Dirty Little Secrets

I set down a box then sat on top of it as I tried to catch my breath. It was November and the weather was still well into the 90s. But I wouldn’t let that bother me; John and I were finally moving in together. We’d been back together for about six months now and actually found other things to talk about other than the fact we hadn’t been together for nearly seven years.

“I cleaned out this drawer for you,” John said after he set a box beside me and opened the second drawer in his dresser. I just stared at him. “I thought you might say that. Thus, more than half the closet is yours.”

“You’re the best,” I said as I lazily slid onto the bed.

“You’re the bestest.” He lied next to me and I used his arm as a pillow. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just exhausted.”

He laughed. “You seriously brought in, like two boxes.”

I smiled but still kept my eyes closed. “Shut up.” I nestled my head closer to his body as he ran his fingers lightly on my shoulder blade.

“You know, I’m really upset with myself,” he said after a few minutes of silence.

“Why’s that?”

“Because when you were married to Joel, I never once called you Danny Kanny. Or Dan Kan.”

I laughed and finally opened my eyes to look into his. “You’re an idiot.”

His jade green eyes melted then he kissed my nose. “I’m your idiot, though.”

“Yes, unfortunately, you are.”

“Unfortunately?!” He began tickling me and I screamed and tried to thrash my way away from him but all I did was attract the attention from Screech, who jumped on top of me and nipped at my hair.

“Screech! You’re supposed to help me!” John stopped tickling me after I apologized and Screech finally settled down. “I’m glad he likes you.”

“Who?” John asked as I leaned against him and he ran his fingers through my hair. “Screech?”

“Yeah. He never liked Joel. He always growled and barked at him.”

He was silent for a moment and his hand was at a standstill. “What did it feel like?”

“What? Breaking up with him?”

“To put it lightly.”

I let out a deep sigh. “I did all I could to make it work, but it wasn’t going to. I was so relieved when we finally decided it was over.”

“Weren’t you sad? You always seemed so down after that.”

“I was. I felt subpar because I was only married for less than two years. I cared too much about what people would think of me. But I was even more sad because you didn’t want anything to do with me after we...”

“I’m so sorry if I made you feel that way. I wanted you so bad, but not like that. Not while you were married to someone else.”

I didn’t say anything, just looked at him. “I thought we were done talking about this stuff.”

“Now we are.”

****

Daisy’s eighth birthday passed and after than, John left on a two month tour. So it was February and he’d be back at any time and to celebrate, John’s parents were coming over for dinner. Which, normally I would love, but meant I had to cook.

I had Neil Young’s Rockin’ In The Free World playing on John’s record player as I cooked and Daisy sat at the counter behind me dancing in her chair while doing her homework. I turned around with a spoon held up to my mouth and sang, “Keep on rockin’ in the free world! Take it from here, Dais!”

I pointed the spoon at her. “Keep on rockin’ in the free wooorld!”

I went back to cooking and mid-song, it changed to Harvest Moon. “Crazy record player,” I muttered to myself then I was spun around, causing me to drop the spoon on the floor. “John!” I hugged him tightly then kissed him. He continued to slow dance with me. “You just missed Daisy and I’s concert. If you’re lucky, we might do an encore.”

“Oh, I was here,” he laughed and looked back at Daisy. “You got my singing genes, Dais.”

I gaped at him and he laughed again. “Kidding. You have a beautiful singing voice.”

“Whatever. Like anyone could sing to Neil Young and make it sound beautiful.”

He spun me around again and sang, “Because I’m still in love with you, I wanna see you dance again. Because I’m still in love with you, on this harvest moon.”

“Okay, so you can sing to Neil Young and make it sound beautiful,” I said as he smiled and stared into my eyes.

“Marry me.”

I stopped dancing. “W-what?”

“You know, marriage. That thing neither us are good at. The exchange of rings and vows.”

“How am I supposed to accept your proposal if you’re not even on your knee and don’t have a ring?”

He knelt down and pulled a ring box out of his jacket. “What about now?”

“Oh my God... John...”

“Don’t make me wait another eight years. Will you marry me?”

“Yes, of course, yes!” He stood up and kissed me and Daisy gasped and started jumping around.

