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Chapter Three
Agatha
Finally settled in our seats for takeoff, I exhaled fully for the first time since I woke up this morning. The first time. Carmen was getting on my nerves with his doting attentiveness, and I tried to take the seat next to my sister on the plane, just to get a break from the guy. But her new husband was having none of that, and she was so googly-eyed in love with the man, she just did whatever he told her to do.
I had to hand it to him, though. He was super clever as he went about his controlling ways. He always made it seem like everything he did was for her, first and foremost, and she swooned a bit more each time.
A girl could puke from all the sugary sweetness between the newlyweds.
So why did it get on my last nerve when Carmen attempted the same shit with me? I recognized the pang in my gut every time I watched Hannah and her beau. It was jealousy, and I wasn’t proud of the fact. I wanted her to be happy more than anyone else. She was beautiful, smart, and loyal to the bone. She deserved to have someone love her and gush about it to the world. My sister deserved that more than anyone I knew. The feeling wasn’t a begrudging sort of jealousy as much as also wanting what she was lucky enough to have.
Maybe I didn’t deserve that sort of pure joy, and that’s why the universe kept it hidden away. Again, the man who was trying to bestow goodness upon me sat right beside me, and every one of his gestures of kindness or affection just irritated me.
During our other encounters, I had a good, if not great, time. When I tried to really examine what he was doing that was so annoying, it was the babysitting nagging combo regarding drinking that really stood out. In many senses—all right, in most senses—I barely knew the guy. What made him think he could appoint himself my sponsor?
Not that I needed one, anyway.
Yes, my partying had leveled up recently. But what about it? I was young, single—okay, scratch that one—and I was in that phase in my life where you’re supposed to have fun. Make memories. Do irresponsible shit. If I had known he was going to come along and squash all that, I would’ve never agreed to go out with him in the first place.
Now that I had, though, I liked him. In fairness, he had many qualities on my list. My four sisters and I sat down about a year ago when we were all single and wrote lists of ten qualities we wanted in a guy. And I was talking about long-term partner, not just a roll in the sheets. That might be a different list all together.
My twin sisters, Sheppard and Maye, had lists at complete odds with each other’s. Was that strange since they were twins? Weren’t they supposed to share some wavelength or something?
The older of the two, by a whopping six minutes, was Maye. She was kind, responsible, and so smart it was intimidating.
Sheppard had to be pulled out of the birth canal with some sort of labor room gear that left her head looking like a Hershey’s Kiss. Of course, we teased her about it relentlessly for most of her life. But if nothing else, the girl was consistent. Stubborn from minute one.
Until recently. A switch flipped in that young lady, and now she was not a very nice human to be around. Truth be told, she was a total bitch. And no one knew why. We all talked about it, and no one could come up with a good reason for the change, but there had been one, because it was about a one-hundred-eighty-degree flip, not just changing preference from plastic to paper.
Our mother, bless the woman’s soul for putting up with five daughters, insisted that she would snap out of it one day and either talk about what crawled up her ass and died or just simply go back to the way she used to be: nice. Or at least nicer than she was these days.
The sad part of it all was that by the time either of those two things happened, she wouldn’t have any friends left. She was mean to everyone, not just the family. Even the people at Starbucks were afraid of her, and they dealt with assholes all day.
Hannah, our oldest sister, described Prince Charming of fairy-tale fame to a T on her list. Considering her new husband, Elijah Banks, she pretty much got what she was looking for. Although Mr. Banks had way better hair than the two-dimensional prince.
The baby bomb of our brood was Clemson. The bombshell nickname started with Elijah and his security team and spread to his friends after that. They said we were five blond bombshells and called us the Bomb Squad and other predictable nicknames related to explosives. Well, I’d been called waaaay worse, so at least there was that.
Breaking me away from my random thoughts, Carmen touched my arm with his left hand, and I saw that green band again. To be fair, I hadn’t removed mine yet, either. I got some odd comfort when I looked at my hand and saw it there. Not diving in too deep about the meaning behind that, though. Was there a possibility, however slim, that we knew what we were doing last night?
Wouldn’t be the first time I used alcohol as a scapegoat.
I looked up to his handsome face and gave him a small smile. I really needed to be nicer to the guy. He was in as much shit for this as I was.
“Do you want some water or something?” he asked but quickly added, “Not booze.”
With an irritated scowl, I answered, “You need to stop. Day drinking isn’t really my thing, anyway. Some water would be great. Thank you.” My smile went from genuine to practiced and plastic in the span of one comment.
I watched him relay the request to the flight attendant and really studied his bone structure. First in profile while he spoke to the pleasant woman, then straight on when he handed me the water. I landed a hottie for sure.
Leaning past his body, I signaled to her again. “May I have some ice, please?” If I crunched on something during landing, my ears wouldn’t clog. Otherwise, I’d drive myself mad trying to clear them for the next twenty-four hours.
“Sorry,” he said with that sheepish, innocent-boy look he had perfected. “I didn’t know, but we’re still in the discovery phase.”
“No need to apologize,” I said and touched his arm.
He looked down to my left hand on his sleeve, and I quickly pulled back. Or tried to. The handsome man took my hand in his and brought my fingers to his lips while I stared. Baffled. He softly kissed my ring and looked up to find me gaping at him.
“We can make this work,” he vowed for just my ears.
