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While Violet and the boys dig in, I glance across the room and spot Garrett and Callie talking to another couple. My brother’s arm is draped across Callie’s lower back, his palm on her hip, his fingers mindlessly stroking as he speaks. They were always like that, even when they were kids in high school—holding hands, arms entwined, leaning against each other, fingers hooked. I don’t think they even realize they’re doing it. It’s just natural for them to be connected.
Stacey and I were never like that. Even in the early days, we were never . . . effortless. Our relationship took work and thought and sometimes brute patience. I used to think it meant something—the fact that we were both willing to put so much energy into staying together.
But now . . . I just think it never should’ve been that hard. Loving someone, making a life with them, should feel easier.
“What happened to your head?” I hear Brayden ask Violet, when the breeze off the lake brushes her bangs to the side, revealing the neat row of black stitches.
“I walked into a wall.”
Bray nods. “Been there.”
He points to the thin white line that extends from his upper lip to the base of his nostril. “See this scar?”
She nods.
“When I was nine I was walking and drinking from a water bottle and I tripped. Jammed the bottle right into my lip and split it open. That’s a mistake you only make once.”
Spencer joins in the ceremonial trading of war stories.
He lies across Brayden’s lap and dips his chin to show Vi the back of his head.
“There’s a patch back here that will never grow hair. I hit it on the corner of a drawer that Aaron opened without telling me while I was getting something out of the bottom cabinet.”
“You should’ve been more careful.” Aaron smirks, sitting beside his girlfriend across the table.
For that comment, Aaron gets a tongue stuck out at him.
“What about you, Connor?” Violet asks. “Any battle scars?”
I shrug. “A couple on the knees I’m pretty proud of. Old football injuries from high school.”
“And he’s got a bite mark on his butt,” Brayden volunteers helpfully.
Violet’s eyebrows go high.
“Dog bite?” she guesses.
I shake my head.
“A patient bite.”
She snorts out a laugh, covering her mouth.
“No!”
I grin sheepishly. “Exam Room Three. I got in between a drunk woman and the boyfriend she’d just discovered was screwing around. When I turned around to tell him to wait outside, she went in for the kill. Thankfully, the rabies test came back negative. But I have the scar to remember it by. Upper left cheek.”
Violet laughs again, her cheeks flushing prettily.
“That must be . . . something to see.”
While the waiters clear the plates away, the DJ temporarily shifts from an elevator-music-type playlist to classic pop staples. When “U Can’t Touch This” starts playing, Violet bounces in her chair—making her breasts jiggle phenomenally.
“Ooh! This is a good song. We should dance!”
Before I can explain that Daniels men go by a strict slow-dance-only-when-sober code, Brayden answers for all of us.
“Dancing isn’t really our thing.”
Vi is undeterred.
“That’s the beauty of weddings! It’s the chance for everyone who can’t dance to dance anyway, because it’s the one place no one cares that they can’t. And this is a great song. I’ve liked MC Hammer ever since my eighth-grade formal, when it was down to me and Annie Burgler in the big dance contest and ‘2 Legit 2 Quit’ put me over the top.”
“Who’s MC Hammer?” Brayden asks.
Violet whips around to give me an accusing look.
“Your kids don’t know who MC Hammer is?”
“I . . . guess not.”
“You have failed as a parent.”
I chuckle, while Violet’s shoes get kicked off again and she stands up, moving a few yards back from the table.
“MC Hammer is a singer,” she tells the boys. “And this is the MC Hammer dance.”
She spreads her feet, bends her knees, and holds her arms out to the sides, wiggling her shoulders while shuffling her feet left to right and back again. In the middle of the third circuit, she jumps, crisscrossing her feet in front, then back again, before continuing the shuffle.
Spencer is impressed. Brayden . . . not so much.
“Yeah, I’m not doing whatever that is supposed to be.”
“Wise choice, Bray,” Aaron tells him. “Wise choice.”
“I’ll do it.” Spencer shoves his chair back.
“’Atta boy.” Violet gives him a high five. Then she points at the rest of us. “Chickens. All of you.”
“Bok-bok,” Spencer clucks, for good measure. Then the two of them take to the dance floor.
I stand up from the table and turn around to watch them, sipping my drink. For someone who has a hard time walking in a straight line, Violet moves surprisingly well. She gyrates her hips, shaking her sublime ass from side to side in steady, confident swivels.
