The Maid of Honor and the Two Groomsmen No One Seated Beside Her novel · Chapter 13 of 24
Chapter 13: The Tub
The groom's mother ran the tap until the water steamed.
She handed me a dish towel and took the first plate off the stack herself.
"You dry," she said. "I wash. That's how it's done in this house."
I dried.
From the dining room I could hear Colt asking his uncle about a transformer, loudly and for much too long.
"Jesse is a good boy," she said to the sink.
"He is," I said.
"He's a soft boy. He gets attached."
"He's twenty-two."
"He's twenty-two," she said, "and he has never once brought a girl to this table. You came and nobody had to ask him twice."
"Colt brought me too."
"I know he did."
She rinsed a glass and held it up to the window and set it in my hands.
"I'm not a fool, honey. I helped raise one of them and I raised the other."
"Then you know I don't do it by halves."
"Mm," she said.
She wrapped half the ham in foil, pressed it against my chest, and told me not to share it.
I carried it out to the truck in both arms.
Colt drove the whole way back to East Nashville without a word, and Jesse's headlights stayed in the mirror the entire time.
In my apartment I put the ham in the refrigerator and went straight into the bathroom and turned both taps on full.
The clawfoot tub filled slowly, with a groan in the pipes.
I stood in the doorway in my Sunday dress and listened to myself breathe.
"Lacey," Jesse said behind me.
"A woman your age," I said.
"Lacey," Jesse said.
"A woman your age must get so few home-cooked meals. A woman your age, with a boy his age."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Maid of Honor and the Two Groomsmen No One Seated Beside Her are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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