Chapter One
Fallon
Lilac, lavender, mauve, fuchsia, maroon, and the list went on for the most tedious conversation I had ever had the pleasure of hearing…all concerning floral arrangements.
Floral arrangements for my upcoming wedding.
Floral arrangements for my upcoming wedding that didn’t even have a set date because, technically, I wasn’t engaged.
Wasn’t that a thing? Having a real fiancé before you could actually get married? I was pretty sure that was a thing.
But apparently not in my family. Not for Fallon, who just couldn’t seem to pick the “right” guy. Not after bringing Alex home from our prestigious private school. Alex with the shitty Honda Accord for a way of transportation (the horror!). And then Jax, the guy with the gauged ears. Oh, and let’s not forget about my ex, Jake, who was the star athlete of our mighty D1 college baseball team. No, not Jake… he got into the university on a scholarship, meaning he had no “real” business being tied to our family. Instead, after being made painfully aware that I couldn’t decipher between trash and class, I was hauled off like a mail-ordered bride from Korea to marry someone worthy…someone who was in our circle. I wasn’t even Korean. I had honey-colored hair, a skinny button nose, piercing aqua-colored wide eyes, and slightly pink-tinted cheeks that had become layered with small freckles after spending spring break in the Caribbean.
There wasn’t even the slightest bit of Korean that ran through my veins. Nope.
Mallory stared into my eyes like a doe-eyed freak. “Oooh, what about baby blue? They’d go perfect with your eyes, Fallon.”
“What kind of flower is baby blue?” I asked, batting my eyelashes rapidly while placing my hand underneath my chin—the chin that was placed right below my you’re-a-freaking-airhead smile.
I, of course, knew which flower was baby blue—or at least in the blue hemisphere. I knew a lot about flowers and different hues due to my “fruitless” interest in interior design. In fact, I’d even taken one or two design courses during college. “Flowers are a great start to making a room feel fresh and welcoming.” That, my friends, came straight from Professor Brady’s mouth. I doubted that Bimbo One (aka Mallory, my older brother Samuel’s wife) knew what kind of flower was blue. I wasn’t even sure she knew her colors.
“Hmm…” Mallory lifted her French-manicured finger and tapped her full, Botoxed lips. “I don’t know… are there any blue flowers? We can get fake ones, I suppose.”
My mother shrieked. “Absolutely not! Fallon will not have fake flowers at her wedding, Mallory! Goodness! Were you raised in a barn?”
The devil inside of me stirred. “Maybe I should get married in a barn.” Seeing as I’m kind of being sold like cattle.
My mother’s sharp blue eyes drove into me. Her disturbed expression satisfied me more than it should have. “I’m kidding, Mother. Buuuttt maybe I should get engaged first, before we start making these plans.”
A gentle sigh escaped her lips while she flipped through the hundreds of bridal magazines splayed out on the glass table in the middle of the dining area. I could see my bare toes wiggling through the crystal, warning me to keep my mouth shut so I didn’t further upset her. I’d already seen her slip one of her happy pills that morning, after my father had skipped off to work. He was extra adoring to her right before he’d whooshed out the door, looking exceptionally snazzy in his navy Canali suit. My father feigning sweetness to my mother wasn’t a rare sight, but it wasn’t a good one either. It probably just meant that he was in the doghouse for who knows what reason.
My mother patted my arm, giving it a light squeeze. “It’s only a matter of time, Fallon. Derek has already asked your father for permission.” She smiled widely, showing off her expensive, yet worthless, veneers. “Like your father would say no!” She laughed, as did Mallory and Katie, my other sister-in-law.
See, the thing about Derek was, he wasn’t marrying me because he loved me. That wasn’t how things worked in either of our families. Actually, that wasn’t how things worked with the majority of families we associated ourselves with. There were certain surnames that we were to be tied to: those with money and who were considered high-class. There was the working class, the middle class, the upper class, and then us. My family, and Derek’s, had excessive amounts of money, and if you asked my opinion, the only thing that did was turn people ugly.
I had my chance to find someone worthy of me, according to my parents, but I failed. I had brought home so many boyfriends in the past that it was exhausting. And sadly, I didn’t even love any of them. It was a close call with Jax. He had that whole bad-boy thing going for him with his piercings and smug smile, but my father almost had an aneurysm when Jax had told him he wasn’t going to college. My father’s face turned to stone. I almost flicked a pea toward him at the dinner table just to see how far it’d travel after it bounced off.
Side note: I didn’t end up throwing the pea.
But my father did throw Jax out of our house and forbid me to ever date “someone like him” again.
After that, I truly did try to find someone of worth in college. I wanted the best of both worlds. I wanted to please my parents so badly, but I wanted to please me, too. I wanted things that girls in my world didn’t usually want. I wasn’t the type of girl to become dazzled by sparkly diamonds or Prada purses. I wasn’t the type of girl who looked forward to wearing fancy ball gowns while attending galas or her husband’s fundraising events that she’d spent weeks planning.
I wanted to spend my time doing what I loved.