Page 68 of Avenged

“It always gets lost in the shuffle of Sailfest and Fourth of July. She says she gets the best party every year because she gets to celebrate with the festival and fireworks, but in truth, we haven’t been to it in years. I’d like to do something for her.”

I was already nodding before she’d finished. “Yes. Let’s.”

Violet looked uncomfortable. “The thing is… I don’t really have?”

“I got it, Vi. I want to do this,” I told her.

“She’ll be mad if she knows I was the one who told you, and you end up spending money on her.”

“She’s had such a rough go of it lately. She’s earned a party,” I told her.

Violet was silent again, watching her sister. “There’s something bugging her that she won’t tell me about. I’m not the child she first had to take care of. I can handle it now, but she won’t let me.”

My chest tightened. I couldn’t reassure Vi like I wanted to, not without breaking Jersey’s trust, and she’d given me so little already that I couldn’t take the risk. Instead, I just nodded in agreement.

“Do you know what it is?” Violet asked.

I didn’t answer, and that seemed to be answer enough for her.

“Just make sure she isn’t alone, will you?”

“I’ll do my very best.”

She assessed me in a way which was so like her sister it made me smile. “So. Birthday party?” I asked.

“You know Jersey,” Violet said. “She won’t see it as something she’s earned or deserves. She’ll just see the money and time and feel guilty.”

“We’ve all been serious lately. Life has been too serious. We need something light. Something fun. We have to make her think it’s as much for us as it is for her if we want her to enjoy it.”

She smiled. “How can you have known her for so little time and know her so well?”

I shrugged.

Her smile faded, and she spoke almost as quiet as Jersey herself. “Sometimes, I wish you really were my brother-in-law. You’d be good for her.”

My throat clogged. I wanted to be good for Jersey. I’d thought multiple times about wanting her as my wife for real, and yet, I hadn’t stopped to think about that meaning I’d be a husband. I wasn’t sure I was true husband material with kids and a dog and a house. I was struggling to find enough space in my military life for my brother, so how could I possibly fit an entire family in it?

Regardless, it didn’t stop me from wanting to be good enough that she’d let me do things for her. That maybe she’d scratch out a few lines of our contract and let me kiss her again…maybe more, if her body felt up to it. I knew she’d seen the physical therapist here in town several times since our trip to Derby. When I asked her about it, she flushed and just said it was helping. I believed her, because she seemed to have fewer days where she was hunched over, but Jersey was good at hiding it, too, so who knew if it was really working.

“So, I was thinking,” Vi said, bringing me back from thoughts of her sister.

“I can’t really buy her a present these days, but I can work for her at the bookstore on Saturday, and then she could go to the festival. If we celebrated her birthday Friday night, I could tell her it was my present, and then, you could make sure she enjoys Sailfest as she really should—from street vendors all the way to the fireworks.”

A day with Jersey? Another full day when it was just the two of us? The last full day we’d spent alone together had been full of heartache and tears but also a kiss which had spun my world. I could use another day like that, minus the heartache and tears. Hell, just the kissing part would be good enough. The new recruits were heading off to their first assignments. I didn’t have a new batch coming in for a couple weeks. I could take a few days. I could take a Saturday and spend it with her.

I’d never been in New London during Sailfest, but people had been yammering on about it for most of June. There would be bands on three different stages, rides, games, vendors, food, and then fireworks in the harbor. If you were lucky enough to be on a boat, you could watch the fireworks from the inlet or the ocean. Spending a day meandering around the festivities with Jersey by my side sounded like just what the doctor had ordered.

“Mission accepted,” I told her, saluting, and she laughed. My head was already running amuck with plans—too many. Plans I shouldn’t have.

“I wish Mandy and Leena were here.”

“Who should we invite?”

She smiled again. “Honestly, I didn’t mean a party, party. We don’t have anyone. I just have Jada, and we have Mandy and Leena. That’s it.” Violet turned serious again. “After the accident… we were kind of the town’s pariahs. Everyone we knew dropped us like hot potatoes.”

It was the same thing Jersey had told me, but it still made me want to slam heads together. These two beautiful women didn’t deserve to be shunned for the actions of their father. They’d been hurt, too. They’d lost their lives as well. Sure, they were lucky enough to still be breathing, but they hadn’t really lived. Violet’s life existed mostly within four walls, Jersey hid from everyone and everything, and they scrimped and scraped to get by on Jersey’s minimum wage salary. I wished I could show that to the people who only flashed hatred at them. I wished I could show them the heart of these two people.

“Why didn’t you guys leave?” I asked.

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