Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
She sighed deeply. “I’m being upstaged by your cute kid. You’re lucky I like her.”
I was going to say something when another woman walked up beside Beverly, flung an arm around her neck, and dragged her close, nearly knocking her off-balance and splashing a bit of champagne onto her dress. What was lucky was that on her champagne lace curve-hugging dress—no one would notice.
“Janis!” Beverly almost shrieked. “What are you––”
“Look at Amanda!” she said loudly, pointing with the same dripping glass. “I told you she was going after Michael’s brother, and I’ll be damned if she’s not!”
Since Michael Kage only had one brother, my husband, I looked back out on the dance floor to find Sam now stopped on the edge of it talking to a woman I had not seen in years. She’d been one of Beverly’s bridesmaids, Amanda Rinehart. I only remembered her, couldn’t have named any of the others even with a gun to my head. The reason was simple. Amanda was the one who had wanted my husband.
“She’s just as beautiful as I remember,” I said to Beverly, accepting the bottle of water my son gave me as he joined us.
“Who is?” he asked, hand on my shoulder.
“The woman talking to your father,” I answered, watching as her hand clutched his bicep as she spoke to him.
“And where do you know her from?”
“Your aunt Beverly and uncle Michael’s wedding.”
“You made a huge mistake tellin’ her Sam was bi and not gay,” Janis told Beverly, cackling. “She's always said he was the one that got away.”
“Janis, that’s not––”
“Oh come on, Bev,” she said indulgently, “you know exactly why you did it.”
“You’re drunk,” Beverly retorted, “go sit down.”
“Don’t be a bitch because I’m calling you on your crap,” she said, leaving Beverly only to latch on to another woman walking by. Whoever the other woman was, perhaps another bridesmaid for all I knew, she was clearly thrilled to see Janis from the way she hugged her.
“Jory,” Beverly said, clearing her throat, “honey, I––”
“Why would you do that?” Kola asked, leaning forward so he could look at Beverly. “What was the point?”
“I’m sorry?” she said softly, looking from me to him.
“Why did you tell that woman that my dad was bi?”
“Oh, well,” she began, her voice rising, seeming flustered, “when Amanda showed up yesterday with her kids, we of course got out my wedding photos for fun, and when she got to the pictures of her and your father, she said how sad it was that your father was gay, so I had to correct her because he isn’t gay, he’s bi.”
Kola shrugged. “But why does that matter?”
“Because Amanda was wrong, so your aunt cleared things up,” I explained. “Simple as that. You don’t want people walking around being wrong about things.”
“Exactly,” Beverly agreed before taking hold of my wrist so I’d turn to her. “But, Jory, I would have never mentioned it at all if I thought she would hit on him or anything else. It didn’t even cross my mind.”
“I’m sure that’s not what’s happening,” I soothed her, patting her hand.
She made a noise. “Yes, but Amanda just got divorced three months ago.”
I snorted. “The very idea that divorced women are all out there trolling for new husbands is ludicrous. All the people I know, men and women both, when they were newly divorced, the last thing on their minds was ever getting married again.”
“That’s because no one should get married in the first place,” Kola chimed in. “It’s an antiquated practice, and from a biological standpoint it makes zero sense.”
“Careful,” I warned Beverly, “he just argued this in debate.”
“And I won,” he reminded me.
“Really?” She groaned, hand on my shoulder. “Aren’t you a little young to be so jaded?”
“It’s not being jaded,” he argued, squinting at her. “Marriage was created at a time when people were lucky to live to be thirty, and now, because of longer lifetimes, people are getting married later and later.”
“Jory,” she whined, gesturing at my son.
“My position is that marriage should be outlawed until people are in their fifties so everybody’s ready and they’re done doing stupid things.”
“What about romance, Kola, and love,” she said wistfully.
“Oh, you can still have a partnership, or whatever you want to call it, but if one of you breaks the commitment and sleeps around, it’s no big deal and nobody’s labeled with being a homewrecker and nobody has to get divorced and there’s zero scandal.”
“Your parents are married,” she volleyed back.
“Yeah, but they had to have a civil partnership first because marriage wasn’t legal for them yet.”
“No one should be able to tell anyone that they can’t get married.” She was adamant.
“I agree. I’m not saying that at all. Anyone can marry whoever they want—just not until you’re fifty.”
“You realize because you feel like this, you’ll probably fall in love in college and get married young.”