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“Yeah, well, I was five. I thought I was going to be Cinderella.”
Mateo laughs, a rare smile lifting his lips enough to show a hint of the dimple in his left cheek. The sound is rich and deep, vibrating through me like it was my own. “Cinderella has nothing on you, Jules.”
“Why? Because I get to keep my dress on at midnight?”
Mateo’s eyes flare as the song ends, his fingers flexing against my back before he drops my hand and steps back. He clears his throat. “Well, yeah. I mean that would probably be best.”
What the actual fuck? I pull back, stung. What the hell is he insinuating? I may not be the blushing virgin, but I’m not ashamed of myself either. I’m sure he likes his girls sweet and innocent. I bet he likes them to fall in line and follow the rules too. Basically the opposite of me.
It’s not like I was coming onto him, anyway. Leave it to Mateo to take a jokethatwrong.
I laugh disbelievingly and shake my head. I don’t know where the hell my mind is at lately.
“I’ll see you around, Mateo.”
I leave him in the middle of the dance floor and march to the bar, reaching over to take a fresh bottle of champagne. I point at the bartender as he opens his mouth to say something. “Don’t fucking start with me,” I threaten before stomping off to find Sally. My pool of drinking buddies may have shrunk because of pregnancy and wedding duties, but she’s a sure bet.
2
Mateo
Julia Donovan is a force of nature. A beautiful, pissed off force of nature. Of course, she took my awkward comment the wrong way. This. This right here is why I don’t talk to people. I’ve never been smooth or social, and every time I open my mouth, I seem to put my foot in it. Aggressively.
Grinding my teeth, I watch as my best friend’s little sister stomps away with the bottle of champagne still dripping ice water from its bucket. Internally, I’m debating going after her, but really, what’s the point? Julia has spent half a lifetime hung up on my brother, and that fact alone makes anything I do superfluous.
Gregarious, social, and a shameless womanizer, my older brother Javier is basically a panty pirate and as much as I love him, he’s my exact opposite in so many ways. I watched Julia pine after him for decades, knowing deep down that if he was what she wanted, I couldn’t be the one for her.
Not that he appreciated her. The dumbass never even looked twice. I can say with one hundred percent certainty that my brother wouldn’t see a good thing coming his way if it slapped him across the mouth.
Julia joins Sally, Anita, and Josie on the far side of the tent, passing the bottle of champagne between them. A part of me, the worst part, is just grateful she’s drinking with a septuagenarian and a pair of lesbians instead of one of the many guys who have been eyeing her all night. I know I don’t get a say in it, but Christ, if I have to watch her sneak off with Javier—or really any guy—in that velvet dress I’m going to break something.
Like a nose.
Luckily my brother is off in the corner trying to flirt with the wedding planner. I have never seen a man try so hard, despite being completely ignored. The planner’s level of focus as she watches the party with her clipboard in hand and speaks into her earpiece, would put most military personnel to shame.
I glance around the tent, trying to decide where I belong.
Everyone says that transitioning from the structure of military life to private life is difficult, but I really didn’t think that would apply to me. I’m moving back to my hometown and all my childhood friends are still here. I expected it to be easy. Familiar.
Instead, the freedom I was so looking forward to already feels like an abyss. My friends might still be here, but their lives are all drastically altered by wives, husbands, and babies on the way. They’ve all cheerfully gone on with their lives and while I’m happy for them, it’s difficult to see where I fit. I’ve just been gone for too long; my trips home were too short and infrequent. The only people I really kept up with were Lukas and my dad, and now I feel like an intruder in the life I thought was mine.
Glancing around, my dad catches my eye, waving me over to his table with a massive grin. I head toward him, my chest loosening up as I sit. Dad has always been my rock. He gets me, knows that a big party like this is always going to be inherently difficult for me, even if it’s filled with friends.
He claps me on the shoulder as I take the empty seat next to him. “How’s the knee?”
“It’s fine,” I lie. It hurts, but it always hurts, so what’s the point in whining about it?
“Julia didn’t look so happy with you. Did you step on her toes with your two left feet?”
“No. You know Julia. I stuck my foot in my mouth and she took it the wrong way.”
“Mm… You better fix it. I can’t have my honorary daughter all pissed off at you.”
“Yeah… I’ll work on it.”
Dad takes a swig from his beer before rubbing his elbow again, and I eye him suspiciously. This is the man who could be bleeding half to death and tell you not to bother wasting a bandaid.
“Still bothering you?”
