“What?” Cade and I ask at the same time. He reaches over and rests his hand on the arm of my chair, running his pinky along the sensitive skin at my wrist. Perked up nipples and goosebumps, all from a look and a pinky. He’s good.
“We brought my flower girl dress home yesterday! It’s hangin’ up in my closet. Mama said I couldn’t wear it or try it on or even touch it, case I had dirty hands. She made me pinky promise.”
I smile at her excitement, which hasn’t waned at all since the day Tessa, Paige, and I took her to find her dress. Her eyes got so wide when we walked into the store to see aisle after aisle of dresses on display, like a kid in a candy store. I had absolutely no preference about what she wore, so when she said she wanted to look just like a ballerina, that’s what she got. I think the skirt of her dress is four times as wide as she is and weighs more than she does.
“I bet you’re going to look very pretty,” Cade says. “Just like a princess.”
“Like a ballerina, Uncle Cade.” The duh is implied by her tone. She turns her attention to me. “I might even be as pretty as you, Aunt Winter!” The smile she shoots me is as bright as the sun beating down on us. Then she pushes away from the side, going underwater as Cade reminds her to be careful. Haley splashes and Cade says something to me, but all the blood is rushing to my ears, my heart beating too fast, my mouth as dry as the Sahara while my world comes to a grinding, screeching halt.
Aunt Winter.
Without blinking an eye or realizing how much it could affect me, Haley made me part of her family with a single word. Part of a family I’ve been searching my whole life to find.
Whether or not I admitted it to myself, that’s exactly what I spent my early years doing. I had the hard exterior to protect myself, but deep down, I wanted to belong. I would’ve given anything to be taken in. To be wanted. But then I decided I didn’t need any of it and blocked myself off from everything, building a wall of protection around my heart. A wall Cade managed to knock down with his bare hands.
Since the beginning, he’s been trying to show me that his family is my family, but I still feel this divide. Everyone in Cade’s life has been nothing but accepting and welcoming, but I’m stubborn and self-sufficient, and I just feel like I’m taking and taking because I don’t bring anything to the table. I have nothing else to offer.
It’s just me.
And that’s never been more apparent than when we were addressing invitations and I had exactly one to fill out for my side. Annette is the one and only person I’m inviting—the one and only person I have to invite. And even though it’s a small wedding—only a couple dozen guests in total—it’s still a blow to realize only one person is coming just for me.
But now . . . with Haley calling me Aunt Winter, it becomes crystal clear it never mattered that I didn’t view myself as part of their family. It doesn’t matter that I never allowed myself to feel or even think that, because everyone else already has been.
And that just makes this all the more real.
This wedding . . . tying Cade to myself for the rest of our lives . . . It isn’t just me who could get hurt if all this goes to shit—if I fail at being part of a family. And, really, what the hell do I know about that? The closest thing I had to a normal family life was when I was thirteen and had been placed with a couple for a year. I overheard them talking about taking the steps to adopt me, make me a permanent fixture in their lives. And then after years of trying in vain, they got pregnant and I got shuffled back to the group home I’d managed to escape for a year.
Family has always had a negative connotation in my mind, and that’s something that’s going to take more than a couple years to erase. It’s no doubt why I’ve resisted putting this amazing group of people into that box that Haley just so casually inserted herself into. It isn’t that I don’t love them, because I do. Every last one of them.
It’s because every single person who I’ve ever considered family has abandoned me, and maybe if I don’t put them in that box, I can keep them a little longer.
I’m not sure what drink I’m on. I lost count about twenty minutes after we arrived. What I do know is this bachelorette party couldn’t have come at a better time. After Haley’s declaration this afternoon, I needed some alcohol to quiet the voices in my head and the panic still echoing in my veins. And Paige and Tessa are living up to their bridesmaid duties and getting me full on smashed.
We managed to secure a high top table just off the side of the dance floor. It’s packed in here, too many sweaty bodies moving around, but the alcohol thrumming through my body helps to dull it all. Tessa and Paige are both dancing to the beat of the music pounding through the speakers, and I’m clinging to my drink like a lifeline.
