Don't Kiss the Bride

Aunt Suzy’s face falls as if her best friend just died. “I wish things were different. We really love having you as part of the family. Maybe things will change…”

Skylar forces a smile and pushes her food around her plate.

I jump in before things get worse. “We’re still going to be friends, Aunt Suze. She can still visit.” I turn to my uncle. “If I was in a better financial position, I’d buy the bar. I just can’t take on something that needs so much work.”

“There’s a surprise,” Skylar mutters under her breath.

“Skylar, are you going to be okay?” Aunt Suzy asks. “What about all your medical visits, and prescriptions? Where will you live?”

I feel like the world’s biggest asshole as Skylar struggles to swallow the food in her mouth. Her thin fingers wrap around her glass of water, and she takes a few slow sips. “After I graduate, I can work full time. I’ll get a small studio apartment. And once I have less stress in my life—” Her baby blues throw shade in my direction. “Then hopefully I can decrease my meds and see my therapist less. Jude’s help has gotten me through the worst of it. This isn’t on him. I’m not his responsibility. He did way more for me than anyone ever has. I’ll be fine.”

“He can’t just kick you to the curb.”

“Uncle Al, I’m not forcing her out. She can live in the house as long as she wants to. And once she moves out, we don’t have to legally divorce ten minutes later. If she needs insurance for a few months after she leaves, I’m fine with that. No big deal. It’s not like I’m gonna rush to go marry someone else.”

One marriage is enough for me.

Aunt Suzy sighs sadly. “Well, it’s your lives. I’m sure you two know what’s best. It’s just a shame you couldn’t turn it into a real marriage. That would have been the perfect happy ending for both of you.”

“I’m sure we’ll both still get our happy endings, Aunt Suzy.” Skylar’s voice is full of sweetness and optimism, but I know better.

My little wife is full of crap. She doesn’t believe in happy endings any more than I do.

Chapter 44

Jude

I have a love-hate relationship with Christmas.

Santa one minute. Grinch the next.

Spending the day with Uncle Al and Aunt Suzy has always been a good time for me. But it always sucked to be surrounded by love and laughter all day and then go home alone to an empty, quiet house.

After we kissed Aunt Suzy and Uncle Al goodbye, that familiar empty feeling crept in on the drive home. Skylar and I barely said a word to each other.

She’s slowly slipping away from me.

I don’t know how everything got so discombobulated between us.

When we get home, snow is falling and there’s a few inches accumulating on the ground already. I open her door and help her out of the truck to make sure she doesn’t slip, and she hooks her arm through mine as we walk to the house.

“I’ve always loved watching the snow,” she says, tilting her face up toward the sky. I laugh when she sticks her tongue out and catches a few snowflakes on her tongue. It’s kind of a magical moment, to witness her playfully open up and let that tiny icy star into her mouth—free of fears and anxieties.

I don’t even think she realized that she did it.

“I’ll take her out real quick,” I say when Cassie greets us at the door. I light up a cigarette as the dog darts out of the house and bounces playfully in the snow. When Cassie finally scoots inside, Skylar’s still standing in the hallway next to the Christmas tree box.

“You forgot to give the Santa hat back,” she says, eyeing the top of my head.

“Oh shit.” I reach up and touch the fuzzy, red hat. “Aunt Suzy will yell at me.”

She smiles crookedly. “Leave it on. Christmas isn’t over yet.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes. I have a gift for you.”

That simple sentence shouldn’t cause my heart and my dick to jump to attention, but it does.

“I have a gift for you, too.”

Her brow arches up. “Good. But first,” she taps the tree box with her foot. “I want to put this tree together.”

“Now? It’s nine o’clock.”

“You need a nap, Grampa?”

“Shut up. I meant, what’s the point? Christmas is over in three hours.”

“That’s bullshit. People leave their trees up ’til January.”

“You really want to put it up now?”

“Yeah. I want a Christmas tree. I’ve been looking at this box with these stupid happy people on it every day since you brought it home. And I think you’ve been wanting to put it up, too.”

“What makes you think that?”

“You never leave shit lying around, and yet you’ve left this six-foot box right where we both have to trip over it.”