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“Father, you wanted me to stop partying and prove I’m serious about joining the family businesses,” Cota argued. “Meet my wife, Sabrina. She is the lead dancer in the ballet.”
“Very irresponsible,” his father protested again.
I wanted to crawl under a table somewhere. It felt like Yury all over again, without the physical threats. I held the smile I had learned to show years ago, but I could feel myself starting to weaken.
“Nice to meet you both.” I put my hand out. “I was hoping to get to know you, but I understand you are busy.”
“Young lady, we have nothing against you.” He turned to Cota. “’Very irresponsible’ is to him.”
“He saved my life so, respectfully, I would not agree with your assessment.” I continued to hold the fake smile.
Poor Cota, at least when Yury was awful to me he wasn’t my parents. Now what do I do? He’s staring at me.
“We have to go now. I will contact you during the week about this.” He walked out of the room, along with Cota’s mother.
The uncomfortable interaction was only heard by the immediate family members, thankfully. Cota had taken my hand and it felt good to have him to hold on to, but now I needed to run away. I needed to dance.
“Who’s ready to play the next game?” Victoria called out to the whole room. “If you look at the cake table, you’ll see pink and blue pacifiers.”
“I’m not putting that in my mouth,” Parker spoke up, along with Victoria’s husband.
“No, no, of course not. There are one hundred of each color pacifiers hidden throughout the first floor.” She held up her hand. “When I say go, you may start looking and the person to collect the most, wins.”
“I need to know what we win before I agree,” Parker called out.
“Bragging rights, of course,” Asher answered.
“Yes, bragging rights, but I’ve added an actual prize.” She smiled ear to ear. “I will donate money to the winner’s favorite charity from our little ones.”
Wow! That is amazing. Yury always said Americans were rude uncaring, people. It’s not true.
ChapterFifty-Eight
COTA
Ifelt terrible for Sabrina. I was used to my parents, but she was fresh out of being under Yury’s thumb and I feared that was too much for her. That, and she might be frightened off thinking she’d gone from the frying pan to the fire. I grabbed her by the hand, holding tight to let her know everything was alright.
“You have fifteen minutes to collect as many pacifiers as you can,” Aunt Victoria called out. “Let’s behave yourselves, now. Remember, we have guests playing along today.”
My siblings and cousins all took off when she said go. I looked back once to see a few of the wives laughing along with the other guests. I didn’t care. When the Hawthorne’s played a game it was full on.
“Sabrina, hurry, let’s get to the furthest point before the others.” I pulled her along.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Kellan pulled on my shirt. “I know you’re going to cheat.”
“What the heck, man? Why would I cheat with my new bride with me?” I laughed and spun out of his grip. “You have to be faster if you wanna beat me, though.”
“Don’t make me get the twins,” he joked, “you know they’re slightly crazy.”
“Did you call me crazy?” August asked with a straight face. “I think you meant Asher, not me.”
“You can fool the others but we both know you’re as crazy as him.” I started walking backward, smiling. “Catch us if you can.”
I turned and ran with Sabrina following behind. I explained to her as we ran that it was all joking around and that the games are a big deal for bragging the whole year. Murphy ran past us, grabbing the pacifier hanging from the light switch.
“I think we can beat them if we work together,” Sabrina finally spoke. “We used to play games like this on the compound, but not for a prize. We played to see who would get the extra cookie.”
“Should we split up?”
