The Wedding Shake-up (Wedding Meet Cute) by JJ Knight

Author:JJ Knight [Knight, JJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Montlake
Published: 2023-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

TILLIE

My sister Ensley texts me the next morning to ask if I want to go on an excursion with her and Drew before they fly home. They’re doing a bioluminescence tour, and they can get me a spot on a clear kayak. Lila knows she can’t do it with Rosie, so those two are having an early dinner with the newlyweds.

Gabe is working, and even though I want to be in the bar with him, it’s a long shift. I can meet up with him afterward.

It’s been only a week since the wedding, but Ensley seems changed. When I walk up to the kayak launch, she stands with Drew, looking out over the ocean. They both wear bicycle shorts and T-shirts, ready to paddle.

I hesitate, trying to figure out exactly what’s different. Her dark, curly hair is piled inside a ball cap. She’s not dressed in anything new or unusual.

It’s the way she holds herself. She feels safe. Secure.

She’s relaxed.

Out of the four siblings, she seems to have shouldered the most of our rough childhood.

When Mom died, Ensley was five and had to figure out how to keep us fed and clothed. If it hadn’t been for a church school and day care giving us free tuition during those early years, I guess either social services would have removed us or we would have starved.

But even with that help, there was still dinner and weekends. Sometimes I imagine kindergarten Ensley trying to be a mother to infant me and toddler Lila. I don’t know how she did it.

Garrett was the oldest, but he found friends to hang out with almost all the time, at least by Ensley’s account. I was too little to know. Ensley doesn’t resent him for escaping, at least not anymore. But it put a lot on her. I sometimes feel anger at him for it, though.

But not as mad as I am at Dad.

She and Garrett feel beholden to our father. I assume it’s because they have good memories of him. But for me, my rage burns hot. He ignored us, day in and day out, for decades. And he still does. Grieving or not, whatever is going on with him wasn’t right. He abandoned us and never got help for himself or his kids.

But when I was small, having this shadow figure I never saw felt normal. It’s all I knew.

To Ensley, it was a double loss. Mom died. Dad locked himself away. She bore the hardship, the anxiety, and the fear.

But not today.

She’s good. The best I’ve ever seen her.

As I cross the sand near the row of flat yellow kayaks, she turns and sees me, her smile enormous. “There she is!”

Drew is happy, too, more smiley than I’ve ever known him to be. He used to be a grump deluxe.

“You two should take more vacations,” I tell them, wrapping my arms around Ensley. “You look great.”

“It’s been nice,” Ensley says.

“Probably having you work at the clinic wasn’t the smartest move,” Drew says. “Now it’s doubly hard to get away.

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