Chapter 20
JO
In the two hours we’ve been here setting up for the party in the church basement, Nico hasn’t uttered a word of complaint. He’s carried chairs and tables, laid out tablecloths, and tied weights to the end of one hundred balloons with a smile on his face.
“That’s quite a man you’ve got there,” Mom says when she pulls me aside after it’s all finished and the guests have started arriving.
I agree with a nod, watching as Nico pulls a tie out of his pants pocket to slip around his collar, knotting it with ease.
The dress code today was church-appropriate, which is why when my mother saw my dress, she suggested I put on a cardigan and button it up, but with Nico’s voice in my head calling me stunning, I held my ground and turned down her sweater.
Now, she seems to have all but forgotten about my boobs because of Nico.
“I really like him,” she goes on, “and as soon as Reverend Parsons shows up, we can get this booked for the reception.”
“I’m not having my wedding reception in a church hall.” Or ever, but she doesn’t have to know that.
“Why not?”
“Because neither one of us wants to get married here.”
Mom’s jaw hits the floor. “But… Josephine, I can’t believe what you’re tellin’ me right now! Why would you not—”
“Tonya! Oh my gosh, everything looks so great!”
Mom and I both turn to the woman coming our way. It’s Mrs. Tenney, who lives down the street from my parents. Her daughter was incredibly mean to me.
“Oh, well, thank you. Just a little something, you know.” Mom laughs at herself.
She’s been planning this party for a year, as much for Granny as for herself.
An opportunity to show off. Like me, she’s also the middle of three kids and is always in competition with them, even now.
But both have moved out of state, so she gets the full attention of her mother and the town, I suppose.
She pretty much does the hair of every woman who will walk through the door today, her shop in the basement of their house.
The Atkins home is the beehive for gossip, and this is the perfect opportunity for my mother to show off how much power she has—all the secrets she knows.
“Eileen, you remember my daughter Josephine.”
Eileen’s eyes widen. “Bucky? That’s you?”
“Josephine,” I correct a moment before Nico’s arm drapes over my shoulder. “And this is my fiancé, Nico.”
He grins. “Hey, how are ya?”
Nico is always gorgeous, but since everyone on the Iron is doing No Shave November, he’s been growing a mustache. It is criminal how even that fits him. Add in the burgundy tailored suit, which matches my dress, and he is the most overdressed and hottest man here.
Eileen presses her hand to her heart, flicking her attention between the two of us. “Well, hi. I’m, uh…”
“I’ve been known to take away the breath of a woman or two, right, babe?” Nico kisses my temple, and Eileen laughs, high-pitched as if she’s confused. Though we don’t stick around to find out because Nico takes my hand. “Introduce me to everyone else?”
He tugs me away, and we greet a few other people as they filter in, all of them shocked that I’m Josephine “Bucky Beaver” Atkins, and that I’m engaged.
It does feel like the ultimate fuck you to them.
The ugly duckling finally turned into a swan, although I don’t feel much like a swan.
I’m not sure I’ll ever not see myself as Bucky Beaver, no matter what I wear, what I look like, or who holds my hand.
Though I can’t think much of it once my great-grandmother arrives with Mamaw. As per usual, Mamaw’s all in pink and pushing Granny’s wheelchair into the hall to lots of hoots and hollers.
Nico and I wait our turn, avoiding Mamaw’s pinching fingers to my cheeks and his butt, then bend to greet my great-grandmother. I kiss her cheek. “Hi, Granny.”
“Josie, is that you?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, don’t you look so pretty. Stand up. Lemme get a look at you.” She holds my hand as I follow her direction, and she smiles. “All grown up and doin’ well for yourself. I always knew you would. And I heard engaged too.”
“That’s right.” Although my great-grandmother is the one person I feel bad lying to, I always felt a special kinship with her. She was the one who taught me to knit when I was little. Back before her shoulders stooped and her fingers became too arthritic.
“This is Nico,” I say, nudging him forward, and he sinks to his haunches, so she can view him better.
“Happy birthday, Granny. It’s very nice to meet you.”
She studies him carefully. “You’re not from ’round here.”
“No, I’m not. I’m originally from California, but now I live in Philadelphia.”
“With Josie.”
“Not with Josie, but—”
“That’s the problem with you youngins. Y’all’re so wishy-washy. You find somebody, you marry ’em. You know how old I was when I married Clyde? Eighteen. Had Boyce when I was nineteen. Then Marlee and Delia after that. Orla was my last baby, and I wasn’t even twenty-five.”
“It’s different now, Granny,” I say. “Things are different.”
“What is?” She waves me off. “I don’t get all the fussin’ and waitin’ around. It’s not so different. ’Sides—” she faces Nico “—Josie’s waited long enough to find her man, don’t you think?”
Nico tips his head back, one amused eyebrow arched my way. Almost in a challenge. “I think you’re right, Granny.”
“And what about you?” She swats at his shoulder. “Why’s a handsome boy like you taking so long to settle down?”
He shrugs. “I was waiting to find the right girl.”
Granny motions between Nico and me. “Well, don’t take too long. You know how old I am? I can’t wait much longer.”
