Taking the Leap Read online

  “Do you wish you were different?”

  I give her a sharp look. “No, actually. I don’t. I’m happy with who I am.”

  “Do you wish your sister was different?”

  “Of course not. I love my sister.”

  Jenna shrugs and says no more; I figure out what she’s getting at, though. She’s got more going on for her than a gorgeous face and hot body, I think. She’s smart, too. Insightful. I better watch myself. I’m on my way to a crush.

  “I wish she would stand up to our mother, though.” The words tumble from my mouth, solid and sinking as the rocks I toss into the creek.

  Jenna sighs. “Maybe she feels like she can’t. You know, weddings bring out the worst in people. The money. The pressure.”

  “My mom needs to back, off, that’s all. Not just about me and that damn bridesmaid’s dress. About Abby and Tony, too. It’s their day.” I scuff at the ground again and slide Jenna a sideways look. “I mean, look, I’ll wear the damned dress if that’s what my sister really wants, but I’m not cool with us both being bullied into it. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah. I know what you mean.” She eyes me. “You shouldn’t wear the dress. It’ll look awful on you. A tux, on the other hand….”

  I blink at her soft noise of appreciation, not sure if I should be mad she just insulted me, or flattered that she’s…what? Trying to flirt? I shake off that idea fast. Girls who look like Jenna Monroe don’t go for girls like me.

  “I’ll wear whatever my sister wants me to wear,” I repeat for what feels like the millionth time.

  “Of course you will,” she says.

  Both of us turn toward the firehall at the sound of a voice hollering Jenna’s name. It’s her mother. Jenna rolls her eyes, but grins.

  “It’s time to open presents!” Mrs. Monroe shouts across the back lawn. “Get in here!”

  “We’d better go,” I say.

  Jenna punches my arm lightly. “Yeah. But hey, we should exchange numbers, yeah? Aren’t all the bridesmaids supposed to be in touch?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Right.” I fumble my phone out of my jeans pocket and give her my number.

  She texts me immediately, and when my phone pings with her message, she gives me a grin. Strikes a pose. She’s totally ignoring her mother’s shouting. “Take my picture. You know. For my contact photo.”

  I do, a quick snapshot that has no business turning out as good as it does. She doesn’t even ask me to see it, just gives me a wink and links her arm through mine. We walk back together, not fast and not slow, and I’m the one trying to step up the pace.

  “Getting there faster won’t make them less pissed off,” she says from the side of her mouth. “And just makes them think they can boss you around.”

  Just outside the door, her mother having gone inside in a huff, I turn to face Jenna. I shake my head. “You. You’re trouble, aren’t you?”

  “Me?” She points to herself with a mock-surprised expression that quickly turns smug. “I try.”

  Four

  Jenna

  * * *

  When my brother was little, he used to eat crayons. I mean, the kid was dumber than a box of hammers. But he grew up all right, and as far as brothers go, I guess I could’ve ended up with a lot worse.

  Tonight, he’s stretched out along the lumpy couch in our parents’ rec room. Mom and Dad went to bed an hour ago, and we’re hanging out watching old movies from the DVD collection we’ve had since elementary school.

  Tony moved back home about six months ago, allegedly to save money for the wedding. You couldn’t pay me enough to move to this house. I’m only here tonight because my mom’s planned a big family dinner tomorrow, and I live two hours away, so driving back and forth would’ve been too much. Considering that I have to sleep in a room that was never mine but contains all my childhood bedroom things, I’m thinking I made the wrong choice.

  “So…” I say and nudge him with my foot. “Talk to me about Sam.”

  “Abby’s sister?”

  I roll my eyes. “Yeah.”

  “She’s cool.” Tony shrugs and drags a hand through the bowl of popcorn. He takes a long slug from the two-liter bottle of cola next to him on the floor. He’s stress eating, and I can’t blame him. This wedding business is driving me crazy, and it’s not even my shindig.

  “You’re not going to fit into your tux, if you keep that up.” I lean to grab away the bowl, but he laughs and pulls it out of my reach.

  “Make your own!”

  I laugh and lean back against the couch. “I don’t want any. I’m just trying to look out for you.”

  “Yeah. Bleah.” Tony puts the bowl down.

  “I know she’s cool,” I tell him to get back on track. “I want to know more about her.”

  Tony glances at me. “Why?”

  “I just do. She’s my future sister-in-law’s sister.” Oh, shit. Does that make us related?

  Because that is definitely not how I’ve started thinking about Sam Donovan.

  “She works at a nursing home. She’s a CNA, a nursing assistant. Umm…she…doesn’t get along with their mom,” Tony adds with a significant look at me.

  We both laugh. His future mother-in-law is, maybe not the worst, but among the worst. Nobody gets along with her.

  I nod. “She makes Mom look like Mother Theresa.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. But, yeah. She’s a piece of work all right. Abby’s worried that she’s going to ruin the wedding. I told her that nothing could ruin our wedding, because we were going to be married and that was the important thing. Not a dress or a cake or her mother.”

  “Wow.” I shake my head in awe at my brother’s insight. I’m a little jealous, to be honest. Of that kind of love. That sort of partner, who’d take the time to ease your fears that way. I didn’t know he had it in him.

  “Shut up,” Tony says and kicks me a little.

  I laugh, but grab his ankle to keep him from nudging me again. “Abby’s a lucky woman. You know that?”

  “Yeah.” He grins, that same old smart-ass I’ve always known. “I know.”

  The movie is over and it’s probably time to head upstairs to the room that was never really mine because my parents moved here after I’d escaped to college. I’ll toss and turn in a bed too hard to be comfortable. My creepy collection of dolls that my mother has insisted on keeping even though I told her a hundred times I don’t want them will stare down at me all night. I’ll hear my father snoring from all the way down the hall and my mother’s muttered cursing at him to “turn over, damn it.”

  “When do you and Abby get the new place?”

  Tony sits up to point the remote at the TV, turning it and the DVD player off. “She’s moving into it the month before the wedding. My stuff will come out of storage then. I won’t live there until we get back from the honeymoon.”

  “Saving yourselves for the wedding night, huh?” I tease.

  He snort-laughs. “Don’t get me started.”

  “I was joking. Shit, are you serious?”

  “Her mother,” my brother says, and he’s not smiling or laughing right now.

  “Oh. Shit,” I repeat. I draw my knees to my chin. “She doesn’t want you to live together before you get married?”

  “She claims people will think awful things about Abby. There’s been a lot of pearl clutching.”

  I wave a hand toward him. “Dude, but…you guys lived together for an entire school year already.”

  They’d shared an apartment their last year of college, before each had moved home for the summer and then on to different jobs and their own places. Then they got engaged and each had moved home to save money, and that made sense, but they were both also twenty-five years old. Adults, who’d already lived on their own and had full-time jobs to pay their bills with.

  “Yeah, well, she pretends that didn’t happen. What can I say? The woman’s a lunatic. But she’s footing the bill for most of the wedding, and we’re just trying to