Page 42 of Shake the Habit

“Obviously, they know more than he does!” she continued. “Why can’t he listen?”

“It’s his wedding, not theirs,” Aria said gently, and Taygen frowned at her.

“Ok.” I sighed. “I’ll ask you the same thing that I ask Marc every time I’m in the middle of one of your arguments. Why do you want to marry him?”

“You asked Marc why he wanted to marry me?” She stared, and then stood up from the swing. “Why did you do that?”

“Because I knew he’d have a lot of good reasons,” I told her. “He loves you—”

But she was handing the baby back to Aria. “I better go,” she told my cousin. “She’s gorgeous and so sweet.”

“Thank you,” Aria answered. “Taygen, I think that Kayleigh was trying to show your fiancé that he shouldn’t have fought with the woman he loves so much, that’s all.”

“It sounds to me like she was trying to suggest that he shouldn’t have wanted to marry me at all.”

“What? No! I was the one who introduced you,” I said, my temper rising. “I think you’re great together! You’re going through a hard time, but it’s not my fault.”

“Isn’t it?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Weren’t you the one who got Marc involved in this all-consuming job with your boyfriend?”

“He isn’t my boyfriend and Marc wanted it! It’s a great thing for his company and if you really supported him...” I stopped, but she was already walking away.

“She’s just lashing out because she’s upset,” Aria told me. She held her daughter with one arm and leaned her swing so that she could put the other around me. “Maybe they got together too fast.”

“Are you serious? You married Cain about ten minutes after he came home to Tennessee,” I reminded her. “Look how well it’s going now!”

“Yes, but it was rough at first,” she reminded me back. “It might have been better to date for a while. Why did they want to get engaged so quickly?”

“You know the story,” I answered. “They got caught up in the moment. They were having such a fun time together in Nashville, kissing on the sidewalk. When they looked up, they were standing in front of a jewelry store. They took it as a sign.”

“It is pretty romantic.”

I had thought so, too, but the story was souring for me. “What if they’d stopped in front of a bookstore or a bank? It might have been better.”

Aria glanced at me and bit her lip. “I think they can work this out. But it’s not your fault, no matter what.”

“Kayleigh!” my mother’s voice called. “Come on inside, girls.”

It was time for the cake, which she had made for me just like always. Every year, it was my favorite chocolate layers covered with buttercream, with “Happy Birthday KayKay!” written in pink, my favorite color. For as long as I could remember, it had been this way and I had always loved it. Except there were so many candles now that it was a little hard to see the message on the top. The cake glowed like a volcanic eruption as they sang.

“Twenty-five years old!” one of my relatives said, and I looked again at the candles and thought about that before I carefully blew them out.

My mother and everyone else would have been upset if I cried on my cake, not to mention how nasty it was to drip tears on food, so I fell back on my pageant training. I attempted the smile that was reserved for when we won something: “Show me surprised, delighted, and humble!” Aunt Amber had told us, and we’d done our best to make our features demonstrate those emotions.

Whatever I was doing now, it must have worked. Everyone smiled back at me and clapped. I got busy cutting the slices and my mama brought out the sheet cake she’d made and cut that, too, so that all the guests got a piece. They were having fun and it was delicious, and after they’d had their fill of the dessert, everyone started to peel off and head for home or to another Saturday night activity. It was early and in years past, I would have gone somewhere else, too, like maybe a bar around here, or maybe to dance in Chattanooga. After my twentieth, I’d woken up in Atlanta without a lot of memory of how I’d gotten there and then…that hadn’t been a good day.

I put my plate in the kitchen sink and looked through the window above it at the swings. They moved a little in the breeze, like invisible children were on them. Aria could bring her kids over to play and my parents would like that a lot. I’d ask her if she would do me that favor. Marc and Taygen might, too, if they stayed together. He had left quickly after kissing my cheek, and I hadn’t brought up that his fiancée had disappeared a while before that.

“Why are you standing here by yourself, sighing?” Caleb asked from behind me.

I turned to him and resumed the “surprised, happy, and delighted” smile, but when he frowned back, I dropped it. “I was just thinking about when we were kids,” I explained. “I’ve had a lot of birthdays here, so many birthdays.”

“Not that many,” he disagreed, and I shrugged. He was the one who had been so far ahead in math, so obviously he could count.

“I need to help my mom clean up and then I’ll drive Aunt Paula home.”

“I’ll help, too,” he offered, and did. I could see how much he rose in my parents’ estimation as he picked up plates and dried what my dad washed, and the house returned to a much better order. Aunt Paula was asleep in one of the recliners as we tiptoed into the living room.

“How about your present?” Caleb suggested quietly. I had opened Aria’s before she’d left. She’d given me a beautiful gold bracelet with little charms on it, including an A, a K, and a C for Cassidy, who hadn’t been able to come back for this silly little party, of course.

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