Page 65 of Forged By Sacrifice

“Vinnie does. Gabi works at DuPont. She’ll be at odds all weekend with Bee’s husband, Thomas. Thomas is an environmental lawyer and acts like his job is the next coming of Jesus or something. The truth is, none of us like him.”

She laughed. “You can’t say that about your sister’s husband.”

I smiled. “Why not? It’s the truth. There’s something not right about the guy, and Bee knows how we feel. She ignored our opinion and mothered a child with him, anyway—that’s Savanna-Rae—and she’s the light of everybody’s world. Frickin’ cute as a kitten.”

“That’s a lot of people.”

“That’s pretty much all that will be staying at the house, but we’ll have people in and out all weekend. Dad hosts a barbecue on Saturday, and that’ll bring in a huge gathering. Sunday, after the tennis tournament, it’ll be just the family again.”

“Dani was right.”

“About what?”

“I’m going to need a gazillion outfits. I’m not sure I brought enough.”

She’d look gorgeous in a sheath dress twenty sizes too big, but I glanced over at her and said, “You look beautiful in whatever you put on.”

She didn’t respond, but I swore there was a flush to her cheeks. She turned to look out the window for a few minutes.

“Do you all have nicknames?” she asked finally.

“Huh?”

“Robbie, Dani, Gabi, Bee…” she trailed off. I laughed because I’d never really thought about what our nicknames might sound like to someone on the outside.

“None of us liked our full names, but Bee and I got it the worst.”

“How’s that?” she asked.

“Her real name is Phoebe, and I’m Macauley. Not exactly names you want to go to school with.”

“I like Mac. And Phoebe is my favorite Friends character.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she’s like me: quirky and true to herself.”

“You’re not quirky.” Because she wasn’t. She was unique. Spectacular. Elegant. I could think of a hundred more words that would have suited her, but quirky was not one of them.

“You say that now,” she responded, “when you don’t know me very well. I switch eye colors like jewelry. I think that’s fairly quirky.”

“How did that get started?” I asked, my own curiosity springing to life.

“After Grandma died and I went back to run the salon, my friend, Vicky, introduced me to a bunch of models. They got me a couple modeling gigs. The first one I went on wanted someone with blue eyes instead of my washed-out green, so they had me put in contacts. I liked how they went with the outfit I was wearing, and so, after that, it just became fun, changing colors with my mood, hair color, or outfit.”

“Your eyes are not washed out. They’re like jade.”

“Jade is bright and vibrant. My eyes are pale and almost colorless.”

“Not all jade is deep. Some are soft and brilliant.”

I could feel her staring at me, but I didn’t remove my eyes from the road. I was trying not to play all my cards at once, trying to keep some compliments for later, so I turned the conversation. “You didn’t want to keep the salon, so why did you after your grandma died?”

“The lease had this huge penalty clause. If I’d tried to get out of it, I would have pretty much lost everything she’d worked for. It didn’t seem like the right way to honor her memory. Plus, I wasn’t going to go into debt to pay off some douche who already had more money than God.”

I’d been wrong about her so many times since I’d first seen her, but I realized, now, that I wasn’t wrong about one thing: she was smart. Savvy in a way that was remarkable. Not many college students would have had the forethought to make such a wise business decision. Not many twenty-somethings would have had the bravery to stick their dreams on hold while they waited for the years to tick away on a lease they hadn’t signed and didn’t want.

We spent the entire two-hour drive from D.C. to Greenville sharing information about our lives, and our pasts, and how we’d gotten to where we were now. The conversation flowed back and forth between us effortlessly. As we got closer to Wilmington, she asked about my naval career.

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