Page 30 of D.I.E.T. (Did I Eat That?)

Ten:

Since the night Sinjin and I started sleeping together, and I meant that in the literal sense, he’d kind of kidnapped me. Like, if I even thought about going home, it got him in a mood—though I really hadn’t thought about going home in a while because his bed was comfy and he was like my own personal body pillow.

We’d kind of fallen into a routine. Bootcamp in the morning; I went to work; he went to work; he picked me up or he sent the car to pick me up. I saved so much money on gas. I’d never minded driving, but driving in a polar vortex did get a little tiresome. It was nice to have someone to want to take that burden off my shoulders.

But this afternoon, Sinjin and I stopped back by my apartment to pick up my mail before heading back to his place, and there’d been a package waiting for me from Kami. The itinerary. I looked forward to the wedding, but more than that, I looked forward to seeing my friend. The problem being the nutcrack actually wanted me to wear a dress and heels on top of Albatross Monument with all that wind. How did I go about wearing a dressand heelson top of Albatross Monument? How did she go about wearing a dress on top of Albatross Monument? But she thought it would be fun, men in tuxes and women in dresses, like a regular wedding, only not a regular location.

And she had some ideas for said bridesmaid dresses. Bridesmaid? Since when? Simply showing up fulfilled my friendship duties in my humble opinion. Apparently not in hers. So now I needed to go shopping.

“Sinjin, babe, do you have a tux?” I asked.

He nodded. “I have a tuxedo. Are we going someplace special?”

“Yes, to a destination wedding in Chile. She wants you to wear a tux.”

“She wants me in a tux? How am I supposed to hike in formalwear?”

“Oh, it gets worse. I have to wear this dress thing.” I held up a picture that Kami sent me of this jumpsuit that had a skirt over top of it so it looked like a dress, but your legs were covered. “And a sexy pair of spiked heels.”

“She can’t be serious. You can’t be serious. There’s no way, Geet. You can’t hike in that getup. You’ll catch your death of cold, or the pleat to the skirt might fly up, blinding you, and knock you off the side of the mountain or whatever…”

“What can I do? It’s her wedding day. I agreed to be there for her wedding; you agreed to accompany me for her wedding. If you want to back out, I wouldn’t blame you—”

He glared steely-eyed at me. “I’m not backing out on you, Geet. Get that out of your head. But heaven forbid I worry about the woman who’s sharing my bed.”

He had a point. But still, it was what friends did for friends. And someday, if I was ever lucky enough to get married, this would come back to haunt Kami tenfold.

“Then I guess we need to take you to that bridal shop, the one over off Monroe. When my sister got married, I know she had all her bridesmaids go there. They had a real good experience.”

“You have a sister?” I asked. Somehow with all the work, sex, and bootcamp-related activities, we kind of hadn’t gotten to the family discussions yet. He knew I had Lu, but I didn’t remember if he knew about Pia.

“Yeah. Sometimes I forget that we’re still sort of new. Feels like I’ve known you forever. But I have three sisters. Much to my dad’s dismay, I was his only boy.”

“Dismay?” I asked. “Because he wanted more boys?”

“No,” he replied quite nonchalantly. “BecauseIwas his only boy. The nerdy kid who loved computers and video games, who’d figured out he was really good at math. Not so coordinated in my younger years when it came to sports. I’m still not super into sports, as you may have figured out by my lack of needing to watch them while you’re around. I’d rather do what my girlfriend does and go on a slow nature hike or go to a museum and get my exercise that way. Or on occasion join a bootcamp.” He handed me off a travel mug of coffee that he’d been preparing while we talked because he paid attention to my love of coffee. “What about your family? I know you have a sister.”

“Lu is my younger sister. It’s short for Luisa.”

“Luisa and Brigeeta? Is your real last namevon Trapp?”

He knewThe Sound of Music? My heart swelled. “No, sadly. I have an older sister, but her name is Pia, not Liesel. But with the names Pia, Brigeeta, and Luisa Posch, you can probably guess our heritage.”

“Do your parents live close by?”

“My grandmother does. I don’t get to see her as often as I’d like because she’s always busy taking care of Pia’s kids. Our dad was in the army and he passed away. Friendly fire or something like that. I don’t really remember too much about him. And our mom just couldn’t hack it. One day she left and never came back.”

“My god, Geet baby.” Sinjin reached for me, tugging me closer so he could wrap his arms around my shoulders to hold me to him.

“I mean, it wasn’t okay at the time, but it’s okay now. My grandma loves us. She might not’ve had much more to give than love, but she gave it with everything she had. Still does. A lot of people have had much crappier childhoods.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t feel bad for you. I only want you to have had the best of everything.” I kind of couldn’t believe he said that. It was exceptionally sweet. “Am I going to meet your grandmother?”

“Do you want to? Because I guarantee, if I call my grams and tell her I’m bringing you home, it’s not gonna be just grams. You’re gonna meet them all. I’m talking Lu, Pia, Pia’s husband, Gareth, and her brood. Are you ready for that?”

“I told you, I have three sisters. I’m used to chaos when visiting family.”

I kind of thought I’d scare him off with that. What the heck was wrong with him? What kind of man would willingly open himself up to my family? They were great people, but they were loud and crazy and did I sayloud? But if he wanted to meet them, who was I to sayno?

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