My mom was grounded, cynical, and not easily charmed.
“I don’t want to be forced into a marriage.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “I’m just saying… you’ve been to Vegas how many times over the years? I’m sure you’ve met men and enjoyed their company. And I’m sure drinks have been involved. But you’ve never woken up married before.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“I’m just curious if it might be worth it to figure outwhyyou married Harrison.”
“Tequila, that’s why.”
“Okay. Sure. Whatever you say,” she said, patted my arm, passed me a drink, then made her way back to my father.
The drink?
A damn margarita.
“Oh, we have jokes,” I grumbled.
I reached to push it back and got another flash of a memory from that night.
Me sitting on Harrison’s lap at a lounge, a margarita in my hand.
But it was gone even as it formed.
For that split second, though, there was a moment of almost overwhelming joy.
My head whipped over toward Harrison.
Seeing something on my face, he excused himself from his current conversation, then made his way over to me.
“You alright?” he asked, coming up to me. “You look pale.”
A sigh escaped me.
“Tequila,” I said, waving to it.
“I think I’ll always associate the taste of strawberry margaritas with you,” he said, pushing it away. “You want me to leave, don’t you?”
“I want you to stop making my people fall in love with you.”
“If it makes you feel better, Willa is really trying to be cold to me.”
“One ally in the group.”
“Two of your uncles glowered at me.”
“Yeah, until they started talking to you.”
And that was the problem, wasn’t it?
He wasn’t supposed to fit in there. With my family, my people.
We came from almost comically different worlds.
Me, the daughter and niece and cousin ofoutlaw bikers. Him, the white-collar trust fund kid to hedge fund manager… or whatever the hell he did.
He shouldn’t have been able to fit in with them, converse easily with them, win them over.