Paige leans over the table toward me, shoving a finger in my direction. “Drink up, girl, because we’ve got more stops!”
“Let’s just stay here,” I say, lifting my glass, the blue liquid sloshing around as I do so. “Their Adios Motherfuckers are on point.”
She slams her hands down on the table, the jolt shaking the liquid in her and Tessa’s glasses, a bit spilling over the rims. “We’re gonna be saying adios to these motherfuckers in about five minutes. I don’t give a shit if they rain money from the ceiling. We’re seeing peen tonight, bitches!”
I groan while Tessa just shakes her head. “You know we have three guys who will happily show us their peens, right?” Her words aren’t slurred, her response clear, even with the overpowering music.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Paige shoots us a sly grin. Then to me, she says, “Besides, you’re kind of mopey tonight, and what better way to get happy than to have junk shaking around in your face?”
I frown and bring the drink to my lips, draining it. Apparently I’m not doing as good a job at hiding as I thought I was. “I’m not mopey . . .”
“You kind of are,” Tessa says with a nod, sipping on her virgin sunrise. She insisted on being DD tonight, and since I planned to get shitfaced, I didn’t put up much of a fight. “What’s up?”
“What?” I yell, cupping a hand around my ear. “I can’t hear you over the music.” I wave my hand in a general all-encompassing movement and almost take out a tray of drinks as a waitress walks past. The truth is, I can hear her just fine, but I am definitely not ready to discuss why I feel like my skin is too tight, like I’m trying to claw my way out. Nope, not going there. Not tonight, not ever.
Maybe if I ignore it, it’ll go away. That’s my motto, and that’s what I’m sticking to.
“But seriously,” Paige says, “you’re mopey, Tessa’s not even drinking. What the hell kind of lame-ass bachelorette party is this?”
“I’ve got a dick on my head, Paige,” I say.
“And?”
“And around my neck.”
She rolls her eyes. “And?”
“Just sayin’. This party’s a lot of things, but lame isn’t one.”
Apparently not satisfied the party isn’t lame, she sets her sights on Tessa, narrowing her eyes. “And you. You didn’t have to be DD, you know. We could’ve Ubered.”
Tessa shrugs. “I don’t mind. Cheaper this way.”
“Cheaper . . . who the fuck cares? It’s not as fun.”
“I’m having fun.” She pushes the button on her penis tiara, making the erect dick light up in a rainbow of flashing colors. “Whoo! Peen!”
Previously completely drunk Paige suddenly gets sharper, her eyes narrowing on Tessa as she points an accusatory finger in her direction. “Something’s not adding up with you.”
Honestly, I have no idea what she’s talking about, because I just finished my fifth—seventh? Tenth?—drink, and I lost feeling in my face somewhere around drink three. Still, it takes the pressure off me, so I just lean my elbow on the table and bring my straw to my lips, trying in vain to get some more liquid out of the empty glass while I watch the volley between them.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Tessa looks away and cle
ars her throat. She might as well have shifty eyes for all the anxiety her body language is giving off.
“Mhmm, sure you don’t. You’ve been super distracted lately.” Paige slams down her empty glass a little too hard.
“Uh, hello, we’re planning a wedding here,” Tessa says with an eye roll.
“You’ve also taken, like, four sick days in the past month. You never do that.” Paige’s eyes narrow further with every word that comes out of her mouth until she’s basically just squinting at Tessa like a pirate. A drunk pirate. Arrr. I snort out a laugh, but Paige ignores me as she holds up a hand and ticks off her fingers. “Super distracted, sick all the time, refusing to drink . . . Did you forget I was there the last time?”
I’m still totally lost, but their interaction is too interesting to ignore, so I bounce my eyes between the two of them as they have their verbal match.
“Last time what, Paige? I was sick?”
“Last time you were sick? Are you kidding me? Last time you were pregnant, slore!” She yells it so loud, several people around us turn to look our way, but she ignores them and focuses on Tessa’s face, which has turned fourteen shades of pink. Paige stumbles back, then moves right into Tessa’s personal space, their noses inches apart. “Holy shit. It’s true, isn’t it?”
