Page 5 of This Love
Busted.
“I need a photo with us all,” I said. “Amanda, Jennifer, Dad, Tina. Come on!”
Vinnie waved us forward. “Yes, before everyone gets sweaty.”
“It’ll be fine,” Tina assured us. “This June has been nice.”
“It hit ninety today,” Dad said.
“Oh, Dad, always complaining about Texas weather.” Jennifer pinched his arm in his light gray suit. “Don’t say one bad thing about Ava’s big day.”
He cleared his throat. “I stand corrected. It’s a gorgeous ninety degrees.”
We smiled for Vinnie, who stood up on a chair to get a good angle.
He checked his watch as he jumped down. “It’s time! Is the limo here?”
Jennifer ran to the window. “It’s down there!”
I looked over her shoulder at the long white car on the street. I knew it was a staple for weddings, and truly, it was practical with six of us travelling at once.
But my mind still totaled the cost.
Two months of groceries.
Dad lifted my train and laid it over his arm as our group passed through my rented house. The rooms were clean and orderly even though they showed their age in the layers of paint and the scarred wood floor.
The entryway walls were covered with images. Me with Tucker, our heads close together, sun streaming through the leaves. Tucker working on the car, peering from under the open hood, a lopsided grin aimed at me.
Other pictures showed Tucker and Gram. Me with my father, my sisters. Roses. Oak trees. Squirrels from the yard. The Austin skyline.
My gaze slid along them. My life. I was taking the next step.
We walked out into the heat. The sidewalk was lined with dark pink vinca, the yellow daffodils long since faded from spring.
Vinnie hurried ahead to photograph us leaving the house, then ducked inside the limo to get shots of us entering.
Jennifer paused by the door, taking a selfie with her fingers in a peace sign.
“For my Insta,” she said. “I didn’t get a limo for prom.” She shot Dad a look.
“I didn’t get a limo for prom either,” Dad said.
Jennifer sighed, turning her bouquet around in her hands. “That was the Stone Age.”
He chuckled. “Right. The Stone Age of the eighties.”
When the door closed and the driver strapped in, I let out a long sigh. Almost there.
The morning had started so early. The appointments. A light brunch with the women of the family, catered at my tiny table, the meal feeling too fancy for the warped cabinets and mismatched dishes.
My reconnection with my dad a few years ago had been good, but it was hard to keep my simple life separate from his opulent one. I’d lost so much, over and over again, that wealth felt like a burden. Something to slip through my fingers.
I wanted everything I cared about to fit in a bag. Every important moment to be documented in one easy-to-find place.
I fiddled with the bouquet. Marrying Tucker was the right thing. He’d always protected me, knowing from our first meeting that my mother was someone he would need to rescue me from. He’d nearly gone to jail for it.
And now we were here. Making it official.
