Page 32 of Avenged

“Let’s say ten thirty, but you know you can show up whenever you want. And don’t bring anything. Leena will make way too much food as it is,” she said.

We said goodbye, and I swallowed the rest of my beer.

“She say anything about the marriage?” Dawson asked with a knowing smile.

“Nope, and I’m certainly not going to say the words.”

“Chicken.” He laughed.

I hadn’t told my own mother about the wedding, hadn’t even thought about telling her, but the thought of telling Eli’s mom about it made my stomach turn. I wasn’t sure if she was going to hit me on the back of the head like Eli had wanted to, or if she was going to hug me.

The thing which turned my stomach more than the thought of telling Mandy and Leena about our bogus marriage was the thought of seeing the woman who I’d wed. The thought of seeing Jersey filled my chest with desire and hope. I wondered if she felt the same way. If the thought of seeing me made her pulse quicken and her body tighten in pleasure. It only served to remind me I was in so far over my head I might as well have been the anchor on a cruiser, sinking before I’d ever reached the shore.

Jersey

BAD MOON RISING

“I see trouble on the way,

I see earthquakes and lightnin’,

I see bad times, today.”

Performed by Credence Clearwater Revival

Written by John C. Fogerty

When I came down the stairs on Sunday, it was to find the kitchen in wreckage with Leena buzzing about as if she was a chef in a five-star restaurant at peak time. The food she was preparing was way more than the four of us could eat in a week, let alone on one Sunday. It meant we were having company, and I found my stomach twisting in hope and fear at the same time.

I hadn’t seen Travis since the day after our wedding. The day he’d enrolled me in his medical plan. Even though I hadn’t seen him, he’d been on my mind a lot. Every time I looked at the back of my hand, I could feel the soft caress of his lips on it when the judge had told him he could kiss me. Every time my body moaned and groaned with pain—which was pretty much every single moment these days—it reminded me of the appointment I had scheduled in a few days with the specialist in Derby, and that served to remind me of him again.

“Why are you cooking enough to feed an entire cadet troop?” I asked.

Leena startled as if she hadn’t heard me, which was probably the case. She had music blaring and the mixer going. She was in full Leena mode, her purple Chinese bathrobe flying about her.

“Morning. Just making brunch,” she said with a smile.

“This is just brunch? Do you mean for us to be eating pancakes for a decade?”

“Truck and Dawson love my apple spice pancakes,” she said.

And there it was. The tug on my stomach muscles that had nothing to do with my physical body’s deteriorated state. The tug on my stomach that had everything to do with a tall blond with amber eyes who’d signed up to be my own personal superhero.

“Travis is coming this morning?” I asked, but I already knew the answer.

“Yes. And Dawson and Bob and Yevette.”

I was wondering how I could avoid seeing him. How I could prevent Violet from seeing Dawson. I was wondering if I could feign work, or an interview, or anything. But it was Sunday, and the bookstore’s owner always covered the store on Sundays. Wil always said it was because he wanted to make sure everything was running smoothly, but I knew he really did it so Mandy would actually take a day off.

And, as much as I was disappointed, I’d never heard back from the women’s shelter about the job.

Violet came dancing into the room in a dress and way too much makeup for a Sunday morning. She’d obviously heard the news before I had. She had a smile on her face, which worried me more than my own stomach flutters. Regardless of the fact she’d graduated high school and immediately started classes at an online college. Regardless of the fact she often acted more like a thirty-something-year-old than a teenager. She was still only sixteen. Dawson was too old for her. Too broken for her. I didn’t want her to get involved with someone who would only bring her more pain.

“Let me finish those while you go get dressed,” I told Leena, taking the bowl of pancake batter from her hand.

“Oh my, I completely forgot I was still in my nightgown. Heavens to Betsy. Thank you. I’ll be down in a jiff.”

She turned, and suddenly, everything happened at once. With a loud crack, the floor by the back door gave way as she walked over it, and she fell partway through. Violet and I cried out just as Leena did. We ran over to her, pulling her up through the floorboards that were falling around her in a crumbling heap.

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