Alien in the Family

could be trusted with it, either. Also, like Caroline, the rest of the girls knew Chuckie and, unlike Amy and Sheila, they all liked him. I knew without asking that if I called to ask any of them to be in my wedding, the first question would be why wasn’t I marrying Chuckie. It had been the first thing Caroline had asked, after all. And those kinds of conversations somehow