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“Who would’ve thought, right?” I shook my head.
“Somebody actually had the guts, man.”
If it hadn’t been for my younger sister getting married, I would still be in London, carrying on with my life.
I had left home as soon as I finished high school to pursue a degree in medicine, convinced I was going to save lives and hoping to God that my dad would be proud of me. And after that… I worked hard to achieve my dream of healing people with heart disease.
The first few years, Mom would often call me, trying tosubtlyconvince me to come back home. But after Amanda had left Georgetown, I thought that there was nothing that would pull me back. Besides, I thought that with Elle and me all grown up, Mom would finally have a chance to enjoy herself. Eventually, the calls dwindled from several times a week, to just the routinely monthly call.
That is until I receivedthatcall from Elle a couple of months ago.
“Guess what!?” she’d screamed the moment I answered.
“What?” I asked her, my heart pounding. For a moment, I was afraid something bad had happened to Mom.
“I’m getting married in four months! Isn’t it amazing?”
What was amazing was that she had found a guy who actually wanted to marry her, but if I told her that, she would probably castrate me with a fork.
“You have to come back home for the wedding,” she continued like a chipmunk on drugs. “You have to or I’llneverforgive you!”
I shuddered at the memory of those words, of the thinly veiled threat in them. Anyone in Georgetown knew that anybody on Elle’s shit-list was assured a long and unhappy existence, and I had no plans of getting on her bad side.
Ever.
Not that I could ever consider skipping the wedding, because an hour hadn’t even passed when Mom called to tell me that I had to be there on time for the wedding. Just like that.
“It’s going to be a lovely summer wedding,” Mom told me over the phone. “You wouldn’t want to miss it for the world. Besides, it’s not every day that your only sibling is getting married, Ollie.”
I had lived long enough with my own mother to know what those words meant. It meant I was going to be there for the wedding, no questions asked.
* * *
The first thing I noticed as soon as I got home was a blue blur and thenstars.
I let out a surprised sound when my sister barreled into me with all the grace of a raging bull on steroids. At her full height, Elle barely made it to my shoulders—an unending source of grief for her—but I still stood by the career recommendation I gave her back in high school.
She would have made a damn fine wrestler.
“You’re home!” she screeched in that all too familiar voice, her brown eyes sparkling. “Oh God, I thought you wouldn’t make it in time!”
I grimaced as I struggled to find my balance. “Yeah, I like the idea of having all my body parts intact. I never thought I’d get run over by a truck the moment I got home, though.”
I looked up to find a man looking fondly at the scene of my sister mauling me, recognizing him from the photos Elle and Mom sent me.
“You must be Gavin,” I said, holding out my hand for a handshake. “I’m Oliver, Elle’s brother. Welcome to the family.”
“Thanks, man. I’ve heard so much about you.” He took my hand in a firm handshake and I felt some of my worries subside. He looked like he could hold his own if it came down to it with my sister.
“If it was from Elle, it probably wasn’t any good.”
Gavin laughed and just shook his head.
“Mom is going to be so happy to see you. She’s been going on and on about how today is going to be a great day and that the vibes are just right.” Elle stepped back and raked her eyes over me with a raised eyebrow. “You need to get changed, though. You look like something the living dead dragged in.”
“Yeah. Crossing over the Atlantic does that to you.”
She grinned. “Looks like the plane dragged you all the way back here. You can join us in the garden once you look more human.”