Tessa glances at me, then at Paige. Blowing out a deep breath, she nods. “I’m sorry, Winter. I wanted to wait until after the wedding to announce it. I didn’t want you to feel like I was stealing your thunder.”
My thunder? I shake my head because there are words coming out of their mouths, but I have no idea what any of them mean, least of all what they mean strung together like they were. “I don’t . . . You’re not . . .” I slap my hand on my forehead and put the other one on the table to try and ground myself. This room wasn’t spinning a second ago, and now I feel as if I’m on a merry-go-round. “I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking ’bout.”
Paige grabs me by the shoulders and turns me to face her, then shakes me hard enough to rattle my teeth. “We’re gonna be aunts again! Huzzah!” she says with a fist pump.
And just like that, everything I’ve spent the night blocking out comes rushing back full force, along with the twenty-seven drinks I’ve downed. “I think . . .” I try to swallow the rush of saliva in my mouth, but it’s no use. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
August 6
cade
“Jesus fucking Christ, it’s hotter than the devil’s ballsack out here.” Jase hefts a cooler filled with enough alcohol to last us a week instead of the single night we’re camping. “Whose bright idea was this? It’s total bullshit. I want strippers.”
I roll my eyes as I lug our tents and a couple backpacks. “I’ll be sure to let my sister know that.” After two decades of being friends with Jase, I know when he’s trying to get a rise out of me, and this is one of those times.
“You’re like a goddamn child, you know that?” Adam passes Jase and manages to shove him, even while carrying the rest of our gear. “We’re not hiking three miles, for fuck’s sake. You do know we’re about forty yards behind the store, right?”
Reid Sporting Goods, Adam’s family’s store—well, Adam’s store—sits on the perfect property for a chill night of camping for my bachelor party. The location is within walking distance to a lake for kayaking or canoeing, a hiking trail, and enough climbing opportunities to make even a well-versed climber like Adam happy. We definitely won’t be bored, despite Jase’s bitching.
Once we reach the place Adam picked out for tonight, Jase sets down the cooler, lifts the lid, and pulls out a bottle of beer without offering one to Adam or me. After closing the lid, he uses it as a seat and pops the cap off his beer before taking a big swallow. “What I know is we should be evening the playing field, is all. Those girls are going to see dick tonight, and it’s not going to be ours.”
Not taking the bait, I put down the tents and backpacks in the small clearing. “Winter would hate that.”
“Unfortunately, that’s exactly why Paige would make her go,” Adam says, dropping his gear next to mine. He gives me a shrug, like he doesn’t care that our girls are going to be inches from some other dude’s junk, before knocking Jase off the cooler to pull out beers for both of us.
Well, fuck. Jase blows more smoke out of his ass than a train, but when Adam says it, I listen. And now that he’s put it that way, it is something Paige would do. With a frown, I grab my phone from my pocket to text Winter, but protests come at me from both sides.
“Put the fucking phone away, Maxwell,” Adam says, stern but calm.
Jase just makes some sort of war call and reaches out to hit the phone from my hands. It lands in the grass between me and Adam, who doesn’t even blink as he reaches down to pick it up and then pockets it. “You’ll get it back when you can start acting like an irresponsible adult.”
“Fuck you guys,” I say, unloading one of the canvas chairs Adam hauled in and taking a seat.
“Speaking of being a boring middle-aged dude—I mean responsible adult,” Jase says, “how’re you holding up being here and having fun instead of being stuck at the restaurant tonight?”
“I’m not stuck at the restaurant.” I shake my head. Neither of them gets it. They both enjoy their jobs, but even Adam, having done a total one-eighty from the accounting job he went to school for to now running the sporting goods store and loving every minute of it, doesn’t have the same devotion for what he does as I do. Being a chef isn’t just a job to me. It’s my passion. Even when I’m not at the restaurant, I’m thinking of what new dishes I can create and incorporate into the menu, constantly trying them out on Winter. I live and breathe my profession, and that’s never going to change.
