Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 121898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
“Who’s dying?” Hazel asked, joining us yet again.
“If you guess right, I’ll spare your life,” Sylvie drawled. “Against my present desires.”
Hazel wrinkled up her face. “Are you still mad? I’m over it. Can’t you be?”
“Not while I have to look at you.”
“Then don’t look at me.”
“I will spit in your shampoo, Hazel.”
“You’re too old to be a brat like this.”
“So are you, but it doesn’t stop you acting like one. Do you want me to smack you with a magazine again?”
Hazel glared at Sylvie. “I’m leaving you a bad review on wherever it is I can review you.”
“It would be my pleasure to read your scathing review of the wedding planning services I’m giving you at a seventy-five percent discount. By all means, please leave me one so I can make sure my actual customers get an even better service from me.”
“See? You’re still being a brat.”
“Thomas. My dear slave.” Sylvie looked at me. “Find me a magazine so—”
Hazel’s phone rang again, and she glanced at the screen before getting up. “Consider yourself lucky, or I’ll beat you with a magazine.”
“Not with those chicken wing arms, you won’t.”
“You… Ugh!” Hazel stormed off towards the door with her phone against her ear once again.
Sylvie sipped her drink. “I mean it. If Shannon bails, I’m not doing her hair. Unless she wants to be bald.”
***
“Do you have any idea what happened between them?” I asked Julian, doing my best not to make eye contact with the bartender.
“Not a clue. Hazel was furious when she came home earlier, but she told me that she didn’t want to hear it. I suggested we not meet up tonight, but she was insistent that we all come.” He glanced over at our table. “They’re both on their phones. Whatever it is, it’s a pretty bad falling out.”
“Would anything about the wedding be the cause of it? They’ve bickered a few times since Sylvie came back.”
He shrugged. “It’s a week away. I know there have been some issues, but Sylvie has handled it all.”
Yeah.
That was likely the issue.
Sylvie handled everything. Every single time something cropped up, Hazel had done nothing but cry while Sylvie pulled her hair out and stressed herself to her limits to fix it.
There was no way she put this much effort into anyone else’s wedding. There was no way she didn’t set proper boundaries with other clients.
Maybe I was a sceptic, but sometimes, it felt like Hazel took advantage of Sylvie’s closeness to her.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, toying with the stem of Sylvie’s empty gin glass. “But Hazel is a bit spoilt, isn’t she?”
Julian sighed, dropping his chin. “She can be. I think it’s because Sylvie has always fixed everything for her. They’ll never say a bad word against their parents, but Sylvie was parentified to an extent when they were young. Their parents were busy with their business and travelling because of it, and while their grandparents stepped up, it wasn’t the same. If Hazel was bullied, Sylvie dealt with it. If Hazel hurt herself, Sylvie fixed it. If Hazel needed someone, Sylvie was there.”
Wow.
No wonder Sylvie harboured feelings of jealousy towards Hazel.
It wasn’t malicious—it was a lingering feeling built up over years of being the fixer to all her problems and always putting her first. Now, she was watching her sister get everything she dreamt of, and Hazel didn’t seem to see that from any perspective other than her own.
With that knowledge, it really wasn’t that shocking that Sylvie had moved away. Aside from leaving to better achieve her dreams, perhaps she’d felt that moving was her only escape from being Hazel’s pseudo-parent.
“I’m not stupid. I know Hazel had a vibrant dating life before we met. I know about all her failed engagements, too.” Julian slid his gaze towards me with a wry smile curving his lips. “Who do you think picked up her pieces when every single one of her relationships broke down?”
“Sylvie.”
“Exactly. I remember video-calling her to tell her that we were getting married, and she burst out laughing at first and said, ‘Yeah, okay, if you say so.’ It took us going down to visit her in Dorset and me giving her a big cash deposit before she realised this was the wedding that would actually happen.”
“And now that it’s happening, Sylvie is still the one fixing everything because of Hazel’s endlessly changing whims.”
“It only happens with her. I’ve told Hazel she needs to not rely on her for every little thing, or at least stop exploiting her kindness, but it’s so drilled into her that Sylvie will fix everything and do everything she wants without question.” He blew out a long breath. “I’m not surprised they’re fighting this badly. I was almost waiting for it to come to a head, especially since the weather delayed their mum and dad’s flight by a few days. I was just going to wait for them to arrive tomorrow since Joanna will be able to calm them down.”