Page 14 of The Virgin Rule Book (Rules of Love 1)
Yes.
Buddies.
That’s what we are. My teenage crush was just that, long forgotten.
Friendship is fine. Better than fine because friendship is all I have room for in my life, and I like having room for Crosby.
5
Nadia
Those tissues I tuck into my purse for a girls’ night out? That’s nothing compared to what I pack for a wedding.
Weddings make me cry.
Okay, fine. Blubber is more like it.
I can replenish vanishing seas at wedding ceremonies.
I cry when the music begins, when the groom sees the bride’s face, when the vows are exchanged.
That is not entirely surprising, considering I cry over dog food commercials. One of the Hawks’ biggest sponsors is an organic dog food company, and every time I see that sweet collie patiently wagging his tail while waiting to be adopted by his forever person, we’re talking buckets of tears.
That’s why I grab an extra packet the next day, snagging it from a drawer in the bathroom of my new penthouse in Cow Hollow, on top of a hill with a gorgeous view of the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco Bay, and the glittering Pacific Ocean.
I’ve been here for a week now, and I’m fully moved in. I’ve been working hard, running back and forth to meetings with the city, interviewing general manager candidates.
This weekend, I’m off, focused solely on Eric’s nuptials.
Wearing a sapphire-blue dress too, my sister, Brooke, reads Percy Jackson to her eight-year-old daughter, Audrey, who’s convinced she wants to attend Camp Half-Blood, like the characters. They’re smushed into the corner of my new dove-gray couch, surrounded by purple pillows.
After Brooke finishes a chapter and closes the book, she waggles a well-manicured finger in my direction. “I saw that you only packed two packets of tissues, Nadia. That’s not going to be enough for you. Don’t forget you needed a towel at my wedding.”
Her daughter snickers. “A towel? Why did you need a towel?”
Brooke nuzzles her daughter. “Your Aunt Nadia cries at every single event. She cried at my high school graduation. I was soooo embarrassed,” she says.
I sneer at my big sister. “Thank you for teasing me for caring about your rite of passage.”
Brooke flings me an evil grin. She’s particularly good at boomeranging those in my direction. “That was nothing compared to how much you cried at my wedding,” she says.
“I was sixteen! I was hyperemotional. My big sister was getting married. Plus, you met your husband in China, and he moved to the US to be with you. That’s amazing,” I say, then arch a haughty brow. “Or maybe I was happy you were finally moving out of the house.”
“Ouch,” Brooke says, wincing in over-the-top pain. “I see you still have the zinger spirit, Nadia.”
“And I see you still have the crushing spirit of an older sister,” I tease.
My mom clicks across the floor, setting a hand on Brooke’s shoulder, ever the peacemaker. “And I see you both have the spirit of totally loving each other.”
I point at Brooke. “Yes, but I have a heart made of sponge cake and hers is carved from ice.”
Brooke launches a saucy look at me. “Just call me Elsa.”
Audrey and Brooke break into the famous song from Frozen, then they both laugh. “You know I love you. And all your cakey heart sponginess,” Brooke says.
Audrey bounces up from the couch, her sleek black hair, thanks to her dad’s genes, braided down her back. “I’m ready to see Mariana in her princess dress and then to eat all the cake.”
“Me too,” I say, offering a hand for high-fiving to my niece. She smacks back. “Cake is the best part of weddings. But vanilla wedding cake, not heart cake.”
“And on that note, we agree.” Brooke tips her forehead to the door. “I’ll be downstairs in the limo with David. See you there in a few minutes.”
She takes off with her kiddo to join her husband, and just to be safe, I grab one more packet of tissues, wielding it at my mom. “One more for the road for me.”
“Grab an extra for me too, sweetheart,” my mom says in a confessional whisper.
“You’re not a crier,” I say suspiciously. My mother isn’t a cold woman, but she’s more steely, steady.
Dad was always the crier. Tough as nails in business and a total marshmallow when it came to family.
He was the one with tears rolling down his cheeks when he walked Brooke down the aisle nine years ago.
He was the one with the trembling bottom lip when my mother received an award for all her philanthropic work in San Francisco.
He was the one whose voice broke when Eric told him two years ago that he’d just met the woman he was going to marry.
“Do you miss him?” I ask my mom.
She nods, her voice tight. “I do.”
“You wanted him here today,” I say, and it’s a statement, not a question.
