The Bride (The Bride #1)(8)

She slammed her hands on the table. I could feel the other folks around us turn and look.

I lowered my voice. “What? I’m trying to do the right thing by you. If you don’t want to wait, I get it. But this is happening. Ellie is my family. The only family I have left, and I’m not sending her to strangers. That is never going to happen, so you need to decide now what works for you.”

She was nodding, but I could see her lips were quivering. She took a few shallow breaths and reined it in.

“Are you going to live with her? In the house?”

It wasn’t a question I was expecting, so I answered without thinking. “I guess so. She might not like being alone in the house. And she should probably have some supervision. She’s only sixteen.”

“Almost seventeen.”

“Yeah. So what.”

“Has it occurred to you what it’s going to look like? You’re twenty-six, Jake, not seventy.”

“I’m not following.”

“You’ve known Ellie since she was born, but have you looked at her lately?”

“Of course I’ve looked at her.”

“No, have you looked at her. She’s growing up, Jake. She’s not an adult, but she’s not a girl either. Tall, thin, long brown hair, perky little breasts.”

I saw red. “Tell me you’re not suggesting that I would take advantage of an underage girl. Of Ellie.”

I could see her back up, but it was too late.

“You think that of me?” I asked her. “You think that’s who I am? Then what the fuck have you been doing with me for two years?”

She reached across the table to grab my hands, but I pulled them back out of her reach.

“Of course I know you’re not that guy. But think of the visual, Jake. You’re a strong attractive man, she’s growing into a beautiful young woman. You’ll be married, living together.”

“She’s like my fucking sister,” I snapped.

“But she’s not,” Janet said, gathering her purse. “People will talk.”

“I don’t give a shit what they say. You’ll know the truth. That’s all the matters.”

“I need to think about this,” she said, scooting out of the booth. “I love you, Jake. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with you, so I’m not ready to give up on us, but I need time to process this.”

I nodded. “That’s fair.” I needed time too. Time to think about what it meant that Janet was actually jealous of Ellie.

It was absurd and ridiculous. And wrong.



*

I walked into the house and made my way back toward the kitchen. Ellie was sitting on a stool at the center island, working on her laptop.

“Homework?” I asked. Because even after everything she’d been through, life still went on. She’d already missed a week of school and I knew her teachers had sent her some work to help her try and keep up.

She lifted her head and I tried to look at her. Janet was right. I hadn’t really thought about Ellie in any particular way other than as Ellie. This girl who was in my life, who was part of my family.

She had grown up. And she was very pretty. Long honey-brown hair. She had her dad’s eyes. Dark blue. Her mom’s chin, a little pointy. She was taller than most girls in her class, which I knew she hated, because it also meant she was taller than a lot of the guys. She’d once informed me, as if it were a biological fact, that guys did NOT date girls taller than them.

Would people talk? I didn’t think so. Too many people knew our story. My dad dying, then her mom, now her dad. People would talk more if I let anything happen to her.

No, it didn’t matter that she’d turned into this young beautiful woman while I wasn’t looking. I knew me. I knew Ellie. I knew what we were to each other. Janet’s jealousy was unfounded.

Only now I had to worry about the guys who would eventually come sniffing around her.

“How did she take it?” she said, not answering my question.

“Not great.”

“Figured.”

I walked to the fridge and took out a beer that had been left over from the wake.

“Why did you figure?”

“Jake, she’s twenty-seven. Around here that’s almost ancient to be married. She’s waiting for you because you’re the best. Only now you told her she has wait another year. You had to assume she was going to be upset. You shouldn’t be mad at her.”

“Why would I be mad at her?” I was.

“Because you think she should understand. You know, because I’m an… ugh… orphan. Except you made a choice to put me above her. That was going to hurt no matter what.”

When the hell had Ellie become so damn smart?

“For sixteen months,” I reminded her. “You over her for sixteen months.”

“Doesn’t matter. Which means you don’t get to be mad at her.”

I let it drop. “Hey, have you thought about what we should do after the wedding? In terms of me living here.”

I had been sleeping on the couch in the study since Sam died. It seemed presumptuous to take the guest room. But the couch was lumpy as hell and wasn’t sustainable.

“I have, actually. I know you’re going to balk, but I think you should take Dad’s room instead of the guest room.”