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I looked down at her elven face and smirked. “More’s the pity.”
Junie laughed out loud, her eyes alight. “Oh, this is going to be good.” She rubbed her small hands together.
“What’s going to be good?” I asked suspiciously. With four sisters, I recognized that tone. Usually, it did not bode well for me.
She shook her head. “You think you know, but you don’t. She,” Junie nodded toward Minty in the backyard, “is probably the best person I know.” She grinned. “And she’s going to give you one helluva run for your money.”
I watched her a moment longer. Sitting so still. Contained. In control.
So classically beautiful.
“I don’t think so,” I murmured, a heaviness I didn’t recognize settling onto my chest. “Women like her are not for men like me.”
Junie only hummed.
I tousled her hair, laughing at her scowl as I stepped out into the backyard.
I purposefully diverted my attention away from the strawberry blond beauty at the back of the garden and headed towards the men. The conversation rambled easily though I uncharacteristically struggled to participate.
Barrett, his eyes on me, tipped his head back and sucked back a long draught of beer. His gaze flitted to Minty momentarily before coming back to me with a quirk of his brow.
How he knew the things he did, I didn’t fucking know, but I wished he didn’t.
I shook my head once.
Minty.
Her name tasted sweet.
Something about her tugged at my heartstrings as well as my dick. Even my brain was firing on all cylinders. It was probably an illusion. I’d made her out to be more than she was. We’d barely exchanged ten words.
With everyone’s attention on Lenny and his plan to propose, I snuck another look, a longer one this time. Prim and proper, her legs crossed at the ankles, surrounded by that crazy, cackling bunch, she both fit in and stood out.
I imagined she encapsulated all things good and classy and bright. Those vibrant women surrounding her, they were the good ones, and they obviously loved her.
I remembered Barrett telling me all that Minty had done to help him prepare for his and Willa’s wedding, and the obvious respect he had for her. I pulled in a deep breath, relieved to have finally figured it out. It was the stories I’d heard from Junie and Barrett that created this push-pull. Then, with her being so fucking easy on the eyes, I’d built her up in my mind.
That didn’t explain the immediate attraction at the wedding, but everyone gets sentimental at weddings. Even, apparently, certified single dudes like myself.
Several minutes later, after forcibly pulling my attention from her yet again, Barrett met my eyes and grinned.
I came crashing back to earth. “Too rich for my blood, Bear,” I warned.
His eyebrows shot up in surprise while he quickly appraised me. He looked out over the yard, his eyes softening as they found his wife.
“Some women are just too good. Yet here we are.”
Barbecue – Minty’s Take
Happy couples surrounded me. Like twin rings soldered together and linked to the next set of twin rings, forming a human necklace. Willa and Junie and their crew on one side, Amber and Ruby and their crew on the other, the children catching and spreading the light like diamond pendants.
I was the clasp holding the necklace together.
Functional, but discreet.
No link to call my own.
No diamonds.
