Page 47 of Holiday Wedding
Oh my gosh.
My brother is a player. My formerly sweet brother, who only had one girlfriend in high school, is a bona fide hottie with a harem of women.
When did this happen?
“Teddy,” I grab his arm and hiss, “who are all these women?”
He grimaces, pulling out of my hands. “Ouch. Stop it, Gwen. You’re going to mess up my new tattoo.” His face contorted with pain, he pulls up his sleeve to show me a tattoo, so fresh it’s still outlined in an angry red, slathered in shiny ointment, and bandaged with something similar to Saran Wrap. The plastic over it is clear, allowing me to see the pattern. To the untrained eye, it might look like a distorted version of Saturn. A black ball in the middle with six thin rings circling it, all crisscrossing over each other. I know what it is. It’s an atom, with its central nucleus and surrounding electrons.
My throat instantly closes, my vision blurring with tears. I lift my gaze to his, which mirrors my expression, both of our faces drawn in sorrow. “For Dad?” I ask, voice trembling. Our father was a nuclear physicist. He had just gotten promoted to head his own lab when he was diagnosed with colon cancer at age 45. He was dead six months later.
Teddy nods, mouth turned down. “For you, too,” he says. “Since you’ve always loved science so much.” I smile weakly, remembering how little Teddy would help me with my experiments when we were young, patiently holding test tubes while I poured a mixture of ingredients into them and then exclaiming with wide-eyed glee when the contents of the tube would erupt like a volcano, spilling foaming liquid down the sides and over his hands.
“I love it.” I point to his arm and sniffle back my tears, not wanting to cry in a crowded room.
He smiles, the gesture not quite reaching his eyes. Something metallic glints in his mouth.
“Teddy!” I grab his shirt and pull him closer, rising onto my toes to peer past his lips. “Is that…a tongue piercing?”
He brightens and sticks out his tongue, proudly displaying the long silver rod that goes through it, tipped by tiny balls on each end. “Yep. Hurt like heck when they stabbed it in.”
I roll my eyes with a grimace. “Gross, Teddy. Too much information.” That’s a mental image of my brother I can do without.
Teddy chuckles, his shoulders lifting with the motion. Eventually, he quiets and leans an elbow on the bar. “Sorry. That was too funny. Anyway, how was lunch with Mom?”
“Fine,” I answer automatically, then correct. “Actually, not fine. She’s annoyed with me. I told her some truths she didn’t appreciate.”
“Oh, yeah?” he says, smirking. “That makes me happy.”
“Teddy! Don’t say that,” I protest, swatting at his arm. Hisotherarm, the one without the tattoo. “That’s mean.”
He laughs, easily fending off my ineffectual punches. “Sorry. It’s just nice to not be the only black sheep in the family for once.”
“Black sheep?” I drop my hands, my brow furrowing. “You’re not the black sheep.”
Teddy frowns and says, “Come on, Gwen. We all know I’m the wild child. The disappointing college dropout. With a brother who’s a lawyer and a sister who’s a doctor about to marry the most famous man in the world, it’s hard to compete.” His voice is breezy, his body relaxed, but I see the tightness in his jaw. He’s joking, and yet there’s a kernel of truth in his words.
“What?” My heart sinks, realizing this is the way he views himself. As a failure. “That’s not true. You’re in college.”
He scoffs, “I take night classes at the local community college. At this rate, it’ll take me eight years to graduate.” Seeing my troubled expression, Teddy softens. “It’s okay, Gwen. I don’t mind who I am. I don’t want you to be embarrassed, that’s all.”
For the second time tonight, I want to cry. “I’d never feel that way aboutyou.” I sling an arm around his narrow waist and bury my head in the side of his chest. Teddy wraps his arm around me and tucks me in tighter.
He sighs and says, “I’m just giving you a hard time.” After a minute, he releases me. “What made you upset with Mom?”
“You know, stuff from the past.” Teddy knows there’s friction between Mom and me from when Dad died. He doesn’t need the details. The last thing I want is for him to think he’d been a burden.
Teddy leans against the bar, crossing one foot over the other. “You’re never going to get what you want from Mom. You understand that, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, confused.
“You want closure. You want her to admit she’s wrong.”
“That’s not true,” I argue, wondering if he remembers more than I give him credit for about that dark long-ago period of our lives.
Teddy cocks an eyebrow at me, and I flounder because he’s got a point. I want acknowledgment from Mom. Maybe even an apology. But that’s childish. This need to always be right.
Teddy draws my attention back to him, affectionately rubbing his knuckles on my head, messing up my hair. “You won’t give up trying to convince Mom. Does Caleb know that about you—how stubborn you are?” His words take me back to before I left New York. Caleb and me laughing over that same topic, except now it’s not so funny.
