Hold Me If You Can (If You Can #2)

Prologue

Jerk Pants

N o matter how I twisted it, I couldn’t figure out why everyone was laughing.

It had to be something really funny. My mom had both hands over her mouth and a tear snaking down her cheek as she stifled her laughter.

“Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph,” my dad said as the bride let out a loud cackle while the groom grinned at her and the wedding guests descended into chaos. My mom leaned forward in her chair, her head nearly on her lap and her shoulders shaking.

“What does it mean, though?” I whispered.

“Lower your voice,” my dad snapped, since I wasn’t actually whispering. But half of the people around us were laughing the same way my mom was and I had to speak over them.

“But Dad, I don’t understand—”

“As you shouldn’t.” His voice was clipped and he turned to my mom. “For God’s sake, Victoria. Enough.”

“H-He said—” She coughed, shaking her head. “He-He-He s-said—!”

“Yes, we all heard what he said,” my dad said.

“But what does it mean ?!” I repeated, then reached across my dad’s lap and shoved my mom’s thigh. “Mom, why is everyone laughing? I don’t get it. What’s so funny about—”

“Nellie!” my dad hissed. “It is not at all appropriate for you to know what that means. Just know that it is something you should never say.”

“But—”

“Max, let me—It’s n-not—” My mom coughed, shaking her head before heaving a deep breath and leaning across my dad’s body so she could whisper to me. “Honey, it’s a… a term for a grown-up thing. It’s n-not something you s-say in your wedding v- vows .”

“Or in a church,” my dad muttered.

It wasn’t enough of an explanation to satisfy my nine-year-old self, but if even my mom wouldn’t tell me more, I knew it was hopeless. And since my dad had already scolded me three times for talking too much during the ceremony and kicking the back of the pew and somehow getting gum in my hair even though I wasn’t even chewing gum, I didn’t want to make things worse. Sitting back in my chair, I pinched my forefinger and thumb together and swung my legs impatiently, waiting for the ceremony that was taking for ever to finish so I could ask Anne-Marie, who was sitting next to her mom farther down the row, what it meant.

I mean, she had to know. Her mouth had opened into a wide “O” and her eyes went almost as large as everyone was laughing.

But she couldn’t tell me what it meant, either.

“ Je sais pas ,” she whispered as we lagged behind our parents, who were gossiping wildly while waiting in the line outside the church so we could tell the bride and groom we were happy for them.

“Why did you look so shocked then?” I whispered. “If you don’t know what it means?”

“Because people do not laugh like that if it’s not something extremely scandalous,” she replied. “And because did you see the lady in the gold dress? That is the bride’s mom. She almost fainted .”

“She did not almost faint,” said a voice from behind Anne-Marie. “Don’t make things up.”

And ugh .

“Why are you eavesdropping?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest as I turned to glare at Anne-Marie’s older brother, JP. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“No, actually,” JP said.

Which was fair, unfortunately. I’d never been to a wedding before and had originally been excited, but now that we were here, I had no idea why I’d wanted to go. The ceremony was boring except for the joke that everyone was laughing at that I didn’t understand. All we’d done so far was sit around, listen to people talk, and watch the bride and groom kiss for way too long.

At least my mom had bought me a pretty new dress to wear. It was purple and didn’t have any itchy lace on it. And that morning, we’d gone to the Marchands’ house to get our hair done by a lady Anne-Marie’s mom had hired. My mom had gotten her makeup done, too, but she said I wasn’t old enough to wear makeup.

Even though Anne-Marie’s mom let her wear lipstick and eyeshadow.

“Well, no one said you could listen in our conversation, Jean-Paul,” Anne-Marie said. “So unless you’re going to tell us what the joke was, perhaps you should find someone else to bother.”

He shook his head, pulling his shoulders back to make himself look more mature. “Someone’ll explain it when you’re older.”

I rolled my eyes. “You don’t even know, do you?”

“I do,” he said.

“Yeah, right.” I looked at my nails, which the makeup lady had painted for me and which already had a chip in them because I’d put a sticker on the backseat window of my dad’s car and then had to hurriedly pick it off before he noticed when we got to the church. “You’re just trying to make us think you do too look cool.”

“I already look cool,” he said.

Which was also, very unfortunately, kind of true.

Like, not totally true. Boys were gross, obviously, even though Anne-Marie said they weren’t so bad. And JP was still a smelly, rude, primeval boy with a nose that turned up just enough to make him look like a pug and a crooked tooth on the left side of his mouth. And he was mean and annoying and stupid and smelly, which was worth mentioning twice because he was a teenager now and that meant he needed, like, deodorant and stuff.

But like, objectively, he did look kinda cool in the royal blue suit and matching tie he’d worn for the wedding. But his mom probably made him wear it or bought for him, so it wasn’t even like he picked the outfit himself.

“Well, you would look a lot cooler if you proved you actually know what it means,” I told JP. “’Cause otherwise I think you’re lying.”

“I’m not lying,” he said. “But I’m also not telling you.”

I huffed, picking at the skin around my thumbnail. “But I want to know.”

“Yeah,” Anne-Marie agreed. “What good is it to have an older brother if he won’t even explain a joke to you, Jean-Paul?”

He smirked. “Alright. I’ll tell you—”

“Finally,” I sighed.

“—if you tell me what I’m gonna get out of it.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“If I tell you what it means, you gotta do something for me.”

A mix of anger and annoyance began building up in my stomach. “You could just do it as a favour.”

“That’s not how negotiating works,” he said. “I do you a favour, you’re gonna owe me a favour.”

“You’re a jerk,” I said. “Jerk Pants Marchand.”

“Fine,” JP said. “Ask someone else, then.”

So I did.

