You and Only You

“Happy birthday,” Kennedy said sweetly as I opened my eyes and looked straight into his.

“God I’m getting so old,” I complained and threw the covers back over my head. I didn’t want to wake up yet.

“Skylar, you’re 22, that’s hardly old. And my birthday was two months ago! If you’re old then I’m old.”

“You’re old too!” I said from under the covers.

“Oh that’s it, you’re gonna get it now.” He straddled me and started tickling me. I tried to get away but it was no use.

“Alright, alright! I give up!” I threw the covers off and leaned up to kiss him quickly on the lips. “Thanks baby. Now where’s my present?”

“Oh, I see where your priorities are.” He rolled his eyes and got out of bed before leaving the room.

I leaned back on the pillows and closed my eyes while I waited for him to come back. I felt a weight on my stomach before I heard anything. I opened my eyes and saw Noah sitting on me, grinning wide.

“Hi Noah,” I said and gave him a big kiss. “You’re a great birthday present.”

He started playing with my hair until Kennedy sat down on the end of the bed. Then I was forgotten as Noah crawled over to his daddy. I still couldn’t believe that he was crawling. It was so amazing watching him grow and do new things all the time, but it was also scary how fast he was growing.

I remember when he first started crawling. It was a couple days after Halloween. I was sitting in the front room watching TV while he was playing with some blocks and all of the guys came over for dinner after some type of band meeting, and as soon as Noah saw Kennedy walk through the door he took off towards him. I watched him with my mouth wide open but that soon turned into a smile. I was glad that we had both been able to see it at the same time because Kennedy had already missed a couple of things while he had been on tour. I didn’t want him to miss anything else.

Kennedy and I spent the morning just hanging out and playing with Noah and we went out with my parents for lunch. After lunch was over my parents took Noah for the night and Kennedy and I went home to spend some alone time together before getting ready to go out that night. Instead of having a huge party we were just going to hit a couple local bars with all the guys and some other friends. I was excited to go out and have some fun and I was glad that we were doing something different instead of having a party at Max’s place like we did for everything else.

I took my time getting ready and I put on the gorgeous new dress that I had bought just for the occasion. When I was done getting dressed Kennedy and I headed out to the first bar where we were all meeting up.

I saw Macy first and she gave me a big hug and wished me happy birthday. I was bombarded by more hugs and more birthday wishes and Jared was the first to buy me a shot. All the guys made sure that I was never without a drink and I was definitely feeling the consequences. The last time I had really drunk alcohol was at Kennedy’s birthday. I wasn’t much of a drinker now that I had a kid to look after. But Noah was a thousand times better than alcohol could ever be.

I practically stumbled out to the dance floor area with Macy and AJ and a couple of the other girls as one of my favorite songs started playing. All the guys stayed at our table and just watched with amused eyes.

We got through the first song without any problems, but that changed almost as quickly as the song did. I was dancing happily with my girlfriends when I felt a hand on my hip. At first I thought it was Kennedy so I turned around with a half smile that soon turned into a frown. My eyes fell on the face of an unfamiliar drunk guy who was getting closer and closer. I stepped out of his hold and tried to walk away. But apparently it wasn’t going to be that easy. He followed me and grabbed me tighter this time, pulling me into his chest.

“Come on baby, let’s dance,” he slurred right into my ear.

“Get off of me.” I struggled to get out of his grasp but I was already drunk and he was a lot stronger than I was. He was gripping my hips tighter than ever and I literally couldn’t move out of his grasp. His other hand was running up and down my thigh and I seriously wanted to puke. I didn’t know what to do. I was still struggling to get out of his hold when all of a sudden he was just gone. I opened my eyes and saw Kennedy standing there with an outraged look on his face.

“Get the fuck away from her man,” he said, trying to stay calm, but I could tell it wasn’t working very well. The other guys were up now too and I moved as far away from the creeper as I could. I saw John first so I immediately went towards him and hid, while Kennedy was still yelling at the guy, trying to get as far away from him as possible.

“You don’t own her man,” the creeper slurred.

“She’s my fucking fiancée!” he shouted.

“Doesn’t mean you own her,” he shoved Kennedy and started walking towards me again.

“Hey man, settle down. I think it’s time for you to go home,” John tried calmly, putting his hand out to stop the guy.

“Fuck you man, don’t tell me what to do.” He pushed John’s hand out of the way and for some reason was still trying to come towards me even though there was a large group of guys there trying to keep him away from me.

Kennedy was now fuming after being shoved and he came up behind the guy, who was at least three or four inches taller than him, and tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey you asshole.”

The guy turned around and took Kennedy by surprise, throwing a punch and making Kennedy stumble back as the fist collided with his face.

But as soon as the guy turned back around, John’s fist was flying through the air and colliding with the guy’s nose. I heard a sickening crunch and moved even closer to John. I leaned into his side and he wrapped his arm around me. I didn’t want there to be some huge brawl in the middle of the bar just because some drunken idiot was trying to hit on me.

Kennedy regained his balance and hit the guy in his face. I wanted to call out and beg him to stop but luckily the bouncer came over and things ended there. He escorted the drunken creeper out of the bar and I breathed a sigh of relief.

I immediately went over to Kennedy to make sure that he was okay and I kissed his cheek and his eye where it was already starting to bruise. “You’re gonna have a black eye babe. You should put some ice on that. But thanks for defending my honor.”

“Anything for you.” He kissed me on the lips and I smiled at him.

Kennedy went to the bar to get some ice and I went over to where John was standing and wrapped my arms around him in a huge hug. “Thanks John,” I said while my arms were still wrapped around him. I pulled away from the hug and looked at his hand, which was all red and I knew there was going to be a bruise there too.

I stood there and talked to John for a little bit longer and somehow our conversation ended with him buying me a shot. So we ended up at the bar with salt on our hands, a shot of tequila and a lime not far away.

“One, two, three,” John counted and we took our shots together.

“Ugh, give me your lime. Mine didn’t cut it,” I complained as I made a face from the taste of the tequila. I grabbed it out of his hand and tried to cover up the taste of tequila on my tongue. “Why does it always have to be tequila with you?”

“Because it’s spicy! Like you!” he yelled drunkenly and I just laughed. It was like I had forgotten all about what had happened with the drunken idiot and I was having a good time again on my birthday with John.

“Thanks again John. Really,” I said and hugged him again.

“Anything for you,” he said genuinely, looking deeply into my eyes and I swore I could see something there. It was like I was hypnotized and I couldn’t look away.

That is until I heard someone clearing their throat a couple feet away.