Page 70 of When Our Stars Aligned

“Eeeeeeek!” Emma squeals and claps her hands. “This is so exciting! Okay, okay, three questions. What’s her name?”

“Alyssa, but everyone calls her Aly.”

“Where did you meet?”

“Technically, I guess we met at the pool in our condo, but she moved across the hall from me.”

“Oh! She’s a swimmer like you?”

“Yes.” I stand. “And that was your third question.”

“Jaaaaaaaxxxx! You can’t do this to me! I need to know more!” Emma whines.

“How does Gram fit into all of this?” my mom asks.

“Oh, I can answer this!” Emma bounces in her chair. “You know how Gram told me that I was going to have twin girls? Well, she told Jax that she was going to send him a woman of his own.” Emma waggles her eyebrows.

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Close enough.” Emma shrugs.

“I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”

“Oh! This is so exciting!” Mom clasps her hands together. “Why didn’t you invite her over for Thanksgiving? You know we have an open-door policy.”

“She made plans months ago that she couldn’t break.”

“So, is it serious?” Mom asks.

“Kind of? It’s still new.” It’s damn serious, but I don’t want to get their hopes up just yet.

Mom glares at me like she’s trying to subliminally press for more information. I avert my eyes; I know that look all too well. Ten seconds more and I’ll be spilling everything.

“Look, I really don’t want to talk about it. It’s probably nothing.” I shrug. Okay, I know it’s more. I feel it’s more, but I don’t need my mother and sister prying into my love life. My mom and dad have been married for over thirty-five years. They have the kind of marriage people dream about, and they have certainly set a high bar for my sister and me. Of course, I feel like I failed them thirteen years ago after my lightning-fast marriage and divorce. How can someone recover from that?

“Doesn’t look like nothing to me,” Emma says as she holds up my phone.

I feel the blood drain from my face. There plastered for my mom and sister to see is a picture of Aly and me at the beach. Alex took it the day we were arguing in the water at SummerFest. There we are in our bathing suits, Aly with her legs wrapped around my waist, my arms holding her up underneath. Her arms are wrapped around my neck and our faces are merely centimeters apart. I thought Alex was an ass for taking the picture, but honestly, I look at it all the time.

“Give me back my phone, Ems,” I grit through my teeth.

“Nope! And unless you recently went on some tropical vacation, I’d say this picture was taken this summer, which means you’ve been holding out on us! Also, stop using your birthday as your passcode.”

“We weren’t together when that picture was taken, and noted about the passcode.” I try to grab the phone from her hands. If she weren’t pregnant with my nieces, I’d tackle her like when we were kids.

“Give the phone back to your brother.” My mom laughs, looking at Emma. “We’ll try to get more out of him later.”

Emma reluctantly complies and they both give me a small reprieve as we settle in for Thanksgiving dinner.

“Well, this certainly is a quieter Thanksgiving.” Mom sighs as we gather around the table. It’s just the four of us this year. Next year, we will have Grant home and the twins will be here too. Hopefully, I will have Aly by my side as well.

“I miss her.” Emma sorrowfully looks at the empty chair next to me.

“I miss her too, baby.” Dad reaches his hand over the table and gives Emma’s hand a squeeze.

“It’s definitely not the same without her.” Mom sighs. For being in-laws, my mom and Gram had a very close relationship.My mom lost her parents early in life; Gram and Pop were more than happy to welcome her into our family.

“I could really go for some of Gram’s sweet potato casserole right now,” Emma states, and with that, all eyes turn to me.

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