“You find the place okay? I know you’ve never come on your own before.”
“Yeah, though it was a whole other experience walking through the lobby with my eyes open. I’m pretty sure your doorman winked at me.”
Alex raises his eyebrows, amused. “Can’t say I blame him.” He lips move lightly over mine before attaching themselves to my neck. “Mmmm… you smell good.”
“I smell like sugar, butter, and sweat.” I crane my neck to the side to give him more access. “I didn’t have time to take a shower before I left for the dress fitting.”
“Have I mentioned how much I love that you own a bakery? You come home smelling like cakes and cookies. Drives me wild.” His hands creep beneath the hem of my short dress.
“I looked in your fridge.” I close my eyes in anticipation. “I think you might have a sugar deficiency.”
His laugh is deep and rumbly. My back hits the hallway wall as he kisses me with plenty of tongue and no restraint. “I have been feeling a bit sick all day. Maybe you can help cure me.”
I know I need to tell him about Cadence soon but good gracious, this man knows how to use a well-placed finger.
So that didn’t really go as I expected. Alex’s heart is beating a mile a minute beneath my ear. His warm skin is a little damp from our exertions and I’m sure I’m not helping matters by draping my body across his. Our compatibility in bed has never been a problem. Tonight is no exception.
“Where’d you get that belt anyway?” I push myself up to look down at him. “NASA?”
He tilts his head back and laughs. “Wherever I got it, we should write them a thank you note. It’s officially my favorite possession.”
I trace invisible symbols across his chest, prolonging the conversation I know we’ve got to have. “So, Alex,” I begin, an idea forming rapidly in my mind. “When you tell your father you can’t go through with marrying Cadence, what’s going to happen?”
The happy smile on his face falls. He was vague the last time I asked him what sort of fallout we should prepare for. I need to know more.
“I guess that’s really up to Gordon. Juan’s a figurehead these days, to keep confidence up with the investors. He doesn’t own more than a handful of shares at this point.”
I touch his jaw with my fingers, hoping to keep him calm as the conversation progresses. “What about the land? Will they get to keep any of it?”
He sighs heavily through his nose and looks at the ceiling. “Just a few acres surrounding the house. That’s mostly just grassland. All the valuable land was sold along with my father’s stock in the company.”
“Your parent’s will get to keep their house then, at least?”
He pulls me closer to his side. His hand grazes across the bare skin of my back and he meets my eyes. They’re contemplative and serious. It’s unsettling, knowing I’m the cause for both the happiness and despair reflected back at me alternatively.
“It’s not going to be easy for them,” he says, still rubbing my back. “Gordon’s not going to let it be. They’ll get to keep the house only because my granddad still owned it when Juan got us into this mess. But the life they’ve been living will be over. They won’t be able to afford it once the money from the company dries up.”
“But surely they can live more modestly?”
He laughs, without humor this time. “They’re not like your family, Charlie. They wouldn’t be content with fishing and family time.”
It’s not an insult for me but for them. I feel like a terrible person. I’ve been so focused on being with Alex I haven’t been giving enough thought to how this decision is going to affect his family.
Cadence is young and beautiful, even if she is a she-demon. She’ll find someone else. But what about Alex’s mother, whom I know almost nothing about? Will she be able to move on and start a new life? And if she can’t, will Alex resent me for it?
I roll onto my back and drag the covers under my chin. “I’m going to ruin their lives.”
He leans on his side and brushes the hair away from my face. “You’re not doing anything. It’s always been my decision.”
“Which you were happy to go along with before I fell in the hydrangea.”
“I wouldn’t say I was happy about it. I was just trying to make the best of a bad situation.”
“And Cadence? Has she also been putting on a brave face?”
Alex places his head in his hand and wraps the other around my waist. He doesn’t answer.
“She loves you, you know. It’s as plain as the nose on her face.”
He still doesn’t respond, just looks at me in quiet contemplation.
Time to face the music. I take a deep breath. “I told her about us.”
His eyes narrow for a fraction of a second.
“I didn’t mean to but she was being nasty and it just sort of…came out.”
Alex shuts his eyes and falls back onto the bed. He drags an arm over his face.