We were at the end of the line now. My dad was saying something to his friend, the bride’s dad, as they shook hands.

“He makes Kendra happy,” I heard my dad’s friend say. “Somehow. I asked him to see Madame Villeneuve for some basic etiquette lessons, but apparently that was too ‘one-percent’ of me, whatever that means.”

My mom was talking to the groom’s mom animatedly, even though as far as I knew, they’d never met before. Mr. Marchand and Ms. Kinsley were talking to the bride’s mom, who had a strange look on her face that I think was supposed to be a smile. Anne-Marie was standing in front of me, her shoulders square and chin tilted up as she introduced herself to the groom, who looked semi-uncertain what to say to a nine-year-old he didn’t know.

Which left me standing in front of the bride.

Kendra.

“You are Nellie, right?” she asked, smiling at me. “Mr. Belanger’s daughter?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Happy wedding. It was nice.”

She laughed. “Thank you.”

“Also,” I said. “What does —”

“Nellie, no!” JP gasped from behind me.

I didn’t ignore him, mostly because I didn’t bother acknowledging him at all. “—‘blow your dad’ mean?”

Because that was what the groom had said during his vows when he told everyone how he’d met Kendra.

“Y’all know how Kendra is,” he’d said. “I never seen a girl so sweet and proper with such a mouth. First time we met, she’s standin’ there wearin’ a Gucci”—and he said it funny, like goo-shee —“dress and some Lewd Baton heels or whatever they’re called, a Bud Light in one hand and a cigarette in the other, just swearin’ like a Newfie trucker. And ya know, I say to her, I say, ‘Damn, girl, you gonna kiss your mother with that mouth?’ And not missin’ a beat, the love of my life here turns to me and goes, ‘Nah, but I'll blow your dad with it.’”

I’d known it was kinda bad because my dad said so. But I didn’t think it was so bad that the second I asked Kendra what it meant, the world would shift into slow motion as a bunch of things happened all at once.

First, Kendra’s mouth dropped open and her eyes went wide. Next, the groom’s neck snapped towards me. His cheeks had barely started turning red when just ahead of me, my mom whirled around, but the giggles she’d had earlier had disappeared into a look of horror. In the background, my dad’s friend closed his eyes and his wife pressed a hand to her forehead. A hand clamped down on my shoulder and I thought it was my dad’s, but he was in front of me, turning around with grey eyes burning and his lips forming words that seemed to take far longer than usual to say.

“ Ele-an-or Bel-an-ger —”

And that was when time started working normally again.

“—come here,” my dad finished, his voice clear as glass and hard as the enormous diamond on the bride’s finger.

“But—”

“ Now .”

“It’s my fault,” said a voice behind me, and I realized it was attached to the hand that had grabbed my shoulder. I twisted my neck to watch as JP stepped forward, still holding onto me. “I’m sorry, Mr. Belanger.”

My dad looked at JP, his lips pressed into a thin line. “I fail to see how—”

“I was teasing Nellie and told her to ask,” he said. “I didn’t think she would because I meant it as a joke, but I should have made it clearer that I wasn’t serious.”

A bubble of silence enveloped all of us standing there as my dad studied JP. My heart was vibrating so fast that it felt like it wasn’t moving at all, but a billion heartbeats passed by before the groom let out a peal of side-splitting laughter and nearly keeled over.

“Oh, Lord thunderin’ Jesus,” he gasped. “This is the best fuckin’ wedding I’ve ever been to.”

Kendra looked at him, a laugh playing on her lips as she feigned offense. “It damn well better be, asshole. It’s our wedding.”

The bubble popped as the groom’s parents joined in on the laughter. Not the bride’s, though, and my dad set his eyes back on me, jaw clenched as he motioned for me to obey his order to come-here-now . I started forward without even glancing at JP, who let go of my shoulder as soon as I started walking. When I reached my parents, my dad put his hand on my upper back and started walking, nearly making me stumble. He kept his hand there, pushing me faster and faster as we left the receiving line until my mom caught up and smacked his arm away from me.

“Victoria—” he started.

“I’m not disagreeing with you,” she hissed. “But stop shoving her like that. She is still your daughter .”

I didn’t know what she meant by that, which seemed to be the theme of the day. But my dad’s hand fell away from my back and my mom reached down to take my hand in hers. I chewed on my lip as we walked to my dad’s car in silence.

It wasn’t until we got into the car and both doors were shut that my dad took a breath and turned around in his seat to look at me.

“Eleanor, you need to grow up and control your impulses,” he said.

“Max—”

He lifted a hand, silencing my mom.

“We brought you today because we thought you were mature enough to handle it. You should be able to understand that a wedding is an important day and you must respect the people being married enough to pay attention. It is not the place to be loud and obnoxious. It does not matter that the groom couldn’t seem to behave himself. My daughter will stop embarrassing herself by asking inappropriate questions, regardless of what her friends or the boy next door or anyone dares her to do. Do you understand me?”

He probably wouldn’t have been upset if I spoke to agree with him, but there didn’t seem to be any words in my body, so I nodded and didn’t say anything else. Not even after he drove us to a restaurant and my mom asked what I wanted as a snack since it would be a while until we had dinner at the reception. Instead, I pointed at chicken strips on the menu before flipping it over so I could go back to colouring the pirate ship on the back. When we got to the reception, I glued myself to my mom’s side and only said hi to people when my dad introduced me and told me to say hello.

When Anne-Marie came to our table and plunked herself next to me so she could whisper what JP had told her the groom’s joke had meant, I just nodded.

“He also said to tell you he was sorry you got in trouble and that you can ask him for a favour to make up for it, if you want,” she whispered.

I nodded again, but I knew there was no way I would ever in a million-billion-trillion years ever ask JP Marchand for a favour again.