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“What?”
Tripp kicks off the counter. “Nothing, nothing.”
Now I sigh. I fill him in on a few of the pertinent details and extract a promise not to tell Mom and Dad before I do. You gotta cover your bases with big brothers. They’re pesky and like to interfere.
We eat pizza with pepperoni and mushrooms and black olives. Well, Tripp and I do. Avery hates black olives, so Tripp spends a full minute picking every last olive off her pizza for her. Disgusting, I tell you.
I know they’re both ready for the wedding, ahem, the wedding night. It’s getting tough to be around them, but if ever they needed a chaperone, now is the time. Here to help, anytime. But it’s hard for me. I may be young, twenty-three now, but I am not a child, and I’m lonely. I’ve wanted a relationship for so long. Kyle was a joke, but then came Marco. Frankly, I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same. We didn’t know each other long, but I truly believed there was something real there. Ah, well. It’s for the best, right?
“Everything okay, Lise?”
I shrug. They both know I still moon around over Marco more often than not. “Is he still coming to the wedding?” He’s supposed to be a groomsman.
Tripp taps his finger on the table. “Think so. I offered to replace him, but he said no.”
“He got fitted for his tux,” Avery chimes in.
“For real?” This is news. He had Avery sweating it for a while.
I don’t know how I’m going to handle the wedding. I want to see him so bad it hurts. So bad I have dreams about the fast-approaching Christmas nuptials, but more often than not, my dreams become nightmares where he doesn’t show. Or, worse, he shows up with some hot Latina showing side-boob.
I do spend a lot of time and energy wondering what he’s doing these days.Howhe’s doing. A week in jail could not have been fun. Plus, his undercover days are over. Tripp says he’s working a desk job but thinking of transferring somewhere new altogether, possibly another state. Welp. So much for any hope he might be pining away for me.
Other than that, Tripp is maddeningly short on Marco info when I try to extract it. He knows more than he’s saying, I’m sure of it. He has told me that Marco started attending church. This makes me smile. I was the lousiest witness imaginable, but I want him to know the God I’m growing closer to everyday.
Bottom line, if I’m honest, I know his walking away was right. I can’t be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t believe. Sounds like he might now, and that’s good whether I’m in the picture or not.
If only it didn’t hurt so stinkin’ much.
∞∞∞
Today is the day. The entire Walker home pulses with energy. Joy. Dad is ecstatic to be see his eldest marry. Mom is too, of course, but she won’t settle for nuptials alone. Poor Tripp and Avery. Do they realize a wholesale campaign for a grandchild kicks off in earnest tonight? They have my sympathies.
Little does Mom know how close she came to grandmother status earlier this fall.
I feel the tickling of tears, but I’ve gotten good these last months at controlling the little suckers. Survival skills and all that.
A brand-spanking new year begins in a few days, and I’m ready. Ready to turn the page. Ready for a new adventure. One more week and my Jeep will be loaded, and off I’ll go. Tripp is already fretting about me driving to Colorado alone.
Thankfully, he’ll be sunning himself on a beach in the South Pacific by then. I don’tthinkI have to worry about him butting in this time. We’ll see.
Avery’s family has pretty well taken over the second floor of our family home this last week. It’s been fun, a giant house party of sorts. All the energy and anticipation converge tonight at sunset, on the sandy beach mere steps out our back door.
I used to want a beach wedding, but I’ve changed my mind. I’ll be married—when I’m married—in a church. I am quite self-focused, not to mention hardheaded, so I’ll probably need the reinforcing reminder that a marital unit has a third Member.
Well, drat. I’m so far from needing to worry about hiring a wedding planner it isn’t even funny. I could find a guy, sure, but I’m pickier than ever, and besides, I know which guy I want.
He doesn’t want me.Ouch.
My stomach has been in a twist for days, tightening with each sunrise. Tonight, I’ll see Marco. If he shows, that is. He skipped the rehearsal and dinner last night, something about work, but I have my doubts. He’s dodging me. The lousy loser better not bail on Avery though. If he does, I’ll hunt him down and…
Again, tears.
Grrrr.
I still haven’t figured how to play this tonight—providing he shows, that is. I want to play it cool, show him I don’t need him.
I want to dissolve into tears in his arms and tell him how much I need him.
