Chapter 14 #3
“Be optimistic.” I lightly poke her side and lean in close to speak quietly in her ear. “We’ve fooled everyone so far.”
“I swear, you’re going to kill me and we’ve been married for less than a week.”
Things continue to go well, though. We make small talk with some cousins, hang out with my nana for a bit, and pet the dogs who keep sneaking in for attention. But Jada’s entire energy freezes up when she spots a woman across the crowd.
“There’s Danika,” Jada says softly, pasting on a smile.
I follow her gaze and spot a woman stalking toward us, a bored-looking man at her side.
Jada’s cousin looks like her in an alternate universe—curvy and thick, but with a style that looks ripped from Instagram.
Tight and trendy. I’ve been around enough people who have gotten some work done to recognize little touches of filler and Botox.
The “preventative” stuff, if I had to guess, which doesn’t really prevent much of anything.
Their energy is the biggest difference. She looks me up and down like I’m a walking turd.
“So, you’re Jada’s husband?” she asks the moment she’s close enough.
“Yep. And you must be Danika.” I give her my most charming smile. “Nice to meet you. Congrats on your engagement. And your graduation soon.”
“Thanks.” She looks at Jada next. “You’re not wearing a wedding dress?”
“Nope. We’re keeping it casual. And it’s just a party anyway, not the actual wedding.” Jada slips her hand around my bicep and I get closer to her.
“Mm.” Danika takes a long sip of her drink, not breaking eye contact with me.
The man with her—her fiancé, I’m assuming—doesn’t say a word or even introduce himself.
He could literally fade into the background like a ghost and it would take me a moment to notice.
“Well, whatever. I just can’t believe you’re married. Nice timing.”
“Sometimes the stars align,” I say.
She raises an eyebrow at me. She couldn’t be more annoyed if she tried, and the asshole in me only wants to stoke that flame.
“Right.” She sips her drink again. “So how did you even meet? Do you even know each other?”
“No, we’re total strangers,” I say. Jada lightly steps on my foot. “But no, we’ve known each other basically our whole lives. But we reconnected on another level last year.”
Danika gives us a narrow-eyed gaze again. “Right. You were in a band, right? Or are? What are you going to do when you go on tour again?”
“We’re on hiatus. Indefinitely,” I say. “I’m working for Stryker Liquors now.”
“So you’re broke?” Danika shoots back, a smirk on her face.
“He’s not broke,” Jada says. “He’s just choosing to slow down. Right?”
“Right.” I want to throw back my entire drink to blunt the irritation that’s bubbling up inside of me, but I hold back.
Now I understand why Jada didn’t want her cousin to have the hotel. I don’t like her, and I get the feeling that everything she touches turns to slop.
“She’s not going to sell the hotel anyway. If you were in it for the money, I mean,” Danika says. “Even though that real estate is worth, like, millions.”
“The history is worth way more than money.” Jada’s smile is tight.
“Sure.” Danika softly snorts. “Whatever. Like you wouldn’t love the money.”
“Money isn’t everything,” Jada says.
Danika ignores her and her eyes skim over me in a way I’m very used to—she’s eyeing my tattoos, mostly. Some people are just curious, which I understand, but she seems annoyed by them. And by me. And by everything.
“I still can’t believe y’all are together. You don’t seem like you’d fit. Like, do you even know her favorite things? Like what’s her favorite movie?” Danika asks. “What’d she major in? What’s her favorite childhood memory?”
Should I guess? I’ve snooped around her apartment enough now to know that she loves movies from the early 2000s, history, and anything bright and colorful. But I don’t know about her major or her favorite childhood memory. Does Danika even know?
“It doesn’t matter,” Jada says quickly, grabbing my arm. “We know each other and we’re in love. Excuse us.”
She pulls us away a touch too fast to be seen as a normal out from an uncomfortable situation. I pull her along a bit farther so she doesn’t make the mistake of looking back. But she does before I can say anything.
“I wouldn’t look back again,” I say once we’re over near the stairs up to the deck. “She doesn’t trust us.”
“I know. I know.” Jada sighs and throws back her drink. “I fucked that up. I feel like I should have been smoother about it all. I feel like we looked guilty. Or at least I did.”
“Kind of,” I admit.
“Well, thanks.”
“I’m not going to lie to you about it,” I say.
She squeezes the bridge of her nose like she’s trying not to cry.
“It’s not that big a deal,” I say softly. “She’s just rude and bitter.”
She swallows. “I feel like this is a bigger deal. It’s just a gut feeling.”
I don’t want to dismiss her feelings—she knows her cousin more than I do, and her cousin seems money-hungry enough to try to contest the will. But proving someone is “in love” is damn near impossible, so what could her cousin possibly do now?