“Mommy! You’re gonna marry Daddy?”

“Yes, Dais. Mommy and Daddy are getting married!” He slid the ring on my finger. “John, it’s beautiful.”

“It reminded me of you.”

I smiled again and threw my arms around his neck as he twirled me around the kitchen.

John’s parents left after many congratulations and were once again, more than stoked to have me be a part of the family, officially. And after I put Daisy to bed, I curled up in bed and did my daily check ups on social media sites while I waited for John to get out of the shower.

“John, what did you do? Did you do something? I’m getting death threats,” I asked once he opened the door.

“Uh... I don’t know... I could have. But I also might not have.”

Sure enough, he posted a picture of the ring in his hand on instagram.

“Well, good news: you made it to the popular page again. Bad news: you’re a heartbreaker.”

He walked out of the bathroom with just a towel around his waist, his hair still dripping and the smell of his Old Spice filled the room. He laid next to me and put his wet head on my stomach as he took my phone and started scrolling through things.

“I’m sorry. I normally don’t do stuff like that, but I just wanted everyone to know.”

“Did you do this on purpose?”

He looked up at me and my shirt was getting more soaked by the minute. “Of course I did it on purpose. You don’t just accidentally upload pictures to-”

“I mean the day.”

He smiled as he realized what I meant. “Well, not on purpose. Just coincidence, I guess.”

“Can you believe it? Ten years ago today, we were sitting in your backyard on our first date.”

He laughed slightly and I ran my fingers through his hair. “Remember when you dated Kennedy?”

I mocked his laugh. “Remember when you were jealous of Kennedy?”

“Hey. That was uncalled for.”

“No, what I remember is you telling him that if he ever hurt me, that you would come after him.”

“Ah, yes. That was the day he found out that I liked you and asked me if I wanted him to stop seeing you.”

“Why didn’t you want him to stop?”

He shrugged. “I knew you liked Kennedy for so long. I didn’t want to ruin it. You know, it’s funny: I told him that I’d been waiting twelve years for you and what’s another ten. And here we are ten years later.” I didn’t say anything but I leant down to kiss him. “I love you Danielle.”

“I love you, Johnny.”

He sat up and cupped his hand around my neck and kissed me. “Alright,” he said before we got too carried away. “I’m going to get dressed.”

“That won’t be necessary,” I said then pulled his towel off.

****

“Okay, how about Saturday? How do you feel about that?” John asked as he looked through different tabs on the computer.

“Won’t it be a little crowded?”

“There’s like a thousand different places we could go.”

I draped my arms around him and kissed the side of his head. “Saturday’s perfect.”

That evening, after dropping Daisy off with Jen and Papa John, we were on the road. I was in charge of the music, which mostly consisted of David Bowie and Tom Petty, and I also threw in some Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry songs just to see his reaction.

“I miss Daisy already,” I said and stared out at the sunset.

“I think we need to give her a sibling, don’t you?”

I whipped my head quickly to look at him. “Really?”

“Yeah. I think it’s time.” He paused and switched lanes. “How many kids are we going to have?” He asked seriously, considering not knowing something like that caused him to walk away from his previous fiancee.

“As many as I can take before getting tired of childbirth.”

He looked at me several times with a smile on his face. “So like nine?”

“Well, Jared predicted that we’d have five.”

“What? When did he say that?”

“Ten years ago.”

“So do you want to have five? I’m totally content with five,” he said as I intertwined my fingers with his that wasn’t on the wheel.

“I would love to have four more of your children.” He kissed the back of my hand and continued the drive then sang terribly along with Steely Dan’s Reelin’ In the Years. “You’re the greatest person I know.”

“I’m just John.”

We arrived at our destination and checked into our hotel and the next morning, got an unexpected wake up call. The Maine had a show tonight at the MGM Grand with This Century and Eric’s band and none of them knew I was here. So Pat, Jared and Eric were at the door to wake John, and unknowing me as well, up. The plan was to keep me hidden until after the show, but we didn’t really care about the plan anymore; we just wanted to yell at them for waking us up at eight.

