Read Happy Birthday to Me Again (Birthday Trilogy, Book 2) for Free Online Page B

me. “I really, really want this year to
be over.”
    “Thirty more
minutes.”
    “You’re not
gonna turn me into a mouse when the clock strikes twelve, are you?”
    Tommy and
especially Kimber gave me confused glances.
    “I’ll try not
to,” she said with an awkward smile before turning around. “What do you say,
Kimber? Another round?”
    “Nah, I’m bored.
Come on, Tommy. Let’s go hang out in my room.”
    I stopped the
two lovebirds in their tracks, holding my right arm out like it was a gated
fence. “No way in hell. You guys are staying where I can see you.”
    But Kimber
catapulted herself through my arm before I could stop her. “You’re one to talk,
Cam. You just turned eighteen and you’re already getting married !”
    I didn’t say
anything back as Kimber pulled Tommy into her bedroom down the hall and slammed
the door behind her.
    I smiled at
Liesel. “They’ll be fine.”
    She nodded.
“Sure they will.”
    We made our way
upstairs, where my parents were watching the countdown on one of the local news
stations, drunk from a couple of bottles of white wine.
    My mom shifted
in her seat, petting our cockapoo Cinder on her lap, and smiled at the two of
us. “You guys ready? It’s almost midnight.”
    “More than
you’ll ever know, Mom.”
    My dad turned
toward Liesel and me and furrowed his eyebrows, suggesting he was disgusted
with the wine, the television program, or the two of us. “Hey you two.”
    “Hey Dad.”
    Liesel crossed
her arms and took a few steps back. “I’m gonna use the bathroom,” she said and
made her way down the hallway.
    “I’ll just be
here!” I shouted.
    “Cameron, can I
ask you a question?” my dad asked, pouring himself his umpteenth glass of wine.
My mom stared at him with trepidation.
    “What, Dad?”
    “You know I love
you, and you know I want you to be happy,” he said, drinking his wine more like
he would a glass of water. “But come on… Cam… marriage ?”
    “Honey, let’s
talk about this later,” my mom said, raising her voice, my dog jumping up on
her lap like she could tell the mood around her was turning sour.
    “I know you’ve
been through a lot,” my dad continued. “I mean, we all have. But you’re barely
eighteen. It’s a little premature, don’t you think?”
    I just shook my
head. I couldn’t believe my dad was talking to me this way minutes before New
Year’s. Liesel and I had crashed a party an hour earlier at the house of a guy
named Clark, but police broke it up before the clock struck eleven. Wesley
alerted me to a party downtown, but Liesel and I decided to just trek back up
to my place, a decision that I was at this moment regretting.
    “Dad, it’s
simple. I love her. And she loves me. And I’m not interested in wasting another
ten years of my life trying to make myself believe there’s another girl out
there for me. Remember. I’ve seen my entire life flash before my eyes. Life is
short… fleeting. I don’t want to spend a single second of my time without
Liesel.”
    “You really love
her, don’t you?” my mom asked.
    “With all my
heart. She saved my life, after all.”
    My parents
looked at me a little perplexed as I felt warm, inviting breath hit the back of
my ear. “Cameron…” It was Liesel. She brought her hands to my arm.
    “Yes?”
    “You want to go
outside?”
    I turned around
and tried to keep myself from kissing her right there in front of my parents.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
    She followed me
out into the freezing cold—it was barely twenty degrees outside—but
the air still somehow felt warmer than it had around the pessimistic parents,
who still, after everything I’d been through last spring, would question
something as important as my decision to get married. I didn’t care how young I
was. I had made up my mind. This April, soon after Liesel’s nineteenth
birthday, we were going to be named husband and wife. And there was nothing
anybody could do to stop us.
    The wind