The girls react. “Oh, that’s right!”
“Emma and Eleanor, I hadn’t thought about it!”
I remind them, “Don’t forget Eric.”
His sister adopts an innocent look. “Who?”
Charlie runs in holding Kaya, her matching, taupe dress fluttering in the breeze of her strides. She’s Ethan’s wife and since she’ll be my sister now, too, I wanted her in the wedding party. Eric got three, and I wanted three, too.
“What did I miss,” she asks, red hair pulled by her daughter.
“Grab a glass,” Drew tells her. “You’re just in time.”
“Kaya’s still too young to remember today but I wanted her up here with us. However, wrestling her away from my husband—your son—is not easy. I never thought I’d say this but sometimes he’s too good of a father.” Grinning and breathless, she joins our circle and spots May among us. “Grams!”
“Surprised I made it up those stairs?”
Charlie blinks, tries to recover her blurted surprise. “Not at all!”
May Cocker wiggles a finger. “Fibber.”
Blushing Charlie glances to me for help. Perfect timing because I wanted to say something. “I know I’m not the one who’s supposed to come up with toasts today—”
“It should be one of us!” Nancy Cocker interrupts with a wave of her hand, “but if you’ve thought of a good one, go ahead!”
“I have.” They wait to hear what it is while I meet each of their smiling eyes, my heart calm. “To family.”
The champagne flutes float together into the loveliest wind-chimes-sound any of us have ever heard.
CHAPTER 44
ERIC
“F eels like the groom gets none of the glamour,” I smirk to Ben as we stroll down the porch steps into our grandparents’ backyard. “What am I complaining to you for? You got married by Elvis in Vegas!”
He snorts, “Not by Elvis, fucker.”
“No?” I tease him with a push. “Might as well have. But it looks pretty good out here huh? All those added strings of lights. Where’d they get these chairs from?”
Gabriel strolls up the aisle to us, rows of wooden, white folding chairs adorned with red roses on either side. “I know, right, these are a lot more than we have at the BBQs.”
Ben and I start humming, Here Comes The Bride at the same time.
Gabriel cocks an eyebrow. “Fuck off.”
Ben grins while I laugh, “You’re pretty enough! Wanna get hitched? First cousins used to be okay, right? Maybe it still is somewhere?”
Our rockstar cousin drags his right hand through his hair, bracelets sliding under his black blazer. “You wish. Plus, have you seen my wife? Hey Paige!” he shouts across hundreds of people to the pretty brunette he loves. She waves from where she and Shelby, Ben’s wife, set down covered dishes of food for our guests. “Did you know she’s teaching Grams yoga?” At our reactions, he grins, “It’s true! Private sessions, not at the studio we bought. She drives to Grams’ Senior Living home.”
With an appreciative nod, Ben slides his hands in his pockets. “We all agree Grams has to live forever, so I’m for anything that keeps her healthy.”
My brother walks up, “I feel naked without my daughter.”
Eyeing him I dryly say, “Don’t use those two words together in the same sentence.”
“What two words?”
Gabriel and Ben simultaneously fill him in, “Naked and daughter.”
Ethan winces. “You guys are sick fuckers you know that?” He smacks my tuxedo, “Your buddies are calling you. Come on.”
I glance to my cousins and ask, “You guys okay alone?”
“Fuck off!”
Ethan and I take off, laughing to ourselves. “That was pretty good,” he mutters.
I glance over to see my cousin Elijah talking up my teammate’s regular girl, Kimberly. Mott won’t like that at all.
“Yo!” I shout to get his attention.
Handsome as hell, but with shorter hair than Gabriel—they are twins but couldn’t be more different—Elijah flicks a what-do-you-want-I’m-busy look at me. I slice my hand across my neck. “Taken. Don’t go there.” He ignores me.
Snake.
“Let it be,” Ethan smirks. “They’re over here.” We head around the side of the great house.
My smile returns as I’m heralded by my two groomsmen, Mott and Tony, my dad, and grandfather, all of them lazily rolling Cubans in their fingers, spending lazy time blowing smoke rings above their satisfied heads.
“What’s this…cigars?”
Grandpa Michael lifts a small box from a gap in the fence, and offers me one. “Shhh…this is only for us men.”
I eye him, then my brother. “Did you smoke one of these before your wedding?”
Without a hint of guilt he grins, “Sure did.”
“You withholding piece of shit!”
“Language!” we hear Grams call from the heavens.
All six of us turn in circles, looking for her. Then Grandpa looks up and nudges Dad’s arm. “Jake, look.”
We all do.
And there’s May Cocker with her head out the window of the upstairs bathroom. “I see you, Michael! You’re a bad boy!”
“Mother, get down from the toilet! Stop spying on us!”
Waving her hand she rolls her eyes. “An old woman has to find her fun somewhere, doesn’t she? Oh, don’t worry, I won’t tell. But watch your mouths! God is listening!” She disappears and we all stand very still to make sure she didn’t fall down. “I’m okay!” she calls out.
T he team, their wives or girlfriends—those who have them, anyway, Coach, the owners of the Falcons, Carla and Mike from O’Neal’s, plus everyone else we followed the whim to invite, are in their seats. Wren’s band came and have been flirting like crazy with my Cocker cousins. My aunts and uncles are here, all except for Uncle Jett and Aunt Luna, and their daughter Sofia Sol. She’s gotten into some trouble and they got stuck cleaning up the mess…or making it worse. You never know with them.
Dad’s cousins who live in our sister city, Savannah, and their kids, came over, too. My second cousins—is that what they’re called, it gets fucking confusing—they’re all our ages though we didn’t grow up close to them. Good people.
I’m up here with my cousin, Max, Uncle Jason’s oldest. He got ordained as a
