1.
***Violet***
“Oh,god.”Istopped short, triggering my ancient car to stall and die. It wasn’t a quiet death. I winced as I waited for the dirty looks my parents would send my way at the sight and sound of my car. They never came.
I’d been hoping for two seconds to fix my hair before facing my parents, but I wasn’t that lucky. Standing at the base of the steps in front of their three-story home, they were jumping and cheering like a couple of demented cheerleaders. I saw the reason as I climbed out of my clunker and slammed the door shut.
Rose, my twin sister in birth only, was standing with her boyfriend, Anthony, holding her hand out and screaming while pointing at her ring finger. A sense of dread washed over me as I forced my legs to carry me closer. I wasn’t one of those jealous siblings that felt like she needed to be the first one married; I didn’t even have a boyfriend. I was one of those siblings that knew her sister was going to be a bridezilla.
“Married! I can’t believe it!” Mom wiped tears from her eyes as she hugged both Rose and Anthony tight. “This is the best news ever!”
“We want a fast wedding. We want to get married Christmas night!” Rose turned her blonde head in my direction and flashed me a teary smile. “I’m going to need your help, Vi. Will you help?”
I stumbled a step and realized I was staring back at them with a look of horror on my face. Twisting my expression into something appropriate, I nodded hurriedly. “Yeah! Yep! Of course!”
Thankfully, they were all too excited to notice my awkwardness. Mom and Dad were clearly over the moon, and Mom was already speaking faster than I’d ever heard about wedding ideas. Pat and Debbie Thomas had been waiting for a wedding for averylong time. The fact that Rose had made them wait for three decades was a huge inconvenience to them. Our parents weren’t known for their patience.. Rose and Anthony looked genuinely excited, and it was almost enough to wash away my panic.
Almostenough, because then Rose looked at me again and mimicked writing something. “Can you start taking notes, Vi?”
“Shit.” The quiet curse was my only answer because, before I could compose myself and think of a valid reason why I couldn’t play secretary during Thanksgiving dinner, I felt someone move to stand next to me. Thinking I was going to see some of our extended family, I looked over and my mind fizzled out. All thoughts vanished, and I was left with nothing by silence in my head for one of the first times in my life.
Standing next to me, his eyes on my sister and Anthony, was Jayden Lancaster. Jayden Lancaster, my first serious boyfriend. Jayden Lancaster, a man I hadn’t seen in almost a decade, not since I’d left town after breaking up with him. The day after he’d told me he loved me.
“Heard that.” His voice was deeper than I remembered, and he seemed taller, too. I’d known him when he was in his mid-twenties, so I doubted he was actually taller, but he justfeltbigger.
My mouth was doing a great impression of a catfish as I stared up at him. After too long, my brain surged with a hundred questions at once. They jumbled in my mouth and came out all wrong. “What are you happening?”
Jayden glanced down at me, his azure eyes as bright as ever. “Want to try that again?”
There were only three men in my life who’d ever left me feeling so out of sorts that words escaped me. Jayden had been the first and first loves had a way of working their way into your DNA. The two men after him had burrowed under my skin and changed me, just the same, so maybe it wasn’t just first loves. Adam Francis and Ian Cooper wouldn’t be left out of my DNA changing love thoughts. Still, despite the time and space that had passed between me and Jayden, my body shifted closer. It remembered him like he’d just touched me earlier in the day. How did I form words when I was experiencing a time warp inside myself?
Before Icouldtry again, we were taken in by the group of happy people celebrating a Christmas wedding. Mom and Dad both hugged me, and then Rose attempted to suffocate me as she squeezed me hard enough to crack my back.
Anthony gently pulled Rose off me before pulling me into a side hug and ruffling the top of my hair, like it wasn’t bad enough already. “Hey, Red. I see you met my buddy, Jay.”
I ran my hands through my hair, but I could feel the short curls going wild and knew it was too late to be helped. “Um. Yep.”
Jay was being led up the stairs by my parents, so Anthony felt free to talk. “He’s doing some work on the house for Pat and Debbie. He was going to be alone for Thanksgiving today, so I thought I’d invite him and maybe my single, soon-to-be sister-in-law could meet a nice guy.”
Rose took one look at my face and gently slapped Anthony’s arm. “You’re worse than our Aunt Martha. Stop it. Don’t embarrass her when I’m begging her for help on this basically-overnight wedding.”
I was saved by said Aunt Martha sticking her head out of the massive wooden front doors just before Mom and Dad reached them. She looked past them, licked her lips at Jayden, and then spotted me. “Violet! You’re late! Of course you’re late. I knew you’d be late, so I told you I needed you here earlier than I needed you here, and you’restilllate! Come in and help me set the table.”
Rose giggled. “This is what you get for being so good at making things pretty.”
Once inside the house, I was smacked in the face with a wave of Thomas family audacity. It was a magnificent thing—not to say that it was great as much as it was… powerful.
Uncle Roy, Dad’s oldest brother and Martha’s husband, looked me over and shook his head. “You look like you stuck your finger in a light socket, Violet. Martha has a comb in her purse, if you want to borrow it.”
Having my family make jokes at my expense was not new. Having them make jokes at my expense in front of an ex that I had really cared about? I wanted to dig a hole and hide in it. “Ha ha, Uncle Roy.”
He wrapped me in a bear hug and pretended to try to lift me before letting go and grabbing his back. “What have you been eating, kid?”
“I’m thirty years old. Hardly a kid.” I patted his cheek, a little more roughly than I should have. “Haven’t you heard that polite people don’t make cracks about people’s weight anymore?”
Before he could reply, Mom grabbed my arm and pulled me with her to the kitchen. Without her saying anything, I could tell she disapproved of how I’d responded to Uncle Roy. To keep her from vocalizing that disapproval, I went straight to Aunt Martha and busied myself with helping her. Anything to avoid the comments I’d heard a thousand times from Mom.
I kept myself busy setting the table and decorating it for dinner up until it was time to sit down and eat. With every aunt and uncle in attendance, all the table extensions had been added, and the formal dining room was full. I was smack-dab in the middle of the table, across from Jayden. Judging by the gleeful look on Anthony’s face, I could tell it was his doing. If only he knew that I’d already dated Jayden, and that he would probably rather stick his arm in a running garbage disposal than date me again.