“Because she always gets weird when Ruby is in town, and now she’s going to be here for... For good?”
“As I understand it,” Marianne said, “Dee and Ruby are really close.”
“Sure,” Jackson said. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t have...sibling stuff there.”
“Sibling stuff,” she repeated, turning to the mirror above the dresser and adjusting her bun.
“I’m just going to take it down,” he said.
She shot him a flat look.
“They’re close in age,” he continued. “It makes it a thing. That’s why Asher drives me nuts,” he said, talking about his brother who was only a year and a half older than him. “I was always so close to everything he did, but not quite as good. Until I outgrew him. And Ruby is...well, she’s Ruby.”
“We’re all close,” Marianne said. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“All right, but I’m going to place bets. Pink hair by Christmas.”
“All right, I’ll take that bet.”
He lay back on the bed, and she cataloged the movements of his muscles as he did. They’d been married for seventeen years. His body was a familiar enough sight, but she still enjoyed it.
It might not be with that same sort of recklessness that had overtaken her when they’d met in their early twenties, but it was definitely there.
She could both check him out and have a conversation with him at the same time.
Necessary, all things considered. They had lives. She couldn’t get lost in lust every time she looked at him.
And there was so much life. Marianne felt buried in it sometimes. Helping Lydia with Riley and Hazel, trying to help shoulder her grief.
“We should have Christmas with your family again this year.”
“Jackson...”
They had a deal that they were supposed to split the holidays between his family and hers, and they’d done Christmas with the McKees last year.
“It’s the first year with Mac gone,” he said, his voice getting heavy at the mention of his brother-in-law. “I don’t think we should miss Christmas Day too.”
Marianne couldn’t disagree with that, but of course if her mother-in-law did, it would be Marianne who heard about it later, not Jackson.
And if her parents weren’t so... So damned terrible when things were dark, then maybe they could just go on as they’d originally planned. But as much as Lydia was distant, and that was her choice, Marianne knew some of it was just the learned coping mechanisms of a McKee.
Her teenage years had been... Grim.
She didn’t even like to think about them. She’d just been so dark and depressed all the time and her parents had left her to it. Ignore it, and it’ll go away.
And Marianne was the oldest, so she was the one they’d made all their major mistakes on. While Ruby, of course, was the fairy princess everyone found a constant delight and who benefited from all their previous years of...
Oh. There were those sibling dynamics Jackson had mentioned.
“Let me deal with my mom,” he said, as if he had read part of her mind.
“Thanks,” she said, flinging her arms around him and bringing them both down onto the bed.
He grinned, moving his hand down to her lower back. “You’re very welcome.”
There were things, and she knew it. Things they needed to talk about. They hadn’t gone on a vacation in years. Getting the store going, getting the online storefront established, kids and school and her family...
And Ava. Lord, Ava. Who was fifteen, volatile and reminded Marianne way too much of herself at that age.