Chapter 10 New Friends and Family
NEW FRIENDS AND FAMILY
ASHA
“This doesn’t seem like your type of thing.”
I wasn’t sure why I’d gone up to her. No, that wasn’t true.
She seemed as detached from a lot of this as I did.
When I arrived at this wedding celebration I was told that I had a place of honor in this wedding party.
It was purely by default but apparently Ori had left out these details on purpose.
The other women were there for support but they had young children or were heavily pregnant, which prevented them from doing as much.
I had no issue with being able to fill in the role but it was weird to be thrown in on the spot.
My new co-bridesmaid was someone who seemed just as out of place as I did.
Which wasn’t saying a lot, because the bride herself had little by way of family and her only close friend was another wife here by the name of Francesca Merrick.
She glanced around somewhat uneasily before her storm-gray eyes met my eye confidently. “I don’t know what my type of thing is just yet.” Her southern drawl differed from Nev's and Teegan's. It was deeper with a slower cadence.
I stood next to her and observed the festivities the same way she’d done before I interrupted. Nev had been dragged to the dance floor by her husband, leaving me forced to mingle with someone else besides her. This was my attempt at doing so.
“That sounds… ominous. Is that a way of drawing me in or telling me to keep away from the landmine?”
A ghost of a smile lifted the cheeks in her round face as she looked at me again. “You’re much friendlier than I initially thought you’d be.”
Not how I would normally want someone to classify me but today it fit. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
“That’s fine. I guess I meant it that way.”
I smiled at her feeling that she was guarded the same way I was. A kindred spirit of sorts. “You’re funny.”
The wedding continued around us its opulence not lost on me. I wondered if this was the type of expenditure that Ori would go to but I had no desire to waste resources on a wedding.
“Glad I’m not ruining this first day out.” Her muttered retort drew my eyes back to her, the response at odds with the compliment I’d provided.
“Where have you escaped from?”
“Technically? An asylum.” Our eyes met and we shared a laugh that shouldn’t have been funny but it was.
“You’re in good company then.” If she were here, and apparently family by the effusive way Ori and the rest of his brothers greeted her, then she was safe enough to be honest with.
“I’m not insane. Well, at least I wasn’t before I went in.
” The thoughtful look on her face was one I was familiar with.
She was silently questioning her sanity and whether what she felt was reality really was.
I knew that feeling. The way minds could fracture once you were no longer in danger questioning if you were actually gone.
It was a way of being institutionalized that haunted you forever.
“Pity. I thought I’d have a kindred spirit. It’s funny how things can change us from who we are or who we were.”
“You sound as though you were speaking from experience.”
I sighed and blew out a heavy breath, wondering just how much I should reveal to her in this ballroom. “You don’t know the half.”
“Jemma Marie Benoit.” I thought she would do the distinctly American thing and stick her hand out for me to shake but she didn’t. Instead, she smiled and gave a slight dip of her head.
“Ah, the name is decidedly French but the accent, that’s all from the Deep South. Creole is my guess?”
“Got it in one. I know you’re Ori’s fiancée and as much as I love my brothers I refuse to only acknowledge women by the men they are connected to.”
“I like you more already. Dr. Asha Avery.” I stuck my hand out for her to shake and she took it with a smile on her face and a teasing glint in her gray eyes.
We turned back toward the dance floor looking like an odd pair to anyone from the outside.
Our differences in height and skin tone obvious to anyone who would’ve looked but our similarities hidden.
There was a kindred spirit in the two of us and it seemed to solidify a friendship between the two of us there beneath the glittering crystal of the chandelier of the Warren Hotel ballroom.
“I like you for him already.”
Friendship over just that fast.
“That’s… well that’s a compliment I guess.” I didn’t want to insult her or her brother but I felt like there were expectations with the weight of her words and I didn’t want that.
“You’re about the only one who could even begin to handle all that comes with Ori. And I know you have to have tough skin to deal with his moody ass.”
“Not tough. I’m just tired of bickering with him.” Some of which was my fault but I wouldn’t tell her that.
