Don't Kiss the Bride

She pushes her glasses up her nose and looks at me with a knowing expression in her eyes as she waits for me to finish. “There must be more to it,” she says in a low but friendly voice. “Even if you don’t see it. People don’t just get married.”

I thought so, too.

“That’s true,” I say. “But we did. I know it’s hard to understand and sounds crazy. But we really are just friends.”

I’m starting to worry that we’re going to spend this entire visit trying to explain how we’re not really married. Even though they’re older, his aunt and uncle don’t appear to be suffering any mental impairment or confusion. They’re just not buying into our marriage arrangement.

“Honey, if you were just friends, he wouldn’t have brought you home to us. He’s never brought a girl home before. Not once.” She whacks a zucchini with her knife, as if to punctuate her statement. “And he talks about you all the time when he comes over or we talk on the phone.”

My breath catches in my throat, and I almost chop the tip of my finger off.

“Really?” I comment, trying to sound casual and not overly excited.

She nods as she opens a cabinet and pulls out a bunch of tiny spice bottles. “Oh yes. Constantly. He sounds like he’s crazy about you. Which is why I don’t understand this fake marriage malarkey.”

Tingles of excitement and nerves race up my spine at the thought of Jude talking about me, especially after he’s been so adamant that there’s absolutely nothing between us. It doesn’t make sense.

Honestly, I thought Jude only invited me here so I could see all the cool sixties decor, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe he really did want me to meet his family.

I’m afraid to let my mind go to the next thought: Could he have feelings for me?

No, I tell myself. That would be crazy. Just because I’ve got a silly little crush on him doesn’t mean he has one on me. But if he did? I honestly don’t know if that’d be good or bad. Catching feelings could turn our situation into a mess.

“And age doesn’t matter,” Aunt Suzy continues, oblivious to my worries. “In fact, I think it’s better. You deserve a man who knows what he wants and can take care of you after all you’ve been through.”

So, Jude obviously has been talking to her about me, and not just about my job and my hobbies. Does she know about my mother? My eating disorder? She must think I’m a disaster.

I decide to change the subject before I go down a rabbit hole of over-thinking and end up passing out on her tile floor. “What kind of soup are you making?” I ask, pouring my sliced carrots into a big bowl just like she did with her celery.

“Vegetable and rice. It’s my favorite. I hope you’ll stay for lunch?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t think we can. Jude mentioned something about having to be home.”

“He works too much,” she says with a mix of pride and sympathy. “You have to try to get him to relax. Have a little fun.”

“I will,” I promise, even though I have no idea how I’m supposed to accomplish that.

“Jude spent every weekend with us when he was a little boy. His mother is Al’s sister.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that.”

“They both worked a lot—his parents. So, we took the kids on the weekends. Jude kept us on our toes with his antics. He loved to make us laugh. He was always taking care of everything and everyone. I used to call him Little Mister Fixer.”

That piques my interest. There’s so much I don’t know about him. “How do you mean?”

“He was always fixing things. If a toy was broken, he’d spend hours gluing it back together. He’d take my needle and thread and sew up ripped stuffed animals for Erin.”

My heart melts. “That’s so sweet.”

“One day a baby squirrel fell out of the nest right there in the yard and broke its leg. Pretty sure it bounced on its head, too, because it wobbled all the time.” I smile as she wobbles her own head back and forth to illustrate. “Anyway, Lucky nursed it back to health all by himself. He kept it in a big box and took it home with him and brought it back here on the weekends.”

“Wow.” I try to picture Jude as a little boy taking care of a tiny squirrel.

“It’s leg healed, but it was never quite right in the head. It lived on our screened porch for almost six years. It was just like a cat, it’d sit on our laps and loved to be petted. It slept in a snuggly little bed. We loved him, but he was really Lucky’s pet. He was heartbroken when it passed away.”