Maria
Winnie’s dining room is bustling with the entire Winslow gang. Even Uncle Brad and Aunt Paula have joined in tonight’s dinner.
Everyone is gathered around a spread of lasagna and garlic bread and salad, eating to their hearts’ content while the room bounces with laughter and chatter.
“Okay, we need to figure out what we’re doing for the holidays,” Winnie announces, taking her fork and tapping it against her wineglass. “We can do Thanksgiving here.”
“Aunt Paula, we should do Christmas at the lake house!” Ty shouts around a mouthful of pasta. “The ladies assigned me to the task of convincing you of that, by the way. So, consider this me, convincing you.”
“Real smooth.” Rachel slaps him on the back of the head with a sigh.
“You’re such an idiot,” Winnie mutters, but Paula is already smiling.
“Christmas at the lake house with everyone sounds like a wonderful plan to me,” she says, and her husband Brad grins and squeezes her shoulders.
“Only if you promise to make those cinnamon rolls.” He winks. “You know how much I like your buns, sweetie pie.”
Wendy and Howard snicker. Half the room groans. And Paula blushes and smacks her husband on the chest.
“Oh my gosh, Brad, you’re a dirty bird!”
But Brad just keeps it up. “Oh, but baby, you know you have the best buns.”
“Can we keep this conversation moving along?” Jude chimes in. “Or else Uncle Brad is going to make shit weird.”
“Don’t be such a prude, Jude,” Brad retorts, and Ty snorts.
“Yeah, Jude. Don’t be such a fucking prude.”
“Language!” Wendy exclaims with a roll of her eyes, and Howard chuckles softly beside her.
The whole table erupts into more laughter and chatter, and it takes Wes standing up from his seat to let out a high-pitched wolf whistle to shut everyone up.
Once all eyes are on him, he sits back down and mutters, “The floor is yours again, Win.”
“Thank you, honey,” she states and eyes everyone at the table, especially Brad, Jude, and Ty, before going back to figuring out family holiday plans.
The conversation moves along pretty steadily after that. Thanksgiving will be at Wes and Winnie’s, and for Christmas, everyone will go to the lake house and spend both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day there.
And I just mostly try to ignore the discussion by busying myself with Izzy. Of course, she’s being an absolute angel right now, sleeping through all the commotion. No crying, no fussing…just sleeping. Which means I’m basically just staring down at the bouncer chair Winnie bought for her that sits between Rem and me with nothing to do.
But hell, I still can’t shake the feeling that I’m an outsider in all of this. I’m not technically a part of this family. And at the core of it all, that’s a big problem for me when I now know in my heart that I want to be a part of a family. I want to settle down with someone. I want to get married and be someone’s wife. Be Remy’s wife.
“What do you think, Maria?” Rem asks, and I look up to find him looking at me. Actually, everyone at the table is looking at me.
“What do I think about what?”
“Thanksgiving at Winnie’s and Christmas at the lake house?” he questions. “Can we make it work?”
Can we.
As in, me and him.
I don’t know why, but it just…sets me off. Like, how in the hell am I supposed to know? We haven’t even had an actual discussion about what we’re even fucking doing here. How in the hell can I commit to holiday plans with a family I don’t even know if I’m a part of?
“Um…I’m not sure,” I answer, trying like hell to find a delicate way to extricate myself from this conversation so we can have a normal discussion about it later…you know…when we’re not surrounded by his family.
“You’re not sure?” he repeats on a soft laugh and wraps his arm around my shoulders. “Babe, surely you can get the time off work, right? Shift some showings and listing appointments around to make it work in the name of being with family at Christmas. I mean, it’d be great to bring Izzy to the lake house this winter.”
“I don’t know, Rem. I’ll have to check my schedule.”
“Ri, you’re being weird. Are you okay?” he asks, furrowing his brow and unintentionally hanging me out to dry in front of everyone.
I feel pushed into a corner, like the whole damn room might as well be closing in on me.