Page 88 of Dreams and Reptiles

“I think I’m not cut out for weddings. Not just because of this one, but…” I didn’t want to bring it up again with Mom.

“But what, Francis?”

I sighed. “I still feel guilty about you and Dad. And last night… Kendall and I talked about it, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask him if he ever wanted to get married again. I can’t take the disappointment if he says no.”

“You can take the truth. It might hurt, but you’ve been through worse. Is marriage what you want?”

I nodded, my eyes filling with tears. “This damn wedding has me a mess. I was doing just fine.”

“Sure. Just fine.”

“Mom, I’m serious. He asked me last night what I thought about marriage. Yeah, we’re talking about stuff like that. I told him how you and Dad were close for so long, and about Auntie Judy and Uncle Gordon. I had great examples of partnerships, and I want that.” I sighed heavily. “I guess it doesn’t matter if we get married or not, but that’s what I want. And I hate that you don’t have a partner anymore.”

She sighed and pulled at a string on the hem of her yoga pants. “Francis, your dad and I… He’s a good man, and he loves me, loves us in his own way, but at some point, his work and his worry about appearances started to really get to me. I don’t even know if he realized it. I pointed it out to him many times, but it became easier just to live parallel lives. And then when he put you out… that was too far. I still can’t believe him.”

“Why do you think he’s reaching out now?”

“I don’t know,” she said, giving me a sad smile. “But you can’t be morose about things you can’t fix. You have the whole town practically coming out for this wedding. You are going to be an ambassador for love and marriage in your sleek-looking tuxedo—that I picked out for you, of course—and everything will go according to plan. Go get some sleep, so you don’t look tired tomorrow.”

At any other time, I might have given her attitude about suggesting I looked anything but fabulous, but she was trying to lift me up. That’s what she’d always done, no matter what it cost her.

“I love you, Mom.”

“I know. Go to bed.”

I trudged up the stairs, everything aching including my eyeballs, did my nightly routine so she wouldn’t complain about me looking tired, and then I crawled into bed. I had one of Kendall’s t-shirts I’d stolen at one point, and I took a big whiff of it before tucking it under my pillow.

All I had to do was get through tomorrow. Then I would deal with my father. And then, maybe, I’d get up the courage to talk about future expectations with Kendall. For now, I knew he loved me, and that was all that mattered.

CHAPTER

TWENTY

Kendall

Lalo Ortiz was my hero. He managed to find a team of subs from CAL FIRE to come in and relieve Rog, Arnie, and me, so we could help Francis get through the wedding from hell. I’d been so worried about him after our talk the other night, and he’d been pretty quiet via text. I knew he was busy, and so was I, as summer barbeques, motorcycle accidents, and heatstroke incidents kept us slammed on shift.

I got home at eight in the morning, showered, and hoped to grab a couple hours of sleep before I showed up to help, but my plan was thwarted by screaming just before my alarm went off three hours later.

I threw on clothes and dashed outside to find that somehow the entrance to the tortoise enclosure had been removed, and four of my giants were gone.

Shit.

I hollered for Alberto, who’d graciously volunteered to stay the week with all the scheduling snafus.

“What’s up?” He’d obviously just rolled out of bed.

“We’ve got four runners. Somehow the gate was wide open.”

“You know? I heard something around one this morning. I came out to check, and I saw a couple of women running up the hill and into the pool yard. You don’t think they⁠—”

“With this wedding party? I wouldn’t put it past them. Can you⁠—”

“Let’s go.”

We ran up the path, past the chairs set up in front of the gazebo, and discovered the cause of the screaming.

John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, and Marlon Brando were all munching on plants next to Francis’s pool yard, and there were at least four women screaming. There were three guys shouting at my crew, and one of them was spraying my tortoises with a hose.