26. 26
Alice Taylor stares at me like I have stolen her pink unicorn backpack and lit the thing on fire.
Weird. Kids usually like me.
I pat the top of her golden retriever’s head. At least Princess likes me.
“You are kidding me right now. Because there is no way I missed my flower girl debut.”
“You were Owen’s flower girl,” Miles tells her.
Her little blue eyes turn to giant marbles. This is clearly the wrong thing to say. “And I had to wear green!”
“Alice,” Jude says, one hand on her shoulder, though the man looks nervous. “Miles didn’t get married to hurt your feelings.”
“Only it did, Dad. It did hurt my feelings. Big time. Uncle Miles got married and it hurt my feelings real good.”
“Sweet pea,” Coco pleads.
One tear trickles down the girl’s face, and I’m pretty sure it breaks Miles. His screwed-up, worry-filled face falls to pieces with that one single tear. He crouches, then sits on the hardwood floor in Jude and Coco’s living room, holding out his arms.
Alice falls into them, and instead of giving her an excuse or blaming me—which is totally warranted by the way—he says, “I’m sorry, Alice. That was selfish and thoughtless of me. I’m so, so sorry.”
“And what about Lula?” Alice says, ignoring her uncle’s heartfelt apology. “She never got the chance to walk down the aisle!”
“She isn’t walking yet,” Jude says. “She couldn’t have—” He grunts with an elbow from his wife.
“You’re right,” Miles tells her. “Poor Lula. How can I make it up to the two of you?”
She thinks for only a second. “I’d like one wedding, please. I will wear pink and walk down the aisle, and as the main attraction, I will throw red rose petals to the crowd right before Lane Jonas comes on down!” She sings that last part like she is the new voice of The Price Is Right. “Unless she would like me to carry her dress’s caboose—and then I am willing to save the best for last. Otherwise, I prefer first.” She nods, her words final.
“Oh. Umm.” Miles peers up at me. “I don’t think we’re going to do another wedding. We kept it small for a reason because Delaney—you know,” he whispers, “AKA superstar Lane Jonas is my new wife, and we didn’t want a bunch of cameras and people crashing the wedding.”
But Alice is unimpressed with my stage name or anything Miles has said. She sits in her uncle’s lap, folds her arms, and stares into his eyes, her bottom lip trembling.
She is good.
“But you said you wanted to make it up to me,” Alice says.
“I do. Laney and I could take you to the zoo or the park or—”
“Disneyland!” I offer.
Jude and Coco peer at one another with my over-jubilant response. I really don”t want to be the bad guy here.
Alice nibbles on her lip, reminding me a little of her mom—err, stepmom. I keep forgetting those girls aren’t blood related. While Alice is fair and blonde—the opposite of Coco—they still remind me of one another.
She isn’t buying what we’re offering. And yet, the girl says in the world’s smallest voice, “Okay.”
“Miles, why couldn’t we do a family celebration? We could have a small ceremony. Alice could be your flower girl and—”
“I like it. I’ll take door number three—” Alice says, pointing to Coco.
“But we don’t want guests or gifts—” Miles says.
“Yes, what he said.” I point to Miles, my stomach churning at the thought of a ceremony with actual guests. Plus—as new as Miles is to me, I can tell that the thought of kind people bringing us gifts for our sham of a marriage sits as well with him as it does with me—terribly.
“So, not a ceremony, no gifts… but a celebration. The family would like to celebrate the two of you,” Coco says.
“Yes, we would.” Alice smacks her hands to Miles’ cheeks, then kisses him on the nose. “Grandma Lucy would appreciate that plan as well. I know it.”
Miles looks up at me from his seat on the floor, but then he looks at Alice sitting in his lap, and I’ve lost the fight before it’s begun. “Yeah. We could probably do that,” he says.