Page 116 of Wedlocked

Stop being so dramatic, Matthew. He said he wasn’t mad. Everything is fine.

It didn’t matter how much I told myself that. The anxious part of me didn’t believe it.

“Oh?” Gram said. “Eventful how?”

“Rory almost drowned. Ryan almost lost his mind. I almost had to commitmurder,” Kruger listed, whispering the last part. “Oh, and the senator is flying in.”

Gram’s eyes widened. “Arsen’s father?”

“Both his parents.” I clarified. “He’s going to marry Jess and Ben.”

“How did that happen?” she asked.

“You still hauling around those hot-pink suitcases, Gram?” Kruger asked.

“Well, of course. They’re fabulous.”

“Fabulously loud,” Kruger deadpanned.

“Just like you,” I quipped.

“Har-har, P,” Kruger said. “Well, at least I can see them coming from a mile away.” He pointed toward the conveyor belt that had just started moving. “Be right back.”

He went off, and Gram turned, settling all her attention on me.

“How are you, honey?” she asked, a softness in her tone that hadn’t been there before. She was a beautiful woman who looked younger than her fifty-odd years. I didn’t know her exact age. She never told me. Said a woman didn’t discuss such things. I probably wouldn’t even know the decade if I hadn’t gone through a spiraling phase as a preteen who worried constantly about her dying and leaving me as an orphan. Or worse… back with my biologics.

She told me her “estimated” age to assure me she was still young enough to be around many more years. I guess that was one benefit of my estranged grandfather marrying—then divorcing—a much younger woman.

Her hair was very blond but not platinum like Lars’s. Hers was a warm shade, more honey than white. It was cut into a jawline-skimming blunt bob that was so straight it didn’t even curl in at the ends.

She had a fringe of bangs too. She told me once that she favored them because they covered the wrinkles in her forehead. I never noticed any wrinkles, but whatever.

Her skin was smooth from spa treatments, and her makeup was applied expertly. She was a woman who spent time on her appearance and self-care and had more than enough money to do so. She was dressed in a pair of dark jeans that looked like trousers and a cream-colored sweater that tied into a bow at the back of her neck.

Her coat was a plaid wool trench. Burberry, I think. Sometimes Arsen wore that brand.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I told her.

“Me too. I get to see my boys twice in the same month! What a way to close out the year.”

She called Arsen one of her boys now, from the very first time she’d met him. She never once batted an eye that I was dating a man. Just accepted him immediately. That probably had a lot to do with my boyfriend, though. Arsen was nearly impossible not to like.

What if, after this week, he decides I’m too much?

I worried about that so much in the beginning. The longer we were together, the less frequent that thought came. But today? It was relentless. It was sort of making me feel sick.

Gram’s light touch on my arm brought me back from the confines of my thoughts.

Glancing at her red-painted nails, I smiled. “It’s been a very busy week. I’m okay,” I said, trying to cut off this conversation before it could begin.

“Of course you are. But I think it would be completely understandable if you were a little overwhelmed.”

“This week isn’t about me. It’s about my best friends getting married.”

“P! Give me a hand, bro. She really brought half her house!” Kruger hollered across the crowd.

A few people chuckled and stared.

---