Page 85 of Breathless With Her

“No, I threw it away. I was going to circle no and say, ‘fuck you,’ on it, but I didn’t want to come off as the bitter ex-wife.”

“Still can’t believe that bastard invited you.” Jenn just shook her head, coming over with the bowl. The one that was practically licked clean. No, there was nothing practical about it. My older sister, the one with grace and poise, the epitome of pure motherhood, had licked the damned bowl clean.

“I can’t believe he did either.”

“And you know what sucks? He didn’t invite me.”

I looked at Zoey and then looked over at Jenn.

“You’re upset that my ex-husband, mycheatingex-husband didn’t invite you to the wedding?”

“I was his sister-in-law for how many years? And he didn’t invite me. But he invited you.”

“I really don’t know what I’m supposed to be thinking right now,” I said, shaking my head.

“I’m thinking you should give me some more frosting,” Jenn said, shaking her hips.

“Not even a little bit. You had enough sugar. Soon, you’ll be bouncing around this place, and then you’ll crash.”

“Probably. But it’s so much fun. I like pretending I don’t have any worries and can just eat frosting. I’ll probably be nauseated later.”

“No, you won’t. My frosting does not make you nauseous.”

Jenn winced. “Well, maybe with the amount that I just ate.”

“True, because no one in their right mind eats that much frosting,” Zoey said, ducking out of the way of Jenn’s fist.

“I can’t believe you were going to punch me.” Zoey scrunched her nose.

“I was just going to do a love tap.” Jenn shrugged and then went over to wash her hands.

“Anyway, Zoey, thank you for showing up to help with the last parts of the wedding. It’s a big one tomorrow, and I want to get the final things ready. I need to actually be onsite for it because they want me to do the final cutting and everything after they get the photos done.”

“Oh, I know it’s a big wedding. I’ll be there too, dealing with the flowers. And they even had Amelia there doing the landscaping because they wanted a pond with koi fish in it.”

“Koi fish?” Jenn asked, coming in after she’d washed her hands. “They want fish at their wedding? And not just as an option for dinner?”

“I didn’t ask. But there’s probably a salmon dish.”

“Well, that’s just weird. It would be like having a steak option and having a cow next door.” I just shook my head and laughed at my sister. I had been laughing more today than I had in a while.

But that was why Jenn was here.

Because she hadn’t wanted me to be alone. After all, she had heard exactly what had happened with our dad. And after I had held her back from wanting to go and beat his ass, we had both decided that we weren’t going to do anything about it. My dad, or Frank Rose as the bastard would now be called, hadn’t even bothered to try and contact me. He hadn’t reached out to my mother. Jenn had done the honorable thing and contacted our mom to see if Frank had called her. Nope, nothing.

He hadn’t even bothered to confirm who I was or see why I had been there. But it was fine, everything was going to be just fine.

He had his perfect new life, and if our half-brother—something I didn’t even want to think about, if that was really what he was to us—ever wanted to meet us, then we’d deal with it.

But neither of us, me or Jenn, were ready for that. Maybe one day. But for now? I had made the wrong decision by wanting to figure out exactly why our father had left us.

We hadn’t been enough. Just like I hadn’t been enough for Nicholas.

Maybe I would have been enough for Devin. If I hadn’t run away when things got hard.

And that was enough of that.

“Devin’s on crutches now,” Zoey said and then froze in the process of putting flowers on the cake. Jenn cursed under her breath, and I just looked between them.

---