And that right there is why I feel so guilty about all of this. Not only am I lying, but I’ll be disappointing the one person I don’t want to. The one person who’s never made me feel like an outcast in this family.
“Why don’t I let you two catch up?” Nico suggests then takes Granny’s hand in his, her skin almost translucent with age, and kisses the back of it. “I’ll be back for my girl, so take care of her while I’m gone.”
Granny is utterly charmed, even fans herself at Nico’s wink. He stands and gives my jaw a quick peck. “I’m going to the restroom. You’ll be okay for a few minutes?”
“Of course.”
With a squeeze to my waist, he takes off toward the doors, and I move Granny to a table, so I can scrounge up some punch and a plate of food for her to nibble on even though she doesn’t have much of an appetite anymore. Once I sit next to her again, she pats my hand. “I like that boy for you.”
“I like him too.”
She hums then bites into a bit of cornbread. “This must be your mama’s cornbread.” She clucks, rubbing her fingertips together. “So dry.”
I smile into my cup of punch.
“Tell me about Philadelphia,” she says, so I tell her stories about my work, about how Nico has filled my apartment with sunflowers.
They’re her favorite too. She used to grow them in her backyard, next to her vegetable garden.
Granny is a product of the Great Depression and was completely self-sufficient.
Raised her own chickens and taught all of us kids how to properly butcher and pluck one clean.
Made her own clothes and was practically the backbone of this town.
“I’m happy for you, darlin’.” She pats my cheek, offering me a smile, and it strikes me just how delicate she is.
How long she has lived, and how she doesn’t have much longer left.
It’s almost impossible to imagine, this woman who has always been so much larger than life, especially when she groans.
“What?”
“Here comes that bootlicker.”
I glance around. “Who?”
“That Jones boy your sister is always pawin’ over.”
“Waylon?”
She harrumphs. “My daddy didn’t spend all those years moonshinin’ and leading all these families out of the mud with that money, protecting us from the police harassin’ us and those bastards in the government from holdin’ us down, just for your sister to turn around and hang her hat with one of ’em. ”
I think if she could spit, she would, but instead, she settles for crossing her arms and sticking her nose in the air when Waylon appears next to me.
“Happy birthday, Miss Lettie.”
She barely acknowledges him.
“I was hopin’ to talk to Josephine for a spell.”
“Better hurry. Her man’s comin’ back soon.”
That makes Waylon suck air through his teeth before aiming pleading eyes at me. “One minute.”
“I’ll be back, Gran.” When she nods at me, I follow Waylon to a corner of the hall, where he backs me against the wall, hidden behind a bunch of balloons.
“What are you doing?”
“With what?”
“With all this?” He motions his arm out behind him as if to encompass the party. “The makeup and dress and shoes.”
I gaze down at myself. After I tried on the dress and Nico convinced me soundly that he loved it as much as I did with his mouth between my legs, he also insisted on buying me these knee-high boots.
I’m not much for jewelry, but if I were, I probably would have gone home with a few new pieces as well.
My skin flushes with resentment. Waylon wants me to be ashamed. He thinks I should be embarrassed by what I look like. And I refuse. “I think I look nice in this.”
Waylon huffs. “You do, but it’s not you.”
“No? How do you know what’s me and what’s not?”
“Because we’ve known each other since we were kids.”
“So you should know exactly how much I hated it here, how much everyone in this town, including my own family, beat me down, and what it felt like for me to confess my feelings for you, only to find you with my sister days later. If you know me so much, then you should know I’ve been waiting a long time to tell you I don’t care what you or anyone else thinks about me anymore. ”
That isn’t completely true, but I’m working on it, and I have to fake it to make it and all that.
Waylon’s skin mottles as if I offended him, but I barrel on. “I’m not sure what bothers you more, that I’ve moved on from you and from this town, or that I’m not hanging on your every word anymore.”
“That’s not it.”
“Then what is it?”
He flaps his hand around for a few seconds, trying and failing to come up with an explanation before Nico interrupts, bodily putting himself between Waylon and me.
“Gotta tell you, I don’t really like how you have my girl up against a wall here.”
Waylon takes in Nico’s protective posture of me and backs up a step, but he doesn’t leave. Instead, he ducks his head around Nico to find my gaze once more. “I don’t know why you’re doing this, but you don’t have to. You don’t have to pretend to be this person you’re not.”
I might be pretending to be engaged to Nico, but the person I was in this town is long gone.
She’s been replaced by a new version of Josephine Atkins.
One who doesn’t cower in the corner and instead takes chances.
One who would much rather hang out with a goofy hockey player reading Jurassic Park smut than a boring boy who’s never outgrown his hometown.
“The only one pretending here is you and the real reason why you felt you needed to corner me. Unfortunately for you, it looks like my sister understands why too, so you’d better go fix that because I’m not going to be waiting here for a crumb of your attention.
I stopped caring about you a long time ago. I suggest you do the same.”
With that, Nico takes my hand in his and escorts me away. “Atta-fucking-girl.”
Then, in the middle of the hall, in the middle of the party, in the middle of basically the whole of the town, Nico Tremblay gathers me in his arms and kisses me.