“Danny!” Eric shouted after John let them in and saw me still in bed. He jumped on top of me then Jared and Pat continued to dogpile on top of me. “So I’ve been checking my mail everyday,” he started once everyone got off of me. “And I haven’t seen a wedding invitation and I’m starting to worry that it got lost in the mail.”

I laughed then John crawled back under the covers. “No, we haven’t sent any.”

“Okay good. So when is the wedding?”

“Oh,” I looked down at John and we exchanged a small smile. “One of these days.”

“Well hurry up; I’m getting so anxious. Plus, I’m stress eating and soon I won’t be able to fit into the tux I bought.”

“Did you happen to bring your tux with you?” I asked and he whipped his head so fast to look at me I thought it was going to snap off.

“Excuse me,” he said as he inched closer to us and John protectively held me tightly next to him. The three of them were staring at us intently. We ended up spilling the beans about our plans to get married tomorrow at a chapel here in Las Vegas. Eric looked like he was going to have a conniption.

“We didn’t really want to plan a huge thing, and we wanted all of you to be there,” John explained. “And - Jared are you crying?”

“No,” he said quickly and ran his hands over his eyes. “I just can’t believe it’s finally happening.”

“Oh my gosh,” I said and rolled my eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell any of us? We would have brought nicer clothes,” Eric said.

“We didn’t want to make a big deal of it.”

“You two are always so secretive. For a while, it was keeping secrets from each other, now it’s keeping secrets from everyone else,” Eric said. “But I’m glad you guys actually told us and wanted us there.”

“Of course we wanted you guys there.”

“And don’t worry,” Jared started. “We’ll take plenty of pictures for you guys to announce your matrimony if you choose to do so.”

****

Since my attendance was no secret anymore, John decided to announce it to everyone at the concert that night. Turns out, Megan tagged along with Garrett and she, along with everyone that wasn’t in our hotel room earlier, heard through the grapevine that John and I would be tying the knot tomorrow.

“Don’t you want Daisy to see you and John get married? Or Mom and Dad and Ethan?”

“I mean I guess... Daisy has been waiting forever for us to finally do it... And now that I think about it, it wouldn’t be fair if Mom and Dad didn’t get to see us get married... I don’t know; now I feel wrong about the whole thing.”

“Don’t worry; you’re doing the right thing.” She gave me a smile and a hug then I caught John staring at me as he was talking into the microphone.

“Now I’d like everyone to give a warm welcome to my beautiful fiancee, Danny,” he said and waved me out. I shook my head but Megan shoved me out and I had no choice but to walk over to him as people cheered and I gave them a sheepish smile. He kissed my cheek then they started to play Thinking Of You, so I started to walk off stage, but John pulled me back and twirled me around as everyone whooped. He was smiling so much he stumbled on the words and laughed it off as I waltzed myself side stage.

“What’s wrong?” He asked me once we got into the safety of our room. “You’ve barely said anything all night.”

“I don’t know. I was talking to Megan and she got me thinking that maybe we shouldn’t get married... Without Daisy and our parents, I mean.”

“I thought the whole point of doing this was because we didn’t want to make a huge deal about it.”

“I know, I know. But you and I are only going to get married once, hopefully,” I giggled. “And we didn’t want to plan anything and get a fancy cake or pick the flowers or anything like that, but that doesn’t mean that our parents and our daughter can’t see us get married.”

He walked across the room to me and laid on the bed. “If that’s what you want, we won’t get married until everyone can be there.”

“Thank you,” I said and laid next to him then he planted a kiss on my lips.

The next morning, we once again had an unwanted wake up call, but this time it was Daisy climbing all over us.

“Dais, what are you doing here?” I said and grabbed her in my hug.

“Mimi and Pop Pop brought me. Nana and Pepaw are here too.”

“They are?” I asked as my parents and John’s parents walked into the room.

“We heard you were getting married,” John’s dad said and I looked over at John who was stirring out of his sleep, mildly horrified that everyone was in the room, then brightening up to see Daisy.

“You heard correct. But who told you?” John asked as I became confused, since I thought he was the one who threw this together.

“Megan called us,” my mom said and I went over to hug everybody. “Said that you were feeling guilty about doing this behind our backs.”

