Page 11 of Fixed Up Ever After
“You also don’t have to put yourself in situations where you’ll be uncomfortable. They obviously don’t give a shit about your feelings, so why care about theirs?”
“Mona!” Mattea gasped and Lola heard a light smack, picturing tiny five-foot Mattea smacking six-foot Mona in the arm.
“Babe, you know it’s the truth! Lola’s gotta have boundaries.”
Lola knew Mona was right. If anyone else in her life treated her like this, she would cut them out so quickly. She knew she deserved better and demanded better, but when it came to her family she always felt and acted differently. It was the one area of her life where she couldn’t fix it, no matter what she did. Perhaps it was guilt or the hope that things would be different, no matter how naive that was.
“Have you looked at the invitation yet, sweetie?” Mattea asked, causing Lola to look back at the discarded envelope on the floor. With a reluctant sigh, she plucked it up.
“I’m going to look now.” Lola broke the silver seal with her nail, unraveling it until a cream-colored paper fell out. As far as wedding invitations went, this one was simple with silver trimming and a photo of the happy couple locked in an intimate embrace. Lola couldn’t deny how beautiful they looked together, but it didn’t make the announcement any easier.
“Their wedding is four weeks away,” she said softly. “In Colorado.” As she said that, two other small pieces of paper fell out of the envelope. One was an RSVP note to mail back. She could not help but notice the plus one on her invitation.
Great.
On top of everything else, she would have to figure out who would be her plus one because there was no way she was going to her ex and sister’s wedding alone. The other paper was one announcing she was wanted as a bridesmaid. Leave it to her family to drive the knife deeper into her back.
“There’s more. Not only do I need to find a plus one, but I will be a bridesmaid in the wedding.”
“Shut the fuck up. Shut all the way up. No you fucking aren’t.” Mona’s disgust, despite everything, made Lola burst out in uncontrollable laughter. She had finally lost it.
“This is perfect. Just fucking perfect.” She said after a fit of giggles. “Because why wouldn’t my family want to torture me a little bit more? I doubt my sister even knows. This screams my mother. She micromanages everything, apparently even my sister’s wedding.”
“Well, your mother is a royal bit—”
“Overwhelming,” Mattea interrupted before Mona finished her sentence. “All of this is overwhelming and will take some time to process. Do you want Mona and I to come over later and we can binge-watch something on Netflix?”
Lola smiled, her heart swelling at Mattea’s words. Her family might be garbage but her chosen family always had her back. “As tempting as that sounds,” she started, “I think I just want to head to bed early. I have a full day of errands tomorrow and want to take it easy.”
“Okay, sweetie. Mona said we will see you this weekend at the bakery for our Family Fun Day?”
“Of course. I’m thinking of books to bring.”
“Good.” She heard the smile in Mattea’s voice. “We love you and if you end up needing us, don’t hesitate to call. We will be there.”
She knew they would; she was the luckiest woman in the world to have friends like Mattea and Mona.
They said their goodbyes and Lola hung up the phone. She tossed the wedding invitation under the stack of mail to deal with later. Then she pushed all thoughts of weddings and plus ones out of her mind and enjoyed a relaxing night of watchingSupernaturaland doing face masks.
CHAPTER6
Javi
For as much time as Javi spent in his old pickup truck, one would think he would be better organized. Yet he couldn't find his unopened box of business cards. He thought he had placed them in his middle compartment, but all he found were two Barbies, three pens, and packets of fruit snacks that had long ago melted in the California heat.
Normally, it wouldn’t be a problem if he couldn’t find his company’s business cards for a multitude of reasons. The most important one being he hated his boss, particularly how he took advantage of the hard-working men on his team. Most of the men, like Javi, had families to support and took whatever job they were offered, afraid that they’d miss their opportunity to put food on the table.
Javi understood that. Understood what it meant to worry week by week, day by day, if he would make enough money to cover his family’s expenses. Between food, water, electricity, and his six-year-old daughter, money went quickly. He worked like a dog day in and day out, sacrificing his time with his daughter. His father would say this is the price men paid to provide for the family.
He also wouldn’t have cared about the missing business cards because his boss always attempted to overprice the simplest of jobs. Javi never felt right charging two times the price for a simple fix, especially when most of the money went back to lining the pockets of his lazy boss.
However, the missing business cards were not his boss's. They were his. Last week he made the scary, but right, decision to put in his two-week notice and leave his job to work as his own independent contractor. He had built up a rather large and loyal clientele over the years and knew that if he was ever going to make the switch, it would have to be now.
Two seconds after he made this life-altering decision, he called his level-headed sister for advice. She had recently moved back to California from Texas with her husband, Maverick, and provided him with more support than he deserved.
Naturally, Ofelia was on board with his decision—he half expected her to tell him he needed to get his head out of the clouds and keep the job with a steady income. Instead, she insisted he come over so they could design business cards.
His sister was a pro when it came to creating shit like that. Javi had shown up at her house, but that was the extent of his involvement. Ofelia took over, asking him a few basic questions like his email, whether he wanted Javi or Javier, and his work cell phone number, which was his only number.
