“My aunt had Jahmir’s supposed father lock me up in an insane asylum when she thought I’d found my long thought dead brother because they’d been secret lovers for years.”
She delivered that bit of her history with such aplomb I had to blink several times before I grasped everything she was saying and it still didn’t fully make sense.
“Usually I’m quick but I think you might have to run that by me again.”
Jemma Marie laughed at my confusion and I was glad that it didn’t upset her. She went back through the tangled web of her brother being declared dead as a child and her parents grieving the loss for years. And even after that she’d been declared a ward of her aunt when her parents were killed in a car crash. If there had been a girl who’d had little luck it was Jemma Marie. She’d gotten a feeling that her brother was still alive and had traveled to Atlanta to discuss it with her brothers, the band of merry madmen that included Ori, when she was abducted. She was eighteen and her aunt apparently convinced everyone she was just having a youthful folly. But when they finally started to search for her she’d vanished without a trace. Only she’d been there under their noses in the same city as Jahmir for years. It wasn’t until his mother had been placed in the same facility as punishment that she had been released. And that had apparently taken an act of the governor because there was some unknown hold on her by a doctor that no one could locate.
“Fuck. Is the plan in place to kill her then? I’m more than ready to do my part.” I was furious knowing that this woman was still running around free like everything was okay. My eyes darted around the room hoping I could put eyes on her and commit her face to memory.
“Do you think there’s some kind of initiation that you need to complete in order to become a part of this?”
I frowned at her thinking I felt the need to prove myself to anyone in this room. “I wouldn’t care if it were. I would do that on my own.”
“Ahh you have a mother hurt I see.”
“Pardon?”
She playfully bumped me a sign that the easy camaraderie that we’d built hadn’t been lost by my words.
“Don’t get all formal on me now. You dipped your toe into my head so I’m returning the favor. It’s more than clear that your eagerness is led by either a physical or emotional failing of someone in your own life. Yet more proof that you and Ori are going to get along well together. His mother hurt with yours means that you both understand each other well.”
“My mother is a dreadful soul that if you ever have the displeasure of meeting her you have free rein to be as disrespectful as you’d like.”
“Damn, that bad, huh? My mama’s been dead for years and I will kill and mutilate anyone who ever speaks ill of her name. My daddy’s either. Immediate death sentence.” It was wild how her voice made this death threat sound poetic but it did. And it made me smile.
“I feel the same for my abo but that lady…” I shrugged my shoulders and she laughed again.
“Are y’all just going to keep yourselves sequestered?” Nev sashayed over with the rest of the bridal party and I wondered where Midas had gone since he’d finally let her come up for air. I knew she and the bride were cousins by marriage now and I wondered if I was going to have to fight for time with my best friend.
“Sorry just making friends and taking a second. It’s a lot going on.”
“I can understand how you feel. I was the person thinking I wouldn’t be involved with any of this at Francesca’s wedding last year and now I’m here about to get married to this man who overwhelms me.”
“You make him sound like a tidal wave.”
“Or a sandstorm.”
“Neither. Xerxes is more like being slipped a sleeping pill as it softly takes you over and before you realize what’s going on you’re already under control.” Vanya’s big brown eyes looked so dreamy as she spoke of her husband. I knew she didn’t understand just how crazy she sounded.
Jemma Marie’s face now looked mildly appalled as she looked Vanya over to ensure she wasn’t being coerced into this.
A girl’s girl indeed.
“You make it sound like he roofied you, darlin’.”
“No illegal drugs were consumed but I do feel like I’m in another world around him. You understand don’t you?”
Vanya looked at me with that doe-eyed expectancy and I didn’t want to be a downer on her wedding weekend. As the silence stretched I could see her fighting a smile and Jemma Marie didn’t even bother.
“Is this a test?”
Vanya shook her head disappointed with my answer. “I wanted to see where your head was at. You don’t really seem to know what you feel, which I guess is normal.”
“Normal for whom?”
“For all of us being in the situation you are in.”
“You married Yacouba with a big production. Eyes wide open as I remember.”
