While he was searching, his phone beeped with a text. If he was hoping it was Natalie, he was wrong. It was his grandmother asking him to call when he had a minute.
He had a lot of minutes and decided to see what was going on.
“Hi, Arik. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
“Nah,” he said. She would have been twenty minutes ago but no need to add that. “What’s going on?”
“Nick’s fiancée is driving me insane. I should have never said they could have the wedding here.”
“I warned you,” he said.
He was never close to his cousin Nick. His father’s brother’s only child.
Nick was eight years younger than him. He couldn’t imagine getting married at twenty-five. And Courtney was only twenty-three.
It wasn’t a big wedding. Last he heard about sixty people and easily fit into his grandmother’s backyard with her expansive custom gardens.
Not that there’d be much in terms of flowers at the end of March, but the landscaping was still stunning and tents would be set up with heaters to push off the chill.
For everyone’s sake, he hoped the weather was decent. The rest of the day sure wouldn’t be. But if he didn’t show up, his grandmother would never let him hear the end of it.
“You did,” his grandmother said.
“That’s why you wanted me to stay with you before I came here, I know.” He laughed over the snort she’d made. He knew her game.
If he had thought she was feeble and would be taken advantage of, he would have. But Sophie Crest didn’t letanyonerun over her.
She was sweet and overextended herself to those that were worthy of it, and very few were, but she had family loyalty.
Just like Nick got an investment when he was born also, but his cousin chose to boringly sit on it and let it grow.
Neither option was wrong, but Arik’s paid out with more excitement and flourish.
All the more reason he dreaded attending the wedding and enduring the inevitable comments from his family.
“I would have liked to have visited more.”
“I was there a week,” he said. “I was crimping your style.”
“You’re just mad Connie was getting frisky during our poker night.”
He cringed. He thought it’d be fun to sit in on his grandmother’s poker night. Have some laughs with the ladies. Go easy on them.
They kicked his ass, took his money, and most of his dignity.
Their words left him feeling exposed, like they’d crossed a line he hadn’t given them permission to even approach. Who would have thought a bunch of elderly women could have that kind of language?!
It would have been hysterical if it were happening to anyone else, which was why he’d been a good sport about it.
Nothing like giving a few eighty-year-olds a good time and being the butt of their jokes.
That family loyalty his grandmother had, he got it from her.
“She’s got a mouth on her,” he said. “Her poor husband.”
“Frank loves it. I think Connie learned half those things from him. But you and I know they didn’t really scare you away. It had more to do with the rest of the family.”
He let out a sigh. “Yep. You got me there.”