“You might not be stuck, man, but you’re there all the time,” Adam says as he pulls out his own chair and takes a seat.
“So?”
“So . . . you’re getting married. You think Winter’s going to be okay being the second woman?”
“What the fuck are you talking about? I’d never cheat on her.”
Adam tips his bottle in my direction. “But you kind of are. The restaurant might as well be your mistress.”
I narrow my eyes at Adam, then glance at Jase, looking for some support from him, but he just shrugs and says, “He’s right.”
My body goes tight, my shoulders tensing. “Has Winter said something? Did the girls tell you that?”
“Nah, man, I haven’t heard anything,” Jase says.
Adam confirms the same with a shake of his head. I blow out a breath and relax until he says, “But that doesn’t mean she’s not thinking it.”
These past few months have been a blur, between the wedding planning and work shit. I’ve been training a new sous chef since the last one got promoted to head chef at another of John’s restaurants. I’ve been putting in a lot of hours there, but that’s not anything new.
But maybe that’s the problem?
It’s never been a secret that I like to be in control of things—hell, it’s one of the hardest lessons I had to learn when I first moved to Chicago without Tessa and Haley, and while Winter was traveling all over the country. That need for control extends to my kitchen, too, and Winter knows it. She said as much the first day we went cake tasting. Maybe that was her way of saying she needs more attention from me? That she’s not happy anymore?
The beer in my stomach turns to lead as I let that sink in. Jesus, could she just be going through the motions, too scared to say anything about how unhappy she is?
“Fuck,” Jase says. “Way to go, Adam, now he’s freaking out.”
“You’re the one who brought it up, asshole.” Adam tosses his bottle cap at Jase, who swats it away with a flick of his hand.
“Give me my phone,” I say, reaching in Adam’s direction.
“Nope,” they both say at once.
“Give me my fucking phone. I need to call Winter.”
“You sure don’t.” Jase pulls out his phone
and glances at it. “They’re coming by later, anyway. Maybe you can use this time to pull yourself together, because you look like a fucking train wreck, man. Pretend like you have a pair of balls in those shorts.”
I flip him off, but don’t say anything. I can’t, really. All I can focus on are the things Winter has said over the past few months. But more than that, it’s the things she hasn’t said. Her hesitant touches, the way she’s withdrawn into herself.
Has that all been because of me and my fucking job? Yes, I love it, and I wouldn’t be happy doing anything else. Cooking is my passion, but Winter is my life. I could take or leave everything else as long as she’s by my side.
I just need to make sure she knows it.
Adam and Jase tried their hardest to keep my mind off things, forcing us to do everything from hiking to kayaking, but nothing helped. Even when Jase tried to distract me with tales of what he planned to do to my sister tonight, I wasn’t bothered. I was too focused on Winter. When that didn’t pull a reaction out of me, Adam declared it a lost cause and led us back to the camping site, then proceeded to ply me with alcohol.
Finally, after what seems like a week, I hear a car pull up, followed by loud and unmistakably drunk voices. I don’t wait to see if Adam and Jase are following me before I’m out of my chair and walking up the hill toward the parking lot.
“Sounds like we should’ve pulled out the hard stuff instead of the beer,” Jase says behind me. “They’re about five rounds ahead of us.”
“Fine by me,” Adam says. “I’m damn glad for those five extra rounds, because that means Paige is going to rip my pants off in about three minutes.”
Before Jase can say anything about Tessa doing the same to him, I speed up to get to Winter faster. I need to see her . . . talk to her. Ask her if she’s feeling what I fear she is—that she’s second place in my life—and I don’t want to wait until tomorrow. I don’t want to wait another minute. Hopefully she isn’t as drunk as the commotion indicates. But when the car comes into view in the parking lot, and three girls stumble out of it—or two very drunk girls and one sober Tessa trying to corral them—that hope is dashed.
Our Love Unhinged (Reluctant Hearts Book 4) Page 5