“Yeah, how could we miss our children’s second weddings?” Papa John said.

****

Even though we didn’t want to plan anything fancy, I did want to wear a wedding dress and he wanted to wear a nice tux. John went into Garrett’s room with the rest of the boys and I was in our room with my mom, Jen, Megan, Jared’s girlfriend Tessa, Kennedy’s girlfriend Gabby, and Daisy.

“Knock, knock,” we heard and looked towards the door to see Dirk coming in.

“Dirk!” I exclaimed and ran over to hug him.

“How can you get married and not tell your best friend?” He said and twirled me back into the room. “Oh my God. This dress is beautiful on you.” He picked up his camera from around his neck and snapped a few pictures. “John is going to die seeing you in this.”

“Well let’s hope not. I kinda want to marry him before he dies.”

“Alright are you ready?” My mom asked and it looked like she was about to cry.

“Mom, please don’t cry. We’re getting married in a chapel in Vegas for crying out loud.”

“I’m just so happy you finally pulled your head out of your ass and are marrying the right guy.”

“And he’s marrying the right girl,” Jen said and we headed downstairs.

The guys were all downstairs when we got there and John was talking to Jared with his shoulders up higher than they were normally, like they always were when he was nervous. Jared nodded in my direction and he turned to look and took a double take when he realized it was me. His shoulders softened and his mouth turned into his crooked smile.

“Hi,” he said once we reached each other.

“Hi,” I responded with a crooked smile of my own. He moved my hair out of my face and stroked my jaw as I grabbed onto his arm, as if to keep it there.

“Wow, you look... You look beautiful, Danny.”

“You look beautiful as well, John.”

He looked down and when he looked back at me, he was biting his lip, then took my hand and kissed my fingers.

“So who’s it gonna be? Elvis?”

I laughed. “Of course. I didn’t come to Vegas to not be married by Elvis.”

“Alright then. Shall we?” He looked down at me and stood beside me then stuck out his arm for me to loop mine through. “How are your feet?” He asked as we led our huge 24-person party towards the Graceland Chapel.

“Warm and toasty. Yours?”

“On fire.” He kissed the top of my head and we entered the small chapel, and the lady at the counter brought up our reservation.

She walked to the back and opened a door. “Mr. Presley, the O’Callaghan-Nunn wedding is here.”

John took his place after being told to do so along with his groomsmen (Eric, Jared, Ross, Shane, Garrett, Kennedy and Pat) and my bridesmaids (Megan, Tessa, Gabby and Dirk for the hell of it).

Elvis started singing a song and Daisy, my mom and dad walked with me down the aisle and it felt like I was floating towards John. I’d never seen him look happier than he was now. We’d been waiting for this moment for more than twenty years.

“Do you, Danielle, take John to be your lawfully wedding husband, in sickness and in health, til death do you part?”

“Of course I do.” John squeezed my hand and his eyes melted into mine.

“And do you, John, take Danielle to be your lawfully wedded wife, in sickness and in health, til death do you part?”

“I do,” he said and put on his crooked smile.

“Then by the powers vested in me, I can now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride.”

He put his arms around me as he leant down to kiss me. I put my arms around his neck and he picked me up as I saw bright flashes of everyone’s cameras through my closed eyes. He set me back on the ground and we both had the biggest smiles on our faces. John picked up Daisy and kissed her cheek as she hugged him tightly. He took my hand and led me out of the chapel and I saw Joel sitting in one of the pews next to his girlfriend Kat. We didn’t say anything, but he gave me a small smile as if to say that he was as happy as I was.

-One Month Later-

Married life fit John and I well. Nothing was really different than before, other than my last name.

“Hey, we’re here,” John said softly and shoved me a little bit. “Were you sleeping? It’s only a fifteen minute trip to your parents’ house.

“I’ve just been so tired lately, you know,” I said and tried to get the sleepiness out of my eyes.

“I know, I know.” He came around to my side of the car and helped me get out as Daisy ran ahead and went inside. He grazed my stomach and I caught him looking at it and smiling. “Are you ready to tell them?”

“As ready as I was the first time.”

John smiled his famous crooked smile and held my hand as we walked inside.

The end.