“Maybe bickering will be your love language.” She smiled at me attempting to reassure me.
Oddly, she did because arguing with him made me feel…
safe. He never once responded to me threateningly nor did he seem so angry that he would lose control.
I felt okay being myself without fear of repercussions.
“Love plays no part in this.”
We avoided looking at one another and instead focused on the people around us either out of habit or not wanting to see the truth in one another’s words.
“Admiration at the barest of minimums. Listen, I know how all of this works and these women here are some of the strongest I’ve come across. Even the sweet little lamb Nyima is far tougher than she seems.”
I finally looked down at her again since she couldn’t have been more than 5’8 with her heels on and I topped six feet with mine. “Why are you telling me this?”
She kept her eyes on me but nodded toward the dance floor as she spoke. “Because those men are my brothers and I might be protective of them but I’m always a girl’s girl first. They complimented each of their husbands specifically. And I can tell the same is true for you and Ori.”
“There’s nothing like that between the two of us.”
She smiled at my rebuttal clearly not believing a word I was saying. “Not even admiration?”
“There’s a lot of that but not the other emotion you’re reaching for.” My eyes went to the floor to hide my blush since I couldn’t lie.
“Maybe not yet.”
I rolled my eyes at how hopeful she sounded. “Or ever.”
She grinned at my vehement refusal like she knew better than I did. “Stranger things have happened.”
“You want to tell me about why you’re here on the sidelines now or are you still feeling me out to see if I’m worthy?”
She smiled in a way that showed she was impressed that I understood what she’d been doing and was simultaneously unapologetic about it. Which made me like her even more.
“My aunt had Jahmir’s supposed father lock me up in an insane asylum when she thought I’d found my long thought dead brother because they’d been secret lovers for years.”
She delivered that bit of her history with such aplomb I had to blink several times before I grasped everything she was saying and it still didn’t fully make sense.
“Usually I’m quick but I think you might have to run that by me again.”
Jemma Marie laughed at my confusion and I was glad that it didn’t upset her.
She went back through the tangled web of her brother being declared dead as a child and her parents grieving the loss for years.
And even after that she’d been declared a ward of her aunt when her parents were killed in a car crash.
If there had been a girl who’d had little luck it was Jemma Marie.
She’d gotten a feeling that her brother was still alive and had traveled to Atlanta to discuss it with her brothers, the band of merry madmen that included Ori, when she was abducted.
She was eighteen and her aunt apparently convinced everyone she was just having a youthful folly.
But when they finally started to search for her she’d vanished without a trace.
Only she’d been there under their noses in the same city as Jahmir for years.
It wasn’t until his mother had been placed in the same facility as punishment that she had been released.
And that had apparently taken an act of the governor because there was some unknown hold on her by a doctor that no one could locate.
“Fuck. Is the plan in place to kill her then? I’m more than ready to do my part.” I was furious knowing that this woman was still running around free like everything was okay. My eyes darted around the room hoping I could put eyes on her and commit her face to memory.
“Do you think there’s some kind of initiation that you need to complete in order to become a part of this?”
I frowned at her thinking I felt the need to prove myself to anyone in this room. “I wouldn’t care if it were. I would do that on my own.”
“Ahh you have a mother hurt I see.”
“Pardon?”
She playfully bumped me a sign that the easy camaraderie that we’d built hadn’t been lost by my words.
“Don’t get all formal on me now. You dipped your toe into my head so I’m returning the favor.
It’s more than clear that your eagerness is led by either a physical or emotional failing of someone in your own life.
Yet more proof that you and Ori are going to get along well together.
His mother hurt with yours means that you both understand each other well. ”
“My mother is a dreadful soul that if you ever have the displeasure of meeting her you have free rein to be as disrespectful as you’d like.”
“Damn, that bad, huh? My mama’s been dead for years and I will kill and mutilate anyone who ever speaks ill of her name. My daddy’s either. Immediate death sentence.” It was wild how her voice made this death threat sound poetic but it did. And it made me smile.
“I feel the same for my ābo but that lady…” I shrugged my shoulders and she laughed again.