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She didn’t.

Instead, she just kept on stabbing me, covering it in sickly sweet concern and honestly, I was glad to not be attacked anymore. So this could’ve been my moment, where I vented my spleen, raged at her, told her exactly how I felt.

But how did I do that when I felt nothing?

“What did you always say to me, Mum?” A childish sense of hubris threatened to silence me, but I forged on. “Treat others how you want to be treated? Might be time to start working on that.”

And at that, I turned on my heel and walked off after Hunter.

The reception was amazing. We sat at the kid’s table and honestly, it was the best place to be. We were free to act like dickheads, all in the pursuit of amusing the children. Frannie’s and Dave’s kids were there as well as some of my cousins’ children, but that table soon got bigger. People from all over the venue came to sit down with us and chat. About family, about me and how my life had changed, to meet the guys, or just to touch base with their own kids. Sitting at the table, I realised weddings weren’t that bad at all. Under all the stress, there was something in common.

Family.

Found, or the one you were born into, a wedding symbolised the welding together of two families to form one. It was a place to put aside petty differences, but maintain boundaries against major ones. Nadia’s family and mine milled around each other, chatting, eating, drinking, and cheering the happy couple, right up until the DJ started calling for people to come up on the dancefloor.

“So, wanna dance with me, baby?” Hunter asked, fluttering his eyelids.

“You do not want to see me dance.”

“Too late.” Brock shot me a small smile. “Remember when you and Millie were obsessed with the Step Up movies?

“Shut up,” I growled. “Shut the hell up.”

“My mum says we’re not supposed to say shut up,” one of my nephews said.

“Right, and you, we shouldn’t.” I shot Brock a dark look. “And I won’t if you stop talking about that.”

Of course, that’s when the dulcet tones of Miss Tina Turner started singing Nutbush City Limits.

It is a strange thing in Australia. At some point in our history, every education department on the continent decided all small children would learn this weird little line dance to the song. Every wedding, every party of significant size, had people performing it. Olympic athletes even did it, so when the guys got to their feet, I knew we had a duty to perform for the next generation.

“Who wants Aunty Jamie to show you a dance?” I asked and the kids all dropped their cutlery or put down their drinks, hands shooting up all around the table.

“Me! Me! Me!”

“OK, then…”

“I knew my evil plan would work,” Hunter said with a grin.

“So you did pay off the DJ?” Brock asked.

“You what?” I turned on him, then remembered all the little ears around us. “What did you do?”

“Made sure you’d have a good time.”

He offered me his arm, then all four of us herded the kids out onto the dancefloor, now filled with adults and then we got them all lined up as we showed them the simple moves.

The kids screwed it up completely, which made sense. Perfection was never the point, fun was. They giggled, we laughed and danced, bumping into each other and missing turns before forging on. Nadia and Frankie rushed over and joined us, performing the age-old steps over and over. Even Dad got up to boogie along with us. The calls to the DJ to repeat the song deafening when it was done.

We had fun.

We were family, we were happy, and we had fun and in the end, wasn’t that the point?

“They’re pretty cute,” Hayden said as we stood inside the door of the spare room hours later. The girls were nestled down in one of the beds.

“When they’re asleep. I’m sorry, your SIL was right,” Hunter added. “Those girls were nuts on sugar.”

“The whole sugar equals hyperactivity thing has been disproved,” Brock said, watching the girls sleep on. “And yeah, looking after your niblings? I’m down with that.” His eyes met mine. “No interest in having our own, though.”