Exhausted is more like it.
Not because I was up all night having sex with Dane, but because trying to convince our families to get along is draining.
So is the idea that I have to ask Grandma the hard questions today.
Winning over parts of our families has come with highs, but if we can’t convince all our family members to get along, will that truly leave Tinsel better?
Or will it lead to infighting in our families along with more fighting with the other’s family?
My head hurts.
I don’t know if we can do this.
“I’m sorry you slept poorly,” Grandma says. She doesn’t addif you were sleeping with someone better, you wouldn’t be, but I swear I hear it.
Mom makes a noise.
Grandmapffts at her.
I’m still being smothered in a hug.
“I have good news for you, Amanda,” Grandma announces. “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”
“Technically, every day is,” I counter as I shake my mom off.
“Bah.Today, you learn the family secret that keeps this gingerbread shop running. Today, you get inducted into the secret society of gingerbread magic.”
“Did she fall and hit her head?” I whisper to Mom.
Mom pinches the bridge of her nose and inhales heavily.
“Mock all you want now, but in four hours, you’ll be a brand-new woman,” Grandma says.
“Vicki. It’s agingerbread recipe,” Mom says.
“And it’s magic. Amanda. Come. I considered not showing you, seeing as you seem to be turning your backjust a littleon your family, but your mother insists that I let you make your own mistakes. It’ll likely correct itself within a few years.”
“Vicki,” Mom says again.
Grandma ignores her as she bustles around the kitchen, pulling the blinds on the windows that let people look in from the hallway to watch the gingerbread being made during normal business hours and locking the kitchen door.
That’s not ominous.
“It’s not magic,” my mom whispers. “And I’m sorry she’s stressing you out the day before your wedding.”
My stomach follows where Grandma’s jaw just was to rest on the fake-gingerbread floor.
We have one more day to convince our families to make peace, to get along, to maybe even find something to like about one another, before we have to either break up or go through with the wedding.
There’s no chance we’re going through with the wedding.
We might like each other, butgetting married tomorrow?
No.
No way.
“It’s time,” Grandma announces.