I sit up, wrapping the sheet around me and wait nervously for my scolding. He remains silent. When Paige and I were little girls we knew we were really in for it when Mama would go quiet. Those were the times the real punishments came.
The central air conditioner hums loudly in the silence.
“Alex?”
Nothing.
“Please, say something.”
He moves his arm behind his head. His eyes are open, staring at the ceiling, unblinking. “I told you I wanted to handle it.”
I shift uncomfortably. I don’t know if I can or should touch him. “I know and I wanted you to. It just came out. I’m sorry.”
He exhales loudly. “What’d she say?”
“She said her father wouldn’t allow you to call things off. Like, the decision was never really yours to make.” I watch his face closely. “But she’s just being overly dramatic, right Alex? I mean, what can he possibly do?”
“I don’t know.”
The fact that he’s got no reassurance scares me.
“I don’t know.” He fixes dark brown eyes on me. “I wanted to be the one to tell Cadence because I wanted to go over the terms of the partnership and the transfer of the company when Juan sold it to Gordon. I thought maybe there would be a way for me to break the agreement without my parents losing everything.”
“And you think Cadence will tell her father and he’ll do what? Hide something from you?”
“Maybe.” He rubs his hand across his chest. “He’s capable of just about anything if it gets him what he wants. He wants my family’s name and connections so he can grow his enterprise.”
“You make him sound like a gangster.”
“That’s exactly what he is.” He looks at me furtively. “A gangster in Brooks Brothers clothing.”
The room is warm but the stern tone of his voice sends a chill through me. “Maybe we didn’t think this all the way through.” I turn to move off the bed.
Alex sits up and reaches for me. “Don’t…please.”
He leans back against the pillows and tugs me down with him. I place my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. “What’re we going to do?”
His deep voice vibrates against my ear. “I’m going to call Cadence in the morning and then, I don’t know. I’ll figure something out.”
I close my eyes, worn out from the drama of the day. I’m so worried about what tomorrow will bring, I can’t even muster up an appetite. “I love you.” I place a kiss on the skin beneath my cheek.
His fingers brush along my upper arm. I can tell by the way he’s holding himself he’s nowhere near being tired. “I love you, too.”
Before sleep claims me, the last thought in my mind is of the day my mother died. I crept into her room, afraid to disturb her in case she was sleeping. Daddy was sitting in the kitchen chair he’d drawn up to the bed some weeks before, holding her hand. Big, ugly tears were sliding down his face and he was rubbing her thin hand with both of his like she was cold, and he was trying to warm her up.
The floor beneath my foot creaked and he looked over at me.
“She’s gone and left us, Charlie,”
he cried.
“She promised she’d be mine forever, and now she’s gone and left me.”
Chapter Thirteen
Fifteen Days Until I Trip Walking Down the Aisle
“Where the hell have you been? You’re plum out of cinnamon rolls and Jolene can’t bake for shit. I sent Amber to the Krispy Kreme so we’d at least have something for the display case before the doors open.”
At first glance, I’m worried Brook is naked under her City Bakery apron. When she huffs off toward the pantry I’m relieved to see a giraffe print mini dress beneath it. Knowing Aunt Brook, it could’ve been much worse.
I follow behind. “I know. I’m sorry. I stayed in Dallas last night.”
Brook looks me up and down, raising a perfectly drawn eyebrow at me. “I’m assuming not with your baby sister?”
Her knowing look brings a flush to my face.
“Mmmm-hmmm. Well consider yourself lucky I had to meet a girl at the Bath Shop this morning. I noticed your lights weren’t on and used the spare key to let myself in.”
“You have a spare key?”
“Patsy gave it to me.”
“Patsy has a spare key?”
“Your daddy gave it to her.”
“Why?”
“What are you, the KGB? Ask him yourself. I’m just trying to help my favorite niece out of a pickle. Now.” She stops at the walk-in cooler. “What the hell’s a cake pop and how the hell do you bake ‘em?”
I flip the ‘Closed’ sign on the door and turn the lock. I’m absolutely exhausted. Brook and Jolene helped me throw together muffins, croissants, scones, cake pops, and cinnamon rolls in a frenzy of activity just one hour before the door opened. Amber eventually turned up with an empty box of Krispy Kremes, claiming she’d been robbed on the way back to the bakery. This did not stop her stealing from the display case.
