My Stepsister Is Photographing My Wedding to Someone Else novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Contact Sheet

At Wayne and June's table Troy overrules a second photographer and says yes to a private session for Ivy before she answers.

My father cooked for us that night, because he cooks when he is nervous.

Wayne Lanier was sixty, a retired ferry captain with a gray beard and reading glasses on a cord.

He stood at the stove in the house on Waldburg Street and stirred shrimp and grits.

June sat at the kitchen table with a stack of seating cards.

She was fifty-eight, a school nurse, with a silver bob and a lanyard she never took off at home.

She was Romy's mother, and she had been my father's wife for four years.

People always ask how that works, so I'll say it plainly.

June and my father met at a church supper, and they married at the courthouse when Romy and I were both grown.

Romy and I have no blood between us, no childhood house, and no shared bedroom wall.

We are stepsisters on a piece of paper, and the paper is the only thing that makes us related.

I told myself that was why it felt so strange to sit across from her.

I was wrong about that, but it was a comfortable thing to tell myself.

Troy was on the porch, taking a call from the pilot station.

Romy sat with her camera bag by her chair and her boots hooked on the rung.

She had taken her vest off.

Her arms were tan, and the lens tattoo went all the way to her wrist.

"You didn't have to come to dinner," I said.

"My mother would have chased me down the street." Romy took a roll from the basket. "Also, your father makes the shrimp."

"Everyone knows he makes the shrimp."

"I've been thinking about it since Asheville."

She tore the roll in half and passed me the butter without looking at me.

Our fingers touched on the dish.

I put it down so fast the knife clattered.

Nobody noticed except Romy, who kept her eyes on the bread.

June cleared her throat.

"I want it on the record that I suggested a Savannah photographer," she said.

"Mama," Romy said.

"I'm saying it so I can say I said it. A boy from church does lovely weddings, and he lives eight minutes from here."

"He doesn't live on a ship," Romy said.

"And you do?"

"I live in a truck, mostly."

My father put a bowl of grits in front of me.

"Troy wouldn't hear of it," he said.

"Troy what?"

"He said Romy was family, and he wanted family in the pictures." My father shrugged. "He called her himself, the week after we all had dinner here."

I looked at the porch window.

Troy was leaning on the rail with his back to us.

In the glass, I could see the blue pilot's jacket he wore everywhere.

"That's nice of him," I said.

"It's very nice," June said, a little dryly.

She slid a seating card across the table to me.

"Your father and I are at table one. Dee is at table two. I have no idea what to do with Troy's aunt."

"Put her by the bar," Romy said.

"You can't put someone by the bar on purpose."

"Everyone does it, Mama. That's called a seating strategy."

"It's called getting her drunk."

"It's called peace."

I laughed.

I hadn't meant to.

It came out of my chest all at once, and Romy glanced up.

For one second her face was bare and pleased.

Then she went back to the grits.

Troy came in from the porch, rubbing the back of his neck.

He was thirty, broad in the shoulders, with a sunburnt neck and sandy hair that always stood up in back.

He kissed the top of my head and sat down beside me.

"Sorry. Ship's coming in early on Thursday, so I've got to be out on the river that evening."

"That's fine."

"It's the whole night, probably." He reached for the shrimp. "How were the pictures?"

"Good," I said.

"Great," Romy said at the same time.

It was a strange little echo.

Troy looked from her face to mine, and then he took a very large bite of shrimp.

"I want Ivy shot alone, too," he said when he had swallowed. "Not just us. Her getting ready, her dress, all the quiet stuff. She hates being photographed with an audience."

"I do not," I said.

"You do. You tuck your chin. You tucked it all day."

He smiled at me, and it was a warm smile.

Romy set her fork down.

"I can do a private session Tuesday," she said slowly. "At the bridal shop, when she tries on the dress. If she wants it."

"She wants it," Troy said.

"I can speak for myself," I said.

"Then speak," my father said mildly, and the whole table waited.

Romy looked at me across the candle.

I looked at her.

I had been engaged fourteen months and I had never once been asked what I wanted with that much patience.

"Yes," I said. "Tuesday."

Troy squeezed my knee under the table, pleased, and I knew I was looking forward to Tuesday for the wrong reason.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend