Riggs by Sawyer Bennett

Author:Sawyer Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance
Publisher: Sawyer Bennett
Published: 2021-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

Veronica

“You do this every month?” Janelle asks in awe as she looks around my grandmother’s backyard. There are at least fifty people here, and another twenty-five or so will trickle in over the next hour. Our monthly Woodley family get-togethers are afternoon-long affairs filled with food, booze for those who are responsible enough to have a designated driver or Uber plans, and lots of laughter. I spent the first half hour after we arrived introducing Janelle to everyone, teasing there would be a name test at the end of the day.

“Usually more than once a month because someone’s birthday or other holiday occurs. We’re a family that’s always up for a party.”

Janelle smiles. “That’s exactly what this feels like. A party, even though you’re not celebrating anything in particular.”

“Au contraire,” I say with a laugh. “We are celebrating being Woodleys.”

My grandmother, Katherine—who also answers to Kat, Kate, Katie, or Kathy depending on her mood—married our family patriarch, Levon Woodley, in 1961. Between 1962 and 1972, they had seven children. My dad, Jason, was the middle child.

Dad married my mom, Lila, in 1995, and was the odd child who didn’t follow in his parents’ footsteps when he and Mom only had one child—me—and not a passel, which would be all my aunts and uncles. Between my three aunts and three uncles, there are twenty-six cousins. While my grandfather Levon passed away two years ago, everyone else down the family chain is still alive and producing, which is why it’s easy to see how we have roughly seventy-five or so people at any one of these get-togethers, when you factor in spouses and kids.

“You’re so lucky.” Janelle sighs as she digs her fork into her pasta salad. We’re sitting at one of the many tables that have been set around the backyard, and for now it’s only the two of us. It’s a bit cooler than normal for a January in Phoenix, the temperature peaking at sixty degrees, but outdoors is still the best place to gather as Grandma Katie simply doesn’t have the room for so many people in her small, modern pueblo-style house. It’s the most charming thing ever made of white adobe with arched doorways and heavy, exposed-beam ceilings, but at only about two thousand square feet, it’s a tight fit for our big family.

Food is provided by everyone in attendance. A sign-up sheet circulates each month, and my contribution today was a chicken burrito casserole. To my surprise, when I picked up Janelle at their condo, she’d made a big basket of crescent rolls to bring, which was totally unnecessary.

Riggs wasn’t there, and when I casually asked, she told me he’d gone to the gym but was due back soon. I’m not sure whether I was relieved or disappointed, since I haven’t seen him in a week.

Since the last time he kissed me—again—when we came very, very close to crossing a line that most likely would’ve been a horrible decision. I’m glad he didn’t have condoms on him.

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