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“Thought you might like it.” She gave me a big smile. “I have to go. Have fun in stupid Alabama with your stupider brother at the stupidest wedding in the whole entire world,” she added with a scowl.
“Mature much?” I said, teasing her.
“Not really.” She laughed before walking away.
Worst Wedding Ever
Cassie and Melissa had been oddly secretive since I’d confessed I was attending the wedding. A few days later when I joined them at lunch, they were talking in hushed whispers, and clammed up the second I sat down at the table. They were obviously up to something, but I was too chickenshit to ask.
For some reason, I still felt partially responsible when it came to Jack’s screwup. Not that I played a role in it, of course, but simply because I was related to him. Guilt by association. Jack had hurt these girls, and I felt as if I’d hurt them as well.
The three of us refused to address the elephant in the room—Jack’s wedding—and that was fine by me. The look on Cassie’s face after I told her that I was going would be burned into my memory forever. Maybe they discussed the wedding when I wasn’t around so they didn’t put me in the middle? Hell, I honestly had no idea what went on in the female brain.
“When do you leave for Alabama?” Melissa asked as Cassie played with the fruit on her plate, pretending to be disinterested in my answer.
“In the morning.” I dreaded the wedding, but was happy to see my brother. It had been too long, and so much had happened since the last time I’d seen Jack in person.
Cassie stopped forking her food and looked up at me, her eyes conveying an emotion that I wasn’t equipped to read.
“I’m sorry,” I said automatically, not knowing what else to say as she looked back down at her plate.
I wished like hell that I could take away her pain and change my brother’s mind. One of the hardest things I was going to have to do was to stand up there and watch Jack exchange vows with someone I knew he didn’t love, someone I hadn’t even met yet. Thinking about it filled me with dread. It was challenging, to say the least, to stand idly by and watch someone you cared about make decisions you knew would screw up his life, even if you understood his reasons.
Which I did.
In theory.
I knew my brother and I understood his mindset, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to go through with it. Seeing the future I once assumed he would have be replaced by this unexpected and unwelcome one sucked.
Maybe I could talk some sense into him when I got there. Maybe once I was there, in person, he’d listen to reason.
The idea of getting him to postpone the wedding filled me with a small sliver of hope, and I suddenly found myself looking forward to getting on the plane.
• • •
Alabama was hot. And sticky. Even though I’d taken the first flight out at the crack of dawn, with the time difference, Jack was already at the field when I landed. He wasn’t pitching tonight, so I had no intention of going to the field to sit in this nasty humid heat.
Apparently Chrystle had offered to pick me up at the airport, but thankfully Jack talked her out of it and sent me a car instead. I walked outside, following the driver as sweat instantly beaded on my forehead. Southern California was hot, but this was something else entirely. This was heat wrapped in a moist towel. You couldn’t escape it. The air felt heavy, like you could feel it as you breathed it in.
On the ride to Jack’s house, I started to regret not asking if I could go the field instead. The idea of being alone with the girl he was about to marry made me uneasy. I’d spent so little time actually thinking about Chrystle at all, the thought of spending time with her alone gave me a sick feeling.
What if I hated her? Or worse, what if I liked her? The very idea that I might like this girl caused my stomach to roll. I would always be loyal to Jack, and I wanted him to be with someone who was nice and treated him well, but I also felt a sense of loyalty toward Cassie. And liking this girl who’d ripped their world apart almost seemed like a slap to Cassie’s face.
I was torn, not sure which was the lesser of two evils—liking Chrystle or hating her.
When I stepped out of the car in front of Jack’s house, a too-thin brunette came out onto the porch. I picked up my duffel and thanked the driver, wanting nothing more than to hop back into the car and head to the airport to fly home. She was strikingly pretty, and I cringed at the image in my head of my brother in the bar that night, trying to tell this girl no a hundred times, and then telling her yes once.
“Dean,” she called out as she waved at me, smiling at me like we were old friends.
We weren’t.
I forced a smile. “You must be Chrystle,” I said, trying to be polite as I took in her perfectly toned body.
“We’re both so happy you’re here,” she said, and I tried not to wince at her speaking for my brother already. “I’ve been simply dying to meet you. I’m so glad you’re here.”
Her voice was so different from what I was used to, slow and syrupy sweet like molasses with her Alabama accent, and I instantly questioned everything that came out of her mouth. I wasn’t sure if I was just primed to dislike her, or maybe the mere sound of her overdone Southern drawl made me uneasy, but her voice seemed fake, every syllable stretched and drawn out.
“It’s nice to meet you too,” I lied.
