“You worry too much. I’m fine. Tell me about your interview.”
“There’s not much to tell. It’s just private security. The pay is decent and I’ll be closer to home.”
“Define private security for me. How dangerous is that?”
“Now who’s the worrier? Compared to what I was doing before, it’s a breeze.”No one will shoot me in the leg, so there’s that.
Dad watches me for a beat before turning his eyes back to the dance floor. On the other side, tucked into a corner, Julia laughs at something Sally is saying as she grips the champagne bottle by the neck. I’m trying to place what’s changed about her. It’s not that she looks different. She’s always been stunning; so beautiful that it hurts to look at her, but there’s something steely and hard about her I don’t remember.
Lukas and his fiancé head in our direction, and my best friend drops into the empty seat next to me. He grabs my shoulder, shaking me.
“I’m so glad you’re home, man! This is going to be so much fun. If you don’t get that job, just come work at the auto shop with me. Asher’s been a crabby fuck lately.”
“Mm… As tempting as that sounds, I’m not sure I can just jump into life as a mechanic.”
“Then come sell romance novels for me,” Parker chimes in with a bright smile.
Lukas laughs, “He’s too grumpy for sales.”
“Ha! Tell that to all the horny house wives that shop at my bookstore. They love grumpy bastards. No offense, Mateo.”
“None taken,” I tip my beer toward her in a salute. “I know my brand.”
On the far side of the tent, Julia presses the bottle of champagne to her lips, tipping it up. The smooth column of her throat stretches up as she swallows and I can’t look away. Fucking torture. How the hell am I supposed to imagine her as my sister in that dress? I can still feel the curve of her lower back against my hand like a traitorous dream.
I’ve known her since we were toddlers. Lukas and I are a year older than her and were all but inseparable from the day we met. But Julia was almost always trailing after us, digging in the mud, playing in my tree house, and annoying the shit out of us. But as we got older, it got harder and harder to see her as one of the boys. Even as a lanky little tomboy, she was a firecracker with a short fuse. And once her curves started filling in… I was fucked.
“She’s like a sister to me,” became my own personal chant of self-preservation. Because even if she hadn’t been hung up on Javier, she was still my best friend’s little sister and that put her firmly out of bounds. It’s always hard to see Julia, and I knew coming into it that this wedding would be no exception. It’s just worse than I expected. A sharp reminder of everything I’ll never have.
The DJ announces the last song of the night and the bride/groom send-off. People line up to see Olive and Brooks off on their honeymoon. I don’t miss the way Javier dogs after the wedding planner or the way Julia rolls her eyes at him. Part of me hopes that the wedding planner is headed to Antarctica next and Javier will just chase her all the way there.
* * *
Idrive Dad back to his house, parking in the dark driveway and peering up at the house. It’s so big and empty. I hate the thought of him alone in there all the time. Before Mom died, that house was the perfect size for the four of us, but she took a lot of the light with her and then it was just the three of us. Javier wasted exactly half a second before running off to New York on his soccer scholarship. A few years later I joined the Navy, not exactly out of necessity, but it was that, or a mountain of student debt that I couldn’t stomach. And that left Dad, rattling around alone in a four-bedroom house with half an acre of property to care for. We tried to get him to downsize, but he wouldn’t hear of it. It was the house he and Mom bought as newlyweds and I’m pretty sure nothing, short of a court order and a pry bar, would shake him loose.
Grabbing my duffle bag from the backseat, I follow Dad up the front steps.
“Thanks for letting me stay here, Pops.”
Dad unlocks the door and gestures me inside. “Happy to have you home. You stay as long as you want. You’re not cramping my style or anything.”
“Cramping your style? What would that entail exactly?”
“My style? Oh, you know. A new lady every night. Keggers, hookers, and blow.”
I can’t help snorting. “I think you mispronounced ‘a book and in bed by 5 pm.’”
I drop my duffle bag on the floor, looking around the front entryway. It’s like a time capsule of my childhood. Dad reaches out and straightens the picture of Mom that hangs by the front door, perpetually crooked. I almost wonder if he enjoys having to touch it to straighten it every day.
“Yeah, that’s probably more accurate. Doesn’t sound as cool though.”
“Well, if you retired you could get really crazy. Stay up until eight, maybe even nine o’clock.”
“Nah, Olive needs me at the bakery.”
“You got her all set up. You could train someone else and take a break. Maybe just ease back. You don’t need the money.”
“We got someone else,” he grumps. “He’s slow.”