Page 10 of Devious Vows

He stares at me, probably trying to see if he can pick up on any feelings I’m trying to keep in. He won’t find anything. I really don’t care about not having a date tonight. I was really only going to prom because it was something Julian wanted to do. I already knew that dating was out of the picture for me since my engagement to Remy.

“I’ll stay home with you. Fuck them all and their dumb dance.” He starts to take his bow tie off but I stop him by tapping his leg with my bare foot.

“Thank you, but it’s fine.” I smile at his raised brow, continuing, “I don’t need a date to have fun tonight.”

He stops, looking down at his tie. “You should have stopped me before I took this shit off then.”

Our mother comes into the room at that moment, waving her hands to shoo Julian’s arms to his sides as she fixes his tie into a perfect bow in a fraction of the time it took him to botch it. “There. We need to work on your tie skills. Every man should know how to fix a tie.” He rolls his eyes over her shoulder and I stifle a laugh, watching as she continues to fuss over his outfit.

“Where is your sister?” Her head tilts my way, a quiet “Oh!’ slipping from her lips as she claps for me to stand. I startle at her loud gasp, her hand reaching back to grab Julian by his sleeve without looking to tug him to my side. “Look at you two! Oh. Why can’t you always look this nice? You would if you weren’t always fighting with me over your outfits.”

Julian and I share a look, but say nothing, letting her continue to fuss. She bends down and starts picking at some invisible lint on my rib cage, pinching my side when I try to wiggle away. Instead of arguing, I just frown down at the top of her dark curly head. Julian and I are the spitting image of her, me being an almost clone-like copy. Even behind the scowl she’s always giving me, she really is beautiful, a softer kind of beauty I’d love to achieve some day.

With a wave of her hand she instructs us to follow her, still tutting under her breath about how great we look as she exits the room. I quickly grab my chunky black wedges, my bare feet padding softly on the carpeted stairs as I join her and Julian in the living room below. Sitting on the edge of the couch, I slip my heels on, noticing I haven’t seen my dad yet. “Where’s Dad?”

“He’s at the Lucianos’,” Mom says, her phone at face level as she swipes around on the screen. “Which reminds me, I’ll need you to drive one of the cars there for him.” She looks at me over the phone, waiting for my responding nod before handing her phone off to Julian in a huff. “I don’t know how to work this piece of junk. Open it up so I can get a picture before you leave.”

She’s waving impatiently at him as he closes the hundreds of apps she had up in the background, rolling her eyes instead of listening when he tries to show her the button on the front screen. “That wasn’t there or I would have seen it. Now, go stand by your sister.”

After fifteen solid minutes of getting yelled at for not posing properly, my mother finally lets us get out the door. “Go, have fun. Be Good.” She eyes my brother with the last bit.

Julian just chuckles, walking into the garage to get into his car while I grab the keys for Dad’s black SUV. “Bye, Mom.” I wave at her before catching Julian’s attention. “I’ll meet you at the dance. I’ll just have Dad drop me off.”

He gives me a peace sign, already backing out of the space. “Later, gators.”

Leaving the SUV in the driveway, I walk up the stone steps of the Luciano residence, taking a seat on the cold tile once I’ve reached the top. Of course my mother made me come here. I swear she knows I can’t stand Remy, yet she sends me over here every chance she gets.

“You look nice tonight, Bev.” My head rises to see Gavino coming from the house, and I smile, looking down at my dress.

“Thank you.” He sits down beside me and I prop my elbow on my knee, cheek in hand. “Prom is tonight.”

A piece of light brown hair drops over his brow as he smiles over at me. “I didn’t think you’d want to go to that.”

Shrugging in response, I let out a sigh. “I don’t really. But I knew Julian would try and skip it because I was, and that’s not fair to him.”

“I’m not busy tonight,” Gavino says, drawing my attention from where it had wandered to the tree line. “We can do something instead? I saw that the new movie you said you wanted to see was playing at the theater.”

I smile at the idea. It definitely sounds better than going to prom. My smile falters just a tad. “Do you think Julian will care that I’m ditching him?”

Gavino chuckles, shaking his head. “Not based on his last Instagram post.” He leans to the side, his shoulder bumping mine as he pulls his phone out from his pocket.

After a moment of swiping, he brings up Julian’s post, smiling as he moves his phone so that I can see the screen. I snort, watching the boomerang of Julian raising a bottle of champagne in the back of someone’s limo.

It certainly doesn’t look like I’ll be missed.

“He’s always been the life of the party.”

Hearing the crunch of gravel in the driveway, we both look up at the SUV coming from the back garage.

Fuck me.

Remy stops, his eyes flicking between me and Gavino, rolling his window down. “Your dad is at the cabin still.”

I bite my cheek.Great.Who knows how long he’ll be up there. I would bet anything my mother somehow planned this. “Thanks for letting me know.” When it doesn’t look as if he’s leaving, I add, “You can go now.”

Gavino grunts back a chuckle.

As usual, Remy doesn’t listen to a thing I say, getting out of his car instead. “Where are you going? I can drop you off.” He leans back against the closed door, inked arms crossing at his chest.

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