Page 56 of Made For You
The little girl squirms in her arms and throws herself back at her mother. “Traitor,” Vivienne mumbles. “Wait until you’re five and want candy.”
“Stop threatening my daughter,” Wilson warns, coming over with a bottle of water in his hand for Franny.
“There you are,” Michael says, coming over to us with Dylan following him. The two of them are two peas in a pod. “I wanted to ask you, Xavier, did you cry when you met my grandfather?”
“Ugh,” Wilson groans, “whatever.” Making both of them laugh.
“If you would go golfing with my grandfather, do you think you can handle it?” Dylan asks me, trying to roll his lip.
“Fuck you both,” Wilson says, then looks at me. “Last year, he asked me to go golfing. I thought it was all the guys, I show up, and it’s just the two of us.”
“And it made him so nervous,” Michael says, holding his stomach while he laughs, “he barfed in the bushes the whole time.”
“It wasn’t the whole time.” Wilson rolls his eyes. “It was the first six holes.”
“It’s okay,” Franny says to him, trying not to laugh. “It’s sweet.”
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t cry?” Vivienne leans over and mumbles. “Let’s go get food.”
She slips her hand in mine as she steps outside into the yard. A big white tent covers half the yard with round white tables everywhere. Most of them are filled with people, a long table toward the back of the tent is filled with silver food trays and people in line getting food. “There you are,” a woman with strawberry-blond hair says, coming toward us, and Vivienne shrieks. “I was wondering if I was going to meet the man everyone is talking about.” She smiles at me as Vivienne takes her in her arms. They rock back and forth as they hug.
“Xavier,” Vivienne introduces, going to the woman’s side and side-hugging her, “this is Dylan’s sister and my cousin, Abigail.”
I nod my head at her. “Pleasure to meet you,” I say. “We didn’t meet last night, right?”
She throws her head back and laughs. “We did not. I got in this morning.”
“Abigail is in her last year at Johns Hopkins,” Vivienne tells me proudly.
Abigail smiles. “That would be me.”
“Oh, cool, what are you studying?” I ask her, and she looks down shyly.
“I’m doing my master’s in nursing,” she replies, and I whistle.
“Damn,” I say, “that’s impressive.”
She shrugs her shoulders. “I guess so.” We turn and say hello to a couple more people before finally making our way to the food, only stopping six times to say hello to people we met yesterday.
“So,” Vivienne says when she hands me a white plate. “Do you remember who everyone is?”
I shake my head. “I know the hockey guys,” I answer honestly. “The rest are a blur.”
“Next time, we’ll do cue cards,” she teases me as she fills her plate with food. I follow her as she makes her way to an almost empty table. Erika is sitting down and eating with Cooper beside her.
I pull out the chair for Vivienne, who smiles at me before she sits down. I sit in the chair next to her. “How are you holding up?” Erika smirks from in front of me when the chair next to her is pulled out, and Julia sits down, followed by Jillian. “It can be overwhelming.”
“That’s an understatement,” Jillian adds. “I wanted a low-key baby shower.” She shakes her head while she grabs a piece of salad. “They invited a hundred people.” She shrugs. “You learn to just go with it.”
“If you can’t beat them, you join them,” Julia advises as Chase comes over looking for her. He grabs a chair from another table, cramming himself onto ours.
“You can sit at another table,” Cooper tells him. “She’s right there.”
“This coming from the man who has a heart attack if he doesn’t see Erika after three point one seconds,” Chase fires back at him.
“That’s because they have five kids, and he’s scared he’s going to be stuck with them alone,” Vivienne says to Chase.
All I can do is sit back and listen to their banter, trying to keep up with the conversations about who is who. I lean back in my chair, putting my arm around Vivienne’s chair as my thumb slowly rubs her back. I look around the yard, searching for Matthew, and when I find him, I get up. Vivienne looks up at me. “I’ll be back.” I lean down and kiss her lips.