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“You must’ve been embarrassed that everyone heard you and Paisley being bitches. Janey’s told me how hard you two always worked to keep it on the down low,” he says, his voice flat and hard. He could make a scene again. Nikki definitely deserves it. But he’s restraining himself. “Especially since from what I can tell, the two of you never left that high school, mean girl mentality behind. Even now, we’ve barely walked in the door and you’re running over here, tripping over your cheap, synthetic extensions to steal her moment of happiness. It’s pathetic,” he spits out.
Nikki’s jaw drops open, making her look like shocked Pikachu. I’m ninety-nine percent sure she’s never been talked to this way. And I should probably squeeze Cole’s hand to call him off or something since I’m trying to be the bigger person here, but he’s saying all the things I’ve thought over the years and I can’t stop him. A deep, evil part of me is enjoying it too much.
Is it still bad if I let someone else do the dirty work?
Maybe. But letting Cole be his true self doesn’t make me any less of a badass. He’s just one too, in a deliciously different way.
“By the way, where’s that high school boyfriend you locked down by ‘forgetting’ your birth control pills?” Cole finishes with a downright deadly look on his face.
What? I didn’t know that. How does Cole know that? Or is he making an educated guess?
Either way, Nikki’s head swivels around wildly. Is she checking to see if anyone overheard that? Or looking for her husband? Either way, when she sees him, her eyes go wide before narrowing sharply. He’s standing with her sister. There are a couple of other people talking to them too, but her husband and sister simply standing next to each other is enough to have her stomping away from us and across the room.
I lean into Cole’s side and he wraps his arm around my waist. “Too much?” he asks.
“No, it was perfect,” I admit.
We stand around quietly for a while, watching the festivities. A few people stop by to chat and meet Cole, and Nikki was right about one thing—everyone heard what Cole said last night. But he’s not embarrassed by it in the slightest. In fact, he tells Uncle Teddy that he’s proud to love a good woman the best he can.
I think he means love, like with his heart, but given the sly glance Uncle Teddy throws him, he thinks he means with his dick.
At some point, Cole whispers, “Stop wiggling. It makes you look nervous.”
“My dress is irritating the rash on my hip,” I confess, well aware that I’ve been mindlessly scratching.
“When it itches, tell me and I’ll take care of it.”
Confused, I look at him with furrowed brows.
“Tell me,” he repeats, a sense of command in his voice.
So I do. I give him a pitiful look, knowing the desire to scratch the hell out of my hip is in my eyes, and he grips it hard right over the rash, squeezing my flesh. It’s painful, it’s heaven, it soothes the itch better than my nails have all week.
He uses his hold on me to guide me to the dance floor, and I try to argue. “I can’t dance.”
“I can,” he replies simply. It’s all that’s needed, too, as with his hand on my hip, occasionally kneading the flesh there, I let him lead me around the floor. Oddly enough, when I’m not thinking about dancing, I’m not too bad. Of course, that’s mostly because I’m following Cole’s hand, wanting his touch for several reasons right now.
“How’d you learn to do this?” I ask as he spins me in a circle.
“No choice. Mom decreed that we’d learn, so we did,” he says easily. “Even Kyle knows how. Had to put it to practice at Dad’s office parties, especially at Christmas.”
I try to imagine Cole as a boy, learning a traditional foxtrot or waltz and performing at a cotillion. I can’t quite picture it. “What else did you have to learn?”
He’s quiet for a while, swaying with me but lost in his thoughts.
“That being alone is for the best sometimes,” he admits finally. “But it’s good to have people you can count on when shit gets fucked up.” His voice has gone roughly contemplative, and he doesn’t offer any more so I’m not sure exactly what he’s talking about, but I can surmise that I’m not the only one whose family puts the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional.
We make it through dinner, cake, and about five too many boring toasts about Paisley and Max, without any drama. I’m this close to being home free.
But then the DJ plays Queen Beyonce. “Can I get all my single ladies to the dance floor, please?”
I don’t move, but Aunt Glenda scoots past the table and basically shoves me out of my chair onto the dance floor. “Go on, Janey Sue.” I hate it when she calls me that. My middle name is Susannah, which I already don’t like, but when she shortens it, I sound like I have a pet pig that I dress up with in matching seasonal costumes for the county fair parade.
To be clear, I’ve never so much as touched a live pig, much less owned one, though I did have several different collars for my calico cat when I was a kid and would change those out. But Mr. Pennyfoot liked that.
I look back, and Cole sends me a wink.You’ve got this, that wink says. And he’s right.
I stand in the gathering of single ladies on the floor, Jessica elbowing to get in front of me despite being a literal child. And though my family’s bad, they’re not going to marry her off child-bride style, so she shouldn’t even be out here.
