Hope's Chance(70)
Realizing that I was now frantically pushing myself to a breaking point, I cuddled my body back against Hope’s and managed to close my eyes until I finally fell asleep.
Chapter 40
Hope
The next two months flew by. With all of the wedding plans moving in full force, Buffy didn’t leave me much time to study for my classes or spend time with Chance. He had bounced back to his normal routine with ease and after the first week, he was back to repairing things on my dad’s house.
I kept up with my courses the best I could, using my boyfriend as my study partner. I truly believed that he studied for my classes more than I did. During his free time, he started looking into courses he could take the following semester. In the two months that he worked in South Carolina, he had managed to save over ten thousand dollars. He worked on weekends and late at night and since he had nothing to spend his money on, it just kept accumulating. The community college costs were not anything like Penn State, so Chance had plenty to get a good start on courses. He was already two full years ahead of me with credits and I knew that if he had gotten a scholarship to Penn State, than he would excel right past me in academics.
It didn’t matter though, because all I wanted to do was be with him. There were times after running around with Buffy that I would be in the same room as Chance and still miss him. It was something about him that just drew me in. There had been quite a few guys in my classes to ask me out, but none of them compared to my boyfriend. Sure, some of them were good looking, but none held a candle to Chance.
Day after day, we would sneak passionate kisses in the yard behind bushes, or wherever we could. When my father would leave the house for meetings, we would spend the afternoon in the pool house. At least three nights a week, I would either sneak out to be able to sleep next to Chance, or he would sneak in to be with me. There were many times that we weren’t even intimate with each other; we just wanted the closeness. No matter what time of day it was, I was thinking of Chance Avery.
When I turned eighteen, in one month, everyone would finally know our true feelings for one another. Most of them would assume I was too young to know what I wanted, and probably even feel the same way about Chances true intentions, but they would be wrong. I wasn’t na?ve enough to believe that our future held butterflies and rainbows, but I did know that Chance was as in love with me as I was him. We had never really had a sit down discussion about our marriage, but both of us mentioned how much we wanted to always be together.
Today was no different from the rest. I had a math class in the morning and afterwards Buffy and I were going for our dress fittings. I was all too thrilled when she picked out a pink colored dress for me to wear during the ceremony. Even my father and Chance had to wear matching bow ties and vests. Chance thought it was hysterical, saying it was exactly how he envisioned Buffy’s big day. One day he teased me about wearing pink so much that I nudged him unexpectantly in the gut. After he finally stood back up from being hunched over, he promised to leave me alone about it.
I don’t even know why I hated the color so much, but all I knew is that if I ever had a child, who happened to be a girl, she would not be wearing that color.
When class was over, Buff and I headed out to the next town over to the dress shop. She hadn’t picked anything expensive, and I was getting to realize that she was always modest with her spending. Chance told me that she was an excellent money manager and never overspent for anything. He said that Hope had actually found our house behind my dad’s back. He had been looking at newer homes in normal communities, but for what they were asking, my father was able to get double the house and have an extra pool house attached.
When I met her, I assumed she was this stereotypical blonde, hungry for my father’s money and someone to take care of her. After knowing her for a while now, I had found that it was the exact opposite. Buffy took care of my father. She cooked him gourmet meals and managed his finances and always made sure his clothes were in pristine condition. She entertained him, and filled him with laughter every time they were close to each other. Most of all, she was kind and loyal to him and to me. I appreciated her so much and I knew for a fact that she was the best friend I had ever had in my life.
Buffy tried to stay out of mine and Chances relationship. It wasn’t because she wanted to, but because she didn’t want to be involved if my father ever found out.
He and Chance started doing more together. At night, they would have a few beers and watch sport highlights on television. Some days when it was nice, my father would stop Chance from working on the house and take him golfing. I think Chance would have enjoyed it more if he wasn’t always having to look over his back for the idiot Trevor, every time he was at the Country Club.
As he and my father continued to bond, we struggled with the certainty that my dad finding out about our relationship was not going to go over well. We had even had several arguments about that such topic.
I hated fighting with him, but I knew that the closer it came to me being eighteen, the closer I was to possibly losing either my dad or my boyfriend.
Both of those concepts were hard for me to bear.
Chance
Things had really changed in the last two months for me. Mark had been a completely different person. He not only included me in some of his outings with his friends, but he wanted us all to be a family more around the house. Hope and I both took advantage of the situation, knowing we could be together all of the time. The hardest things were not being able to touch each other. Some nights after dinner, we would sit around for hours shooting the shit. It was never that our conversations were boring, but it was hard knowing that we could be somewhere else alone.