Brook sits fanning herself while Jolene picks dough from beneath her manicure.
“Thank y’all so much for your help this morning. I couldn’t have opened without you.” I flop in the chair beside Brook.
“Don’t worry about it, sugar,” says Jolene. “That’s what family’s for.”
I note that ‘family’ doesn’t seem to like washing dishes, but hold my tongue.
“Alright, we’ve done the work. Time to talk payment.” Brook eyes me like a hawk. “Who were you playin’ doctor with last night?”
Jolene stops fiddling with her nails and zones in on me. I’d make a run for it and hide in my apartment for the rest of the day, but they’ve probably got a key to that too. “I was with Alex.”
Jolene fans herself with the back of her hand as Brook whoops and hollers.
“All right, all right,” I say, rolling my eyes and gesturing for them to calm down.
“You two goin’ steady now?” Jolene asks.
“I don’t think you can go steady when you’re nearly thirty, but we want to be together.” I try to maintain the smile on my face but don’t have the strength.
Jolene moves to the chair beside me, her gossip reflex kicking in. “What happened? You can tell us.”
I twiddle the fingers in my lap. “Nothin’.”
Brook clutches my hand tightly. “Did you find out he was married?”
“No.”
“Is he a gay?” Jolene whispers.
“How can he be a gay if she spent the night with him?” Brook asks sharply.
“I don’t know. Maybe he likes it both ways. He could be a bipolar.”
“I think you mean bisexual,” I say, too anxious and worried to laugh at her choice of words.
Jolene smiles patiently. “No honey, that’s what they call it when you got man
and
lady parts.”
The ridiculousness of her comment, the DNA proof that I’m related to her, and my guilt over what’s going to happen to Alex’s family brings tears to my eyes.
Two hands rub circles across my back consolingly. I take back my hand from Brook and bury my face in my arms, breathing deeply, in and out, trying to ignore the whispered conversation between my aunts.
“Go get her some whiskey.”
“I’m not leaving. You go get it.”
“I’ve got to stay and help her close down for the day.”
“Well, I’ve got to take Wendell and Walter to their court hearing this afternoon.”
“For the drunk and disorderly thing?”
“Naw, that’s next Tuesday. This is for putting that recliner on the sleds, and tying it to the back of the truck. I told them not to drive it through town.”
“Oh right…the redneck surfing.”
“Stop!”
My aunts freeze. The hands on my back instantly still. “I mean,” I lift my head. “Can you two hear yourselves?” I look between them, bewildered by the normal tone of their conversation. “Rednecks surfboards? Drunk and disorderly? It’s no wonder Paige never comes back here. We’re a family of hillbillies. I may as well move back to the trailer park and just accept reality. We’re trash. Our family is trash.”
“Now you wait just a minute.” Jolene points a turquoise blue fingernail at me. “This family is not trash, Charlotte Dolly.”
“See? Even my name is trashy. Charlotte Dolly? Who gives their child a middle name like that?”
Brook crosses her arms, pushing her cleavage northward. “Now you can say what you want about me. And you can say what you want about them poor, stupid souls you call cousins. But don’t you go bringing Miss Parton into it. She’s a national treasure, young lady.”
I stand and walk toward the counter, dread weaving through me like yarn. “I can’t believe I ever thought he could really choose me over her. His family will never accept me. I’m not Paige. I can’t blend in with these people. I have no idea what
Manolo Blahniks
are. Are they handbags? Shoes?”
“Ooh, I think it might be a show on Univision.”
This is who I am. This is where I come from. I can’t say my family’s never embarrassed me, but I’ve never
been
embarrassed by them until now. How can I ask Alex to give up his family legacy, potentially ruin his parent’s lives, for a front row seat to Harlow Hee-Haw?
Brook saunters up and places her arm around my shoulders. “Come and sit down. You’re obviously riled up about something.” She guides me back to the table. “Now, tell us what’s the matter, ‘cause I know you wouldn’t be saying any of this unless something or someone’s put you up to it.”
“It’s…a long story.”