A Year of Love Read online

  A rusty laugh warbles in my throat. “So you want to what? Elope? Deprive her of her greatest production yet?”

  “She can still have her wedding production.”

  “Minus the doves,” I interject. “I still draw the line at birds.”

  “But today,” he says, leaning down until our noses align and we’re staring into each other’s eyes. “Would be ours.”

  “Ours,” I breathe, savoring the possessive on my tongue.

  “We tell as few people as possible. Everyone still gets the big wedding and the cake and the—”

  “Big band. She hired a big band.”

  “Ahem, yeah.” He can’t suppress a rueful smile. “The big band. Only those who are on a need to know basis will know. My parents are in a weird place right now, but I don’t want their shit affecting us. So let’s just do it. It’ll be our little secret.”

  “That we’re married will be our little secret? We can’t just do whatever we want. I mean . . .” I glance from the broom in his hands to the determined look on his face. “Can we?”

  “It’s Juneteenth.” He holds the broom in both hands, palms up. “What better day to do whatever the hell we want than this day when we celebrate liberation?”

  The more I think about it, the righter it feels. This is a day of liberation. Of jubilee. There is not a better day to express our independence, our autonomy and assert our desires.

  “Okay,” I laugh disbelievingly.

  “Okay?” He leans in closer, whispering. “Well alright. Then come jump this broom with me, baby.”

  * * *

  Kiera was in her bed sleeping, but woke like I’d splashed cold water on her face when I told her we were getting married tuh-day. I even promised she’d still be able to make the Juneteenth festival. I explained what we wanted. Twice. Once to her and then to Mama when I asked if we could use her back yard. I want to get married with the old oak tree that shadowed and sheltered me as a child. I want it standing watch, bearing witness when I take this pivotal step into the rest of my life.

  Compared to the pomp and circumstance wedding my future mother-in-law has planned, this one is as minimalist as you can get. My wedding dress is an ivory creation of lace and boning and silk with a train and veil that may as well follow at twenty paces they stretch so far behind me. But today, it’s simplicity. An elegant white sundress for me. White roses woven into the dreadlocks drawn up into a crown atop my head. Kiera does my make-up. Dark slacks and plain white button up for Markus. As we stand in the back yard under the shade of the oak tree, it’s just Mama, the frat brother preacher, Kiera, my last-minute groom and me. The back yard is decorated with our love, trimmed with our devotion. Dressed for a happy ever after and a fresh start.

  We repeat the words the preacher leads us through, but it’s clear in the way our fingers interlock, and our gazes cling, that we are making our own vows. Declaring our own promises. Doing this our way. And when the final words echo in the stillness of the back yard, a benediction to a beginning, we both stare at the broom on the ground. It signifies sweeping away the old and beginning anew. It signifies that we, unlike so many before us, get to choose our when our where our who and how. We get to choose our love and we have chosen one another. It is celebration. It is jubilee. It is freedom I hope I’ll never take for granted.

  When we finally take the small leap over the broom into our big future, we laugh with tears and grateful hearts. As surely, as strongly, as the strings bind the bristles of the broom, we, too are bound. Bound to each other, bound in our future. It is sweet liberty.

  And finally it is ours.

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  About the Author

  A RITA® Award Winner, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, Kennedy Ryan writes for women from all walks of life, empowering them and placing them firmly at the center of each story and in charge of their own destinies. Her heroes respect, cherish and lose their minds for the women who capture their hearts.

  Kennedy and her writings have been featured in Chicken Soup for the Soul, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, Glamour, Cosmo, TIME, O Mag and many others. She has a passion for raising Autism awareness. The co-founder of LIFT 4 Autism, an annual charitable book auction, she has appeared on Headline News, Montel Williams, NPR and other media outlets as an advocate for ASD families. She is a wife to her lifetime lover and mother to an extraordinary son.

  Copyright © 2021 Elle Kennedy

  All rights reserved

  Published by Elle Kennedy

  Weekend Fling is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are all products of the author’s twisted imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  1

  “Don’t bring Michelle.”

  Any other time, this directive would probably go without saying. Like, of course my brother shouldn’t bring his girlfriend to our cousins-only weekend at the lake house. But the thing is, my brother is kind of an asshole.

  Be kind, my internal critic chides. He’s stuck in a toxic love spiral.

  Yeah, fuck that. He’s had three years to extricate himself from this terrible relationship, and I’m no longer making excuses for him. Mom still does, though. “He’s young,” she always says, forever Danny’s cheerleader. “He needs to learn how to navigate romantic relationships. It’s his first serious one, after all.”

  The first serious relationship that never fucking ends.

  “I’m not bringing Michelle,” Danny insists. “I already told you that.”

  “Yeah, you say a lot of things, pal.” I switch my phone to speaker and lay it on the bed as I continue packing. Eyeing the bathing suits I’d picked—two bikinis and a one-piece—I have a feeling my cousin Anna will throw a fit if I don’t bring more.

