“It’s a wedding. It’sherwedding,” Elliot replied with a wry grin. “Why wouldn’t she wear white?”
I drew on my cigar again. Everything I knew about Calliope Derrick pointed to her being a force of nature I’d never want to cross. Never in a million years would I have paired her with my easygoing brother. But seeing them together, it just made sense. Even I had to admit it.
Still, her wearing white on her wedding day was a surprise to me. Calliope was not a traditional woman, so I hadn’t expected her to agree to a wedding.
Instead of answering my brother’s question, I gave him a long look.
Elliot exhaled a puff of his cigar, chuckling at my pointed look.
My brother had always been easy to laughter. Smiling often, glass half full and all that. Even when our mother died, and our family was dealt a blow we’d never recover from, he didn’t let it drag him down. He grieved her, of course. But he was able to talk about her with a smile, laughing when recounting memories.
I could barely say her name, let alone look at her picture. To this day, I couldn’t do it. The hole inside me never healed, never scabbed over.
We were different, Elliot and me. He was perpetual sunshine. I was dark fucking storm clouds.
But his laughter had become different. More robust. He seemed happy in a way that I hadn’t thought possible.
My eyes drifted back to where Clara was now perched on Hannah’s hip, and she was spinning her around.
Maybe I’d be able to laugh and smile if that were something permanent. If I didn’t have to prepare to lose the most important woman in my life.
“She’s pretty.” Elliot motioned to the dance floor.
My entire body jerked as if he’d hit me. Because he wasn’t looking at his wife. He was looking at Hannah.
I cannot punch my brother on his wedding day.
“It’s your fucking wedding day,” I spat at him.
Elliot chuckled, unaware of how close I was to laying my hands on him. “And dare I point out that your nanny is pretty, nice, and wonderful with your daughter?”
Technically, it was all true. Except Hannah wasn’t merely pretty. It was an insult to describe her with such an ordinary word. But Elliot was pointing it out for the same reason my father had on Clara’s birthday. Because they were romantics. And because, unfortunately, I hadn’t done a good enough job at hiding my want for Hannah.
They needed to know that their fantasies for my future were ill-founded.
“And in her fucking twenties,” I reminded my brother. And myself.
Elliot shrugged as if an age gap of almost twenty years were nothing. “She’s legal. And she seems older than that.”
She did. Hannah seemed older than she was. Because she was smart, kind, honest. Because she’d been through things that had forced her to grow up.
Because some asshole had stolen her carefree youth from her.
But she was still young.
“Young enough to be my daughter,” I finished my thought out loud.
“Not by a long shot, brother.” Elliot slapped me on the shoulder. “Go ask her to dance.” As if doing the thing I’d been wanting to do all night was that simple.
Having my hands on Hannah’s hips, her lush body pressed up against me. Breathing her in.
No fucking way.
Elliot seemed to read my face. “Or don’t. Stay out here and be a miserable bastard. I’m going to get my wife. Because I’m not a miserable bastard.”
His tone wasn’t biting because he didn’t intend it to be. He gave me a wink before walking away.
I sipped my whisky.
