I sleeplike crap and wake up to a message that puts me in the kind of foul mood that I haven’t felt for a very, very long time.
I don’t like being cranky. It’s not natural. It’s not who I am.
But it’s necessary today.
“What do you mean, you’re postponing your honeymoon?” I hiss at Theo. I’m in the kitchen prepping industrial-strength coffee at an ungodly early hour, knowing Bash will be up within minutes because he’s always awake early the mornings after he’s up too late.
Today will bebrutalif I’m not prepared.
Worth it—the reception was perfect and fun and everything it should’ve been, no matter how much I couldn’t even contemplate what food would do to my knotted stomach—but still brutal.
Hence the coffee.
With a side of the absolute wrong news.
“We’re postponing our honeymoon,” my brother repeats. “Sheriff found a car parked at the Twin Ridge parking lot. You’re likely to get a visitor.”
“I already sent him away.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you call me?”
“BecauseI can handle my own problems.”
“Canandshouldandhave toare all different things,” Laney calls in the background.
These two. I know they mean well. I love that they love me enough to change their plans for me. But I can handle my life, and I don’t like them coddling me when it’s not necessary. “You have exactly six weeks before your doctor won’t let you travel anymore.Go on your honeymoon.”
“Too expensive to rebook now,” Theo says.
I’m gripping my phone so tightly that I might break it. Despite all of his attempts to spend and give away the cash that he made in the few years that he was the world’s biggest online adult entertainment star—before giving it all up for Laney, at his insistence, which was my favorite news that I came home to after Fiji—he’s accidentally made a few investments and tackled some projects that amused him which have tripled what he made as an online porn star. My brother is rich as sin.
Maybe notRutherfordrich, but still loaded.
Talk about things I never thought I’d hear myself say when we were growing up asthe poor kidsin Snaggletooth Creek.
And Laney’s about to take the reins as CEO of her parents’ online photo gift business, which isalsoa multi-million-dollar company.
They can afford to rebook their honeymoon. “I realize I have no business telling either of you how to spend your money, butit’s too expensiveis the dumbest argument I’ve ever heard from either one of you. Ever. Times twenty. Billion. Times twenty billion.”
“Em, I hate to be the wet blanket—” Laney starts, but Theo cuts her off.
“If that asshole starts asking for paternity tests and visitation while we’re gone—”
“And we’ve gonesomany amazing places already,” Laney continues. “Delaying our honeymoon and possibly taking the baby with us so we can be here nowjust in casemakes us happy.”
“And we can afford babysitters when we want private mommy-daddy time whenever we take our honeymoon,” Theo adds.
“I told you not to say that to her.”
He’s wearing thatI love to get in trouble with my girlfriendgrin. I don’t have to see him to recognize the vibe coming through the phone.
Except now, it’s officially theI love getting in trouble with my wifegrin.
I love them.
But I don’tlikethem this morning.
I guzzle my coffee—doctored with so much cream and sugar that it’s not hot anymore, naturally—and look out at my chicken coop, where I need to go gather a few eggs, then choke.
