Page 37 of Framing the Pitch (Red Dirt Romance #1)
I expect Jenna’s mini bachelorette night to be a get-together where I tuck myself into a corner and exist in my own little world, while Jenna and her friends laugh and joke about whatever it is winter athletes joke about.
But I’m pleasantly surprised when Jenna drags me into Melissa’s suite with a huge smile on her face, steering me straight to the big, comfortable couch in the middle of the room.
Jenna and her friends waste no time pulling bottles of a shockingly unfancy light beer out of a mini fridge, stowing them on the coffee table while they go back to the small kitchen for snacks.
Melissa drops onto the couch and smiles, the rosy apples of her cheeks reducing her eyes to closed slits, and leans her head on my shoulder in a quick hug. Jenna immediately squishes into my other side and passes me a glass bottle of old-fashioned root beer I didn’t see her pull out of the fridge.
“I didn’t want you to feel left out.” Jenna snatches a cold bottle of beer off the coffee table and clinks it against my bottle. “And this was the only non-alcoholic drink the shop had in a glass bottle. ”
The promise of alcohol and a night free of our mother has clearly loosened Jenna up, and she collapses back onto the plush couch as she takes a long swig.
There aren’t any cheesy games or “last night of freedom” vibes to Jenna’s little party.
It’s just a group of girls getting together to relax before tomorrow’s unknown.
Of course, everything is planned down to the last detail, but I’m not sure it’s the details that can be planned that have been stressing Jenna out all weekend.
As alcohol is consumed and inhibitions are loosened, Jenna’s friends bring me into their fold like I’m one of their own, not the older sister who sticks out like a sore thumb in this gathering of snowboarders.
After a few beers and a couple rounds of gin rummy, Jenna’s friends lean in close and ask me about my sport.
I explain the basic rules of softball to the rapt attention of everyone in the room.
Even Jenna, who was around it more growing up, is nodding her head and listening closely.
“It’s basically baseball, but better,” I say, shrugging. The group of drunk girls laughs, like I just made a much funnier joke.
The conversation meanders more than a skittish squirrel, hardly settling on a topic for a few minutes before some side tangent pulls the conversation in a new direction.
Jenna’s friends are discussing the pros and cons of each Disney prince and how they’d rank on a scale from one to ten when she leans her head on my shoulder.
“Naomi?” she asks quietly, a night and day difference to the boisterous woman from a few minutes ago.
Jenna, who has the confidence of a woman who won Olympic Gold at eighteen, turns her face into my shoulder, like she’s nervous about what I’ll say.
“I’m sorry I dragged you back into all of the family drama. ”
Jenna turns her head to the side to look up at me.
I never really thought about it, but her eyes are the exact same color as mine— probably the only similarity we share.
And all I see in those two blue pools are honesty and sadness.
“I just really wanted you here for me. It was so hard after you left, and you never call, you never visit. I missed you so much.”
Jenna rolls her face back into my shoulder, and emotion clogs my throat.
“Part of me knew that it wasn’t my fault. I think we both know who drove you away.” Jenna sits up, skewering me with an honest look. “But it was hard not to tell myself that you went away because of me. Because of what I was doing—taking all of Mom’s attention.”
Tears form in Jenna’s eyes, and she sniffs, and I break down a little. “No, Jenna. You’re not why I left at all.” I wrap my arm around her, leaning forward to set my bottle on the table. “And I’m sorry if I ever made you feel that way.”
“When we were kids, I thought you hated me.” Jenna’s voice becomes watery. “That’s what I told myself until you left for college, and it’s not like Mom ever directly denied it.”
“I never hated you,” I tell her, the tears gathering in her eyes and spilling over her cheeks cutting me like a knife. “I hated the way Mom and Dad always chose you and gushed over you and made me feel like I wasn’t worthy because I didn’t have a certain stupid medal. But I never hated you .”
Jenna purses her lips, clearly trying to hold back tears but failing as streams of them leak out of her eyes. “I never hated you either,” she says, her words a little wobbly, either from the alcohol or the tears.
Jenna’s breath catches in a half sob that she turns into a laugh.
In a matter of seconds, her morose demeanor flips, and she’s smiling again.
“Well,” she says, wiping the tears off her face.
“No more of that. We can’t all have puffy eyes tomorrow because we cried tonight.
