“Pftt. I think you pronounced ‘Britt is my best friend ever’ wrong.” She jumps up, fluffing my hair, wiping a little lipstick off my bottom lip and pushes me over to the bed.
“Are you the director, now? Sarah! Help me! She’s gone rogue!”
Sarah dissolves into giggles, “I knew you ladies were going to be a good time.”
We spend the afternoon lounging, them on the love seat, me on the bed and it’s the most fun I’ve had in a while. The champagne was just what I needed to take the edge off and I was able to relax and just go with the flow of the photo shoot. I’m excited to see the finished pictures. Sarah showed me a couple through the lens and once they’re edited, they’re going to be outstanding.
I’m in Jackson’s jersey, an official one from when he was on the Carolina Warriors. I’ve got some eye black painted on my face and I know he’s going to lose his mind when he sees this.
Just to tease him, I take a selfie of just my eyes, with the eye black underneath and then another of the front of the jersey, with only the top half of his number 5 showing and send it off to him. Then I turn my phone on silent and join the girls again.
“What’s with your shit eating grin?” Britt asks.
I shrug. “Just teasing your brother.”
“You’re going to give him a stroke if you keep it up. These pictures are goingto do him in.”
“I have to one up him in something. He wins at everything he does.”
Sarah comes and sits next to us. “Ok so fill me in. What’s the dynamic here?”
Farrah jumps in first. “So, Francesca, Britt and I grew up here in Christmas and went to school together. Britt and Jackson are siblings. Francesca always had a crush on Jackson but would never admit it.” She leans in and talks softer. “But we all saw right through those lies!”
“Farrah!”
Britt jumps in now. “Oh yea, it took a whole fake dating scheme for them both to realize what we all saw right away!”
“Fake dating?” Sarah asks with excitement and leans in closer to us.
“Oh, girl, that needs a whole separate photo session,” Britt laughs. “There is not enough time in the day today!”
“You will have to book a shoot!”
“Oh, God, Bobby would never let me out of the house again!” She fakes exhaustion throwing herself back onto the pillows on the couch. “He’d have me laid out in the same position of every picture we took, while he worked me over.”
I laugh at her nonsense but not doubting for one second Bobby would do just that.
“I didn’t grow up here and I saw the attraction the first time I saw the two of them in the same room together!” CJ says.
“Anyway,” I cut in. “Short story? Yes, us three grew up here in Christmas. Farrah and my brother, Tom have a situationship,” I raise my hand, “and don’t even deny it, we all see right through your coffee dates.” I raise my brow daring her to say otherwise. “My oldest brother and Jackson are best friends. When Britt married Bobby and brought him into the fold, the guys became the three musketeers.” I smirk. Those three were nothing but trouble together. Add in Billy? Disaster.
“And CJ? How do you know them? And what is CJ short for?”
“Che—”
She quickly cuts me off. “I moved to Christmas after graduation. I had visited a few times and fell in love with the town. And them.” She smiles and nods at us, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She fell in love with a man, too, and though that love is strong, they both seem to be too strong willed to make it work.
I sense her disappointment and fear of being asked more questions so I quickly takeover the conversation again. “Billy is my third brother, him and Tom are twins. He’s a player, lives his life by flaunting our last name, but he does have one woman who always seems to catch his eye.” I raise a brow towards CJ.
“My sister,” she says as we all repeat at the same time, “your sister”!
“Ahh, so it’s quite the family love fest you have going on here.” Sarah stands and places her camera back on the tripod. “I think it’s wonderful, what you’ve created here together. All of you, friends and brothers and lovers. There’s nothing better than sharing life with those you love. And these pictures? This shoot? It marks the one day that you let love make you do something crazy, something out of your element. The day you took love and put it on display for only you and him. Perfection doesn’t exist in every moment, but it can be found in those tiny individual moments. You just need to remember each of those tiny moments make up a whole messy and sloppy lifetime. Don’t dwell on making everything perfect, there’s more fun in the mess.” She winks.
I’m sensing a theme here. How does everyone know exactly what I need to hear?
fifteen
FRANCESCA
