H is for Hawk (Men of ALPHAbet Mountain)

Hey, I just wanted to let you know, I wasn’t serious about the wedding. I mean, I don’t have a date, but there is no reason you should feel obligated in any way to come if you don’t want to. I’ll be busy helping the whole time anyway, and it was really silly of me to put you on the spot like that.

If I didn’t want to.

I noticed that stick out like a sore thumb in her message. If I didn’t want to.

If she didn’t want me to come, she wouldn’t have added that. It would have been really easy to leave that off and just say that I shouldn’t feel obligated to come or even that she simply didn’t want me there. But she included it, meaning that the offer was still on the table and that she didn’t want me to not go.

I grinned. Maybe the old spark wasn’t completely gone after all? Maybe we couldn’t be what we were, but maybe we could be something else. Something new.

I started typing, erasing, and typing again until I had the message I wanted to send. Finally, I had it done. It was short, simple, and to the point. If she really didn’t want me to come, now she would have to explicitly say so. Otherwise, she was going to have a date for the wedding.

Nonsense. Of course I want to take you. What time am I picking you up?

A shot of adrenaline went through me as I hit Send, and the wail from the nursery that followed the beeping of the microwave didn’t dampen it at all.

18

DEANA

I was still wrapped up in all my thoughts about what was going on between Hawk and me the next day as I was trying to put the finishing touches on some decorations for the wedding. They weren’t complicated projects, and Wendy had given me clear instructions, but I couldn’t seem to make myself follow along. She got to the house right on time, and I’d still barely made a dent in what she wanted me to have done.

She knocked, and I called out to her that the door was open. She let herself in and came into the room where I had the table set up and the decorations spread out over it. Stopping a couple of feet away, she put her hands on her hips and swept her eyes over the progress I’d made.

“Is this all you’ve done?” she asked.

I looked over at her with a withering glare, and she shrugged. “I’m sorry. I mean. These look fantastic. When are the other ones going to be done?”

There was an edge bordering on panic in her voice as she realized how far away I was from actually having everything completed. This wedding was really getting to her, and the closer it got, the tighter wound she became. She wanted everything to be perfect, and I could see just how much she cared about it. I was amazed by everything she’d accomplished and knew how much all of this meant to Malia.

That made me feel awful for not being able to help more. This was my little sister’s wedding. It was something she’d always wanted. All her life I knew she had wanted to be a wife and mother. She had big dreams for her career as well, aspiring to be a reporter on the sidelines for the NFL. Her love of football and incredible personality made her absolutely perfect for the position, and I had no doubt she would make it happen one day.

But that didn’t stand in the way of this dream. She had never been the type of woman who thought she had to make a choice between having the type of career she really wanted and pursuing success for herself and getting married and having children. To her, they were two completely separate things, and there was no reason she shouldn’t be able to have both and enjoy them as much as she wanted to.

Now, she was finally making all those dreams come true. She already had the child she wanted so much. Soon, she would be a wife. It was incredible watching my little sister accomplish these things and become the woman we both knew she could be. But I felt like I was in a fog.

“Sorry,” I said. “I know I should have gotten more done. My brain isn’t working this morning.”

“What’s going on?” she asked, her arms dropping from where she’d crossed them stiffly across her chest. She looked concerned. She’d been my best friend long enough to know when there was something on my mind I wasn’t talking about, even when I tried not to show it.

“Just distracted,” I said. “Nothing to worry about.”

“You know very well that’s not going to work with me. Something’s going on with you.”