best thing if we talked about this.”
“I understand,” Leighanne said with a smile. “But let me tell you, I know how Brian can be. He’s pretty sweet at times, but he doesn’t really understand women that much. He was probably really bad during high school.”
‘If you only knew,’ Felicity thought to herself.
“I really want us to be friends Felicity. It’s obvious that your going to be around for a while, AJ really seems to like you.”
Felicity looked at the kind woman and couldn’t help but smile. She liked Leighanne; she was extremely nice and always had a smile on her face. The only thing that Felicity was really missing on her trip with the boys was a female to gossip with. As much as she loved AJ, he could never replace a good girlfriend to go shopping with.
“Ok,” Felicity said with a small smile. “But I would really appreciate it if you didn’t mention this whole Brian and me thing to Alex.”
“Ummm… ok,” Leighanne said slowly. “Do you mind if I ask why?”
Felicity let out a sigh and went to run her fingers through her hair, but stopped once she remembered that it was up. “AJ knows what happened between us but he doesn’t know it was Brian. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah. So I take it if he did know it was Brian it might cause some tension?”
“Yeah,” Felicity said rolling her eyes. “Let’s just say if I knew what and who Alex was involved with, things would be a lot different.”
“Really?” Leighanne asked taken back.
“Brian and I ended badly… Very badly. If I would of known him and Alex were in the same group, I defiantly would of never agreed to seeing Alex again.”
“Do you regret not knowing?”
Felicity thought to herself for a moment. She did love Alex with all her heart and was grateful for all the time she was able to spend with him, but being around Brian again was defiantly taking a toll on her emotionally. “I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “I guess we’ll have to see what happens in the long run.”
The two then left the bathroom and headed back towards the table, giggling at a conversation that they overheard on the way back. Felicity sat down next to AJ and he gave her a small kiss on her cheek.
“What are you two laughing about?” AJ asked her and Leighanne.
“Nothing much, just that the guy over there got crabs from the girl he is with,” Leighanne said nonchalantly causing Felicity to almost spit out the sip of wine she had just taken. The two girls broke out into another fit of giggles and their significant others stared at them with perplexed looks on their faces.
“What was that all about?” Brian asked as he but his arm around Leighanne. Felicity’s giggles immediately died down and she went back to quite mode. Leighanne animatedly described the scene they had just passed. The whole table roared with laughter as she told of how the man jumped out of his seat and yelled at the girl he was with just as a plate with a large crab was placed in front of them.
Dessert was soon brought, a delectable chocolate moose filled pastry topped with hot fudge. As one was placed in front of each person, Felicity felt herself shiver with disgust. She was the last one to get a plate and she was about to refuse it, when in front of her was placed a slice of cheesecake topped with strawberries.
“I ordered one for you because I know how you are about chocolate,” AJ whispered in her ear. Felicity looked at him and whispered “thank you.”
“Felicity, why didn’t you get the chocolate dish?” Howie asked as he placed some in his mouth.
“I’m allergic to chocolate,” she said before she ate a piece of the cheesecake.
“Allergic to chocolate!” Nick exclaimed. “I didn’t know that was humanly possible.”
“It is trust me,” AJ said. “We were walking past the chocolate factory at the mall once and she almost threw up right there. Even the smell makes her nauseous.”
Brian started laughing and Felicity looked at him with curious eyes. “I can still remember that time you ate my mom’s brownies,” Brian said still laughing. Felicity forgot herself for a moment and soon was laughing right along with him, shaking her head.
“So Felicity comes over to do some homework one day,” Brian said telling the group the story. “It was the first time my mom had ever met her, so she thought she would make a good first impression and bake some brownies.”
“I didn’t want to seem rude, so I ate a brownie,” Felicity said laughing.
“More like four brownies,” Brian cut in.
“Your mom was being so nice and they were good, I couldn’t resist. I ended up staying home the next week because they made me so sick.”
“When my mom asked why she was sick, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was because of the brownies,” Brian explained laughing.
“Don’t you dare tell what happened next Littrell,” Felicity said playfully warning him.
“So my mom goes over there and brings her a plate of brownies.” Brian paused and Felicity put her head in her hands. “Felicity opens the door, takes one whiff of the brownies, and throws up all over my poor mother.”
A roar of laughter erupted and, even thought she was extremely embarrassed, Felicity couldn’t help but laugh right along with them. She raised her head from her hands just in time to catch Brian’s eyes with her own. The two immediately stopped laughing and the momentary laps in their tension had ended. Felicity looked down as the others finished laughing and thankfully started on a new topic of conversation. During the rest of the dinner, Felicity didn’t say anything and tried her hardest not to look at Brian. However the latter of the tasks was extremely hard for her. Brian continued to look at her and every time they met eyes she could see him pleading for forgiveness.
Felicity was extremely relieved when she got in the limo after dinner and Brian and Leighanne got into another one to go back to the hotel. Being the only female with four boys, she was the first inside and immediately tucked herself in a corner and closed her eyes. She almost broke down at dinner. Seeing Brian looking at her wanting her to forgive him, she wanted nothing more to do so.
Chapter 10
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