  “Pack an extra swimsuit,” I tell my brother as I open a drawer to grab another bikini. “You know Anna’s going to want to do photo shoots.”

  My cousin is an “influencer.” But a lazy one. Meaning that all those amazing, adventurous posts she puts online are completely fake. In order to pump out more content, she’ll take a bunch of photos on one day, changing up her outfits and the background, just enough to appear different. This way she can pretend she went boating on three separate occasions, when really, she spent five minutes posing as if she’s some legendary sailor chick before joining me on the dock to drink sangrias and eat popsicles.

  I’d probably mock her a lot more if she didn’t get paid like twenty grand for each sponsored post. Me, if I get a hundred Instagram likes on a post, I consider myself famous.

  “I swear, I don’t understand girls,” Danny says.

  “Well, considering your taste in them…” I close the drawer. “With that said, don’t you dare bring Michelle.”

  “Oh my God, I told you Michelle’s not coming.”

  “I just need to make sure! I’m planning on having a good time this weekend. I can’t deal with her.” Her constant complaining.
Whining for everyone to cater to her every need. And her grating baby voice. Ugh.

  My brother is such a moron. We all grit our teeth and fake-smile when Michelle comes over, but nobody in the family likes her. Not even our mother, who tries to see the best in everyone. One time, after Michelle had bitched about a hundred different things at a family dinner, Mom made the mistake of saying, “You know, sweetheart, gratitude goes a long way,” and Michelle didn’t speak to Danny for a full week afterward. And it was Thanksgiving dinner! If you can’t muster up an ounce of goddamn gratitude on that day, you’re a selfish jackass.

  I still remember how inconsolable Danny was during Michelle’s seven days of silent treatment. I think he spent three hundred dollars on roses that week. Like I said, my brother’s dumb.

  “Honestly?” he says now. “I’m kind of over it.”

  My eyebrows shoot up.

  Could it be?

  Has he finally conquered his perpetual dumbness?

  “What do you mean, you’re over it?” I can barely contain the excitement in my stomach. “Are you breaking up with her? Oh my God, Daniel, please say you’re breaking up with her. Please.”

  “Jesus Christ, Katie. You need to focus more on your own love life.”

  “What love life?”

  “Exactly. Go find a love life. Leave mine alone.”

  “You just said you’re over it. I want details. Now.” Last I heard, he was going to try to make it work while he was in Spain for his semester abroad. He leaves in a month.

  “It’s just…I don’t know. I’m starting to get a feeling she’s a bit…high maintenance.”

  “Starting to?” At that, I break out in gales of laughter. “Hold on,” I wheeze at the phone, collapsing onto the bed. “Give me a second to collect myself.”

  I laugh uncontrollably. Because holy shit, three years later he’s realizing this chick is high maintenance? When the corsage he got her for senior prom wasn’t “the right shade of peach,” she made him drive to six different Salt Lake City florists to find her a new one. At his birthday dinner last spring, she’d just come from the nail salon and her nails hadn’t set yet, so she made him hand-feed her. And he did! He fed her like she was frickin’ Cleopatra while our entire family watched, wide-eyed. My brother has no balls. He’s smooth down there like a Ken doll. That’s the only explanation for why he’d put up with that nonsense.

  Not that I’m one to talk, seeing as how I’ve never had a relationship that lasted more than six months. Though in my defense, I’m only nineteen. He’s twenty-one. He should know better.

  “Would you stop laughing at me?” he demands.

  I gather my composure and sit up, wiping the tears of mirth from my eyes. “Sorry. Okay. So she’s high-maintenance. Shocking! When are you going to end it?”

  “I haven’t decided if I’m ending it. It’s just…I don’t know. I was talking to Nick, and…”

  Oh boy. Any advice from Danny’s best friend is bound to be dangerous. Nick Carmichael is a major player. Like, he goes through girls faster than I go through oil paints. And I’m always out of oil paints.

  On the other hand, if Nick’s sleazy advice results in Michelle being out of our lives for good, maybe I’m willing to overlook it. This time.

  “We were talking about all the chicks I’m going to meet in Spain. I mean, they’re going to be throwing themselves at me the moment they hear my accent.”

  “What accent? We grew up in Utah, dumbass.”

  “An American accent, Kate. Jesus. You’re supposed to be the smart one.”

  I roll my eyes to myself. We have quite the love-hate relationship, my brother and I. Mostly love, but it’s definitely been combative at times. When we both lived at home, we got into so many screaming fights that our parents eventually decided to trade us back and forth rather than keep us together for our alternating weekly visits. Mom and Dad are divorced, but they’re still good friends. Good enough that we still spend most holidays together, either at my childhood home in Salt Lake City with Mom, or at Dad’s ranch in Tennessee. He moved there a few years ago, which is one of the reasons Danny accepted a full scholarship to Southern University down in Nashville. That, and his manwhore best friend would be attending Southern too.

  Relations with me and Danny have calmed since he left for college, our bickering becoming more good-natured than hostile. Neither of us will ever say it out loud for fear of eternal shaming, but I think we might…gasp…miss each other. Though that will probably change the second I move to Tennessee at the end of August. After taking a gap year to work on my art, I’m starting my freshman year at Southern this fall. Danny’s been there two years already, living in a house full of football players. He plays wide receiver, the wing man to Nick, his big-shot quarterback best friend. Sometimes I’m surprised none of Danny’s teammates, Nick included, managed to convince him to dump Michelle once they got to college. But I suppose I can’t blame them. That chick digs her acrylic talons in deep.

  “Anyway, I’m thinking, I haven’t really dated anybody other than her. We got together senior year of high school, and now we’re both at Southern, so it’s not like I’ve been able to experiment in college like other guys, you know?”

  Normally I don’t want to talk about my brother’s sex life. Today, I’m all for it.

  “Dude, if experimenting means no more Michelle, then experiment away. Please, go bang anyone you can.”

  “Oh, come on. She’s not that bad.”

  “She’s worse.” I zip up my suitcase. “Okay, I gotta go. I’m having dinner with Mom soon. Are you still picking me up at the airport tomorrow morning?”

  “Yup.”

  “Thanks. Love you. See you tomorrow,” I tell him.

  I’m very much looking forward to the next three days. I haven’t been to the lake all summer because Mom’s been monopolizing my time. She’s panicking about me moving to Tennessee full-time, which also happens to be where the family lake house is located. The big, rustic home is owned by my dad and his two brothers, and we all take turns using the place.

  This weekend, it’s going to be me, Danny and our two cousins. Danny and I are the only siblings in the Larkin family, while Anna and Carter are both only children. We were the fierce foursome growing up, all of us close in age. Since Danny leaves for Spain next month, this is the last chance for the cousins to spend some time with him before he goes.

  The rest of the evening passes with me in a great mood. Mom and I grab sushi at a place downtown and I’m in bed by eleven o’clock, all packed and ready for my seven a.m. flight. Hell, I even make it to the airport on time the next morning, a rare feat since I’m perpetually late.

  And I swear some higher power is smiling down on me, because not only are there no lines at the airport, but there’s nobody in the middle seat on the plane, so me and the man in the aisle have extra arm room. I can’t complain about anything. Even the airplane food is good. I mean, come on.

  All these amazing things? Yeah, they should’ve been my first sign that doom was on the horizon. Because no airport visit ever goes this smoothly. And no flight is ever this uneventful.

  It was too good to be true. A gloomy realization that dawns the moment we land and I switch my phone off airplane mode.

  The messages waste no time flooding in.

  The first one is from Anna. My cousin broke her ankle while taking a photograph at an outdoor fountain, proving once and for all that social media is dangerous. She spent the morning getting X-rayed and having a cast put on.

  Needless to say, she’s not coming.

  The next one is from my other cousin Carter. He got called in to work this weekend. He’s an aide for a congresswoman in Texas, and apparently there’s some huge crisis involving campaign funds and possible foot photos, whatever the hell that means. Since his life’s goal is to climb the political ladder, Carter is happy to take advantage of every crisis.

  Needless to say, he’s not coming.

  And then, the pièce de r�
�sistance, the text from the traitor himself. My brother, Daniel Larkin.

  Hey, so much crazy shit happening this morning!! A and C bailed. They’ll text you the deets.

  Followed by:

  I was packing up the car at the ranch and texting with Nick, and he was like, why let those extra rooms go to waste? Figured you wouldn’t mind (since there’s a ton of space now), so I invited Nick.

  Followed by:

  And Michelle.

  2

  I’m fuming as I exit the gate. I didn’t check any baggage, so I sling my oversized purse over my shoulder and roll my little suitcase behind me. I furiously pull up my brother’s chat thread, but I have so much to say I end up calling him instead.

  It goes right to voicemail.

  Coward.

  I stop, lean against a concrete pillar, and type out a tirade of text. It involves things like “I can’t believe you did this!” and “How could you!”

  This was supposed to be a family event. Yes, our cousins bailed, but he could have kept it a brother/sister weekend. It’s not like Danny and I have been able to spend any quality time together since he went to college. This could have been a nice opportunity for us.

  I finish with, “How could you invite your best friend and your horrible girlfriend? Unforgiveable!”

  Then I angrily press send and keep walking.

  When I near the doors, I stop again. Suddenly realizing I have no idea how I’m getting to the house. It’s an hour’s drive, and Anna was supposed to pick me up.

  Wonderful. In the three measly hours I was in the air, my cousins bailed, Danny betrayed me, and I’ve been stranded at the airport.