“Stop being mean, or I’m telling Mom.”
“Not if I tell her first.”
I roll my eyes at their antics. Izzy is twenty-six like me, and Noah is pushing forty, yet they act like children. I’m sure if I had a sibling, we would be relentlessly teasing one another and threatening to tell our parents about it like they do. But here I am still living vicariously through them as I have since I was a teen.
“See you in a few,” I say to Izzy, though I’m not sure she hears me as she and Noah bicker back and forth.
As much as I love having a front-row seat to a good argument between them, I have a wedding to plan and not a lot of time to do so, thanks to Izzy’s brilliant idea to get married in ten weeks. It doesn’t helpthat my contacts list keeps shrinking by the day since the last fiasco I was part of.
It’s not my fault the tent caught fire during the Jefferson ceremony and caused half the guests to flee in panic. That was all the catering company and those damn butane burners they insisted on using. I don’t care what they claim otherwise.
Chambers Charming Ceremonies Wedding Planning is on its last leg. I am officially now known as the worst wedding planner in the tri-county area, and while I always wanted to make a name for myself, I didn’t meanthatkind of name.
It’s crap that I got this label, especially since so much of it was out of my control, but I guess that’s the risk you take when you put your name on something.
And I guess the risk you take when your family is cursed.
I know it sounds ridiculous, and people whisper about us behind our backs because they think we’re fools for believing in it, but it’s hard not to when you look at the facts.
My nonna—my grandmother—has been married four times, and each marriage has brought heartache. Her first husband died in a freak accident eight months after they got married. Her second ran off with her best friend after three months. The third was the longest, lasting four years, until he informed her he was gay. Needless to say, that ended quickly. And her fourth was a whopping ten-day marriage to some guy who turned out to be a con man and disappeared with a quarter-million dollars.
Nonna is just the tip of the iceberg. My mother has been married twice, secondly to my father, who decided he didn’t want to be a dad. He left us when I was six. Walked out one day when my mother was at work, and we never heard from him again.
Add to this the fact that neither my aunts nor I have had successful relationships, and it’s safe to say that the curse isveryreal.
I wish it weren’t affecting my business, too, but that’s what I get for making my living from true happiness—the one thing the curse hates.
There was never anything else for me, though. I fell in love with weddings when I was just a kid, ever since I watched my aunt Collette walk down the aisle. She was stunning in a big, puffy white gown andsohappy. Everyone was. My grandmother was in love, my mother was married to my dad, and even all my aunts had someone. It was such a rare feat in the Chambers timeline that I wanted nothing more than to bottle up all that happiness and keep it forever.
Of course, all that eventually went to hell, as it always does—Collette never could resist a pirate—but that feeling never disappeared. I vowed that one day, I would find it again. That I would be the one to create that magic for people ... and maybe even myself one day.
Then I grew up. I watched every woman I love get hurt.Igot hurt. And I realized that marriage just wasn’t in the cards, thanks to the curse. So I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I won’t ever have a wedding. I’ll just plan them.
I shake away the thoughts and bend to retrieve the scattered papers, stacking them together neatly. They are primarily contracts for a catering company that I guess hasn’t yet gotten wind of my terrible luck, plus notes for Izzy’s ceremony.
My hand pauses over the oldest piece of paper in the stack, the one that’s crinkled and worn out with about ten different colors all over it. It’s the same piece of paper I’ve tucked into the back of every notebook I’ve ever had—the culmination of fifteen years of ideas formywedding, the one I’ll never have now, thanks to the curse.
I shove the paper full of silly dreams back into the stack and drop it onto my coffee table to look at later tonight, maybe with a glass of wine.
Going to my bedroom, I trade my comfy sleep pants for a gray pencil skirt and my old worn shirt that I got from a concert ages ago for a crisp blush button-down. I might be meeting friends, but this has become a business matter. I need to look the part.
After giving my coal-black hair a quick spritz of dry shampoo and fluffing it up as best I can, I swipe on some mascara and lipstick andslip into my favorite pair of heels, which makes me feel like one of those in-charge New Yorkers you see in the movies.
“Bye, Beans!” I yell to my one-year-old cat, who is likely hiding beneath the couch like she always is. “I’ll be back later.”
I grin when I hear a softmeowin response, then close the front door of my apartment and make my way to my car.
I steer my little BMW, creeping on its last leg, down Cascade Lane toward the edge of town, where Stick Taps sprawls out over farmland.
The waterfront sidewalks are crowded with people as I drive through town—no surprise since the weather is incredible today and there was an event downtown this afternoon. I wave at several people, knowing practically everyone in this town.
That’s just how it is here, though.
Sitting along the Puget Sound, Port Harbor is one of those towns that feel like a secret. It’s small, but not so tiny that you get bored too easily. There’s always something happening, always something to do. We’re far enough from Seattle that this feels like its own little pocket of the world. Add in the quirky name because, apparently, the founders couldn’t decide if they wanted to be a port or a harbor, and you have the perfect little town.
Even though I threw a fit about moving here after my father bailed and my mother wanted to move closer to Nonna, I’m glad we did. I can’t imagine living anywhere else now. Moving back here after completing my bachelor’s in hospitality management was a no-brainer, just like starting my business, even if I am struggling now.
Dust kicks up around my tires as I chug along the dirt road toward the taproom. My eyes immediately go to the barn, which looks like it has seen better days. Where some may see a lost cause, I see good bones. I see a bride and groom sharing their dance, a father crying over his baby girl growing up, and two people starting their lives together.