” She leans down and grabs both of our drinks from the coffee table.
Clearing her throat, she gets the attention of the other women in the room.
When Jenna lifts her half-empty bottle, they do the same.
“Here’s to my sister, the beauty, the brains, and the butt.”
Jenna pokes me in the side of the thigh, and I laugh at the ridiculous toast. Without thinking, I raise my own bottle and find myself saying words I didn’t know were lurking until they come flying out of my mouth.
“To Jenna, who is a saint for being able to deal with our mother without strangling her.”
An ugly snort of a laugh escapes Jenna’s mouth before she clamps a hand over it, her shoulders still shaking from repressed laughter. But I’m not quite finished with my root beer toast.
“May she find health and happiness and gold medals with her husband.”
“Careful, Naomi,” Melissa teases, leaning over from the other couch, “or you’ll run out of good toasts before the reception tomorrow.”
“Hey!” Jenna interjects, leaning across me to point a finger at her maid of honor. “I am very easy to toast to.” She leans back and raises her light beer. “To me!”
The five of us laugh, raise our bottles, and tip them bottoms up to Jenna’s and my smashed together toasts.
Jenna’s eyes—my eyes—meet mine as we bring our empty bottles down to rest in our laps.
The raw emotion I find there—gratitude, relief, love —seizes my heart in a fist, and suddenly, I can’t breathe.
My eyes sting, and I feel frozen as the rest of the women in the room continue moving around me, clearing off the coffee table and fetching a few decks of cards for a second game of rummy.
“I’m sorry, Jenna,” I manage to croak around the frog-shaped emotion in my throat, “but I think I’m going to call it a night. It’s been an exhausting couple of days for me and Trace—”
I can’t seem to find the rest of my words when Jenna looks at me with pure love and understanding. “No worries, Naomi. We’ll see you in the morning.”
I stand abruptly, awkwardly turning to apologize to the rest of the bridesmaids. “Sorry, ladies. Don’t stay up too late,” I warn as I move to the door. “And Jenna?”
My sister turns.
“I think you should take it easy on the beer for the rest of the night.”
Jenna laughs and gives me a little thumbs up as I slip out the door of Melissa’s suite and into the silent hallway.
Tears I held back in the room finally break free, cascading down my cheeks in silent rivulets. Aside from a sniffle here and there, there’s not another sound as I make my way down one floor and back to the room I’m sharing with Trace.
Tears stain my cheeks by the time I make it back to my hotel room.
My phone is void of texts from Trace, and judging by how he had been surrounded by groomsmen when the bridesmaids hauled me out of the rehearsal dinner, I’m sure he’s out with Ryker and his friends.
My suspicions are confirmed when I crack open the door to my room to find only one lamp keeping the darkness at bay.
I kick my heels off as the door shuts, not caring that they tumble into the spacious room and knock into the feet of one of the armchairs.
My clutch follows my shoes, and I let out a small sniffle as it lands with a thunk on the floor, even though I was aiming for the chair.
I guess my aiming abilities only extend to softballs and not wristlets.
“Naomi?” Trace’s voice floats to me in the semi-darkness, and I let out a sound somewhere between a hiccup and a sob.
Trace’s rustling gets louder as I walk farther into the room, turning the corner to find him sitting up in his bed, a book clutched in his hand that’s resting on his bed as he leans toward me.
His suit is hung on the far side of the room, waiting for tomorrow’s festivities, leaving Trace in familiar, old Crimson Tide athletic wear.
“Naomi,” he says again, more gently than before.
He tosses his book to the side and holds out a hand to me, the only invitation I need to quickly cross the space between us and step into his embrace.
He stands, and his arms wrap around my waist as mine go around his neck, pulling me tightly to him.
Burying my head in his shoulder, I let my remaining silent tears fall.
At least, they’re quiet until Trace murmurs, “Let it out, Sugar.”
A loud hiccup breaks through my quiet sniffling, and it unlocks the floodgate of sound.
Quiet tears turn to loud sobs, and I can’t even pinpoint specifically why I’m crying.
It’s more a general emotional overwhelm about this whole weekend.
Being near my mother, who clearly doesn’t have the highest opinion of me, next to spending more time than I have in the last three years with my sister and her confession that she thought I hated her.
And everything wrapped up in the jumbled mess of my emotions for Trace.