Page 79 of Promise Yule Be Mine
Rhett. He was a spitfire of a man with the dirtiest sense of humor ever. And since he’d arrived two days ago, he had aimed it at us.
“We will, when we have one,” Nova snapped back with an eye roll.
It was true. We didn’t really have a room.
Well, that was a lie. We did have a room. In my house. But we didn’t have a space all to ourselves.
All in due course, though.
First, we had a wedding to take care of. Then we could worry about finding a place to call our own and setting down roots.
“Why would they need to get a room? They are in a room, aren’t they?” Nova’s niece said from her daddy’s arms.
He was Nova’s oldest brother Slade, who had married a guy whose name evaded me, and they all lived in Mayberry Holm, an island that up until a couple days ago I’d never heard of.
“Don’t mind Rhett, sweetie,” Slade said to his ten-year-old daughter. “They are indeed in a room. The living room. They don’t need one.”
Everyone laughed before Nova’s mom slapped Rhett and stepped forward to hug us both. She was a sweet woman, not that I’d expect anything less from the woman who’d created such a wonderful being like Nova. Our engagement may have shocked her, just like it had everyone, but she had embraced me from the get-go, no questions asked, except for one.
“Does he make you happy?” she’d asked Nova.
“The happiest,” he’d answered her and that was that.
“Dinner’s ready,” Mom said, and her and Dad carried the last of the food to the table.
Table was an understatement. It was a whole patchwork of any surface we could put together to make a banquet table big enough to fit sixteen or so people.
The house had never been louder, more vibrant or warmer. Everyone got along, which was just the best feeling in the world, considering we’d be a family from now on.
Eventually, we got to dessert and for some reason everyone started toasting us and saying stories from our childhood. It was bizarre but it put me right in the wedding vibes. I couldn’t wait to be married to Nova and explore life together with him.
“Is it my turn? It’s my turn,” Rhett said and stood with a glass of sparkling wine in his hand. He brushed his long, coiling hair to the side and raised his glass. “Nova and Kody, Kody and Nova. Kody, I can tell you from the moment Nova met you he hasn’t stopped talking about you. No, honestly. I had to block yourFacebook page from our home Wi-Fi because he kept bumping into every door and wall drooling over you.”
Nova gasped. “That’s not true,” he told me. “Stop making me sound like a creepy stalker.”
Rhett put both hands up as if to say “hey, I just say it as it is” and I laughed.
“Don’t worry. If you’re a creepy stalker, so am I.”
Nova turned to me. “Really?”
“Really.”
“As I was saying,” Rhett cleared his throat, “I’m so glad you two got together because I was starting to worry about our health.”
Everyone frowned.
“Nova was oozing so much cheese from his infatuation we’d all have gotten some nasty cholesterol if this went on.”
A few of Nova’s brothers groaned.
“You’re an idiot,” he told Rhett.
“Eh, you love me anyway.”
“That’s debatable,” Nova replied.
Rhett brought his hand to his chest with a gasp and a shriek. “How dare you? And I was going to walk you down the aisle all dolled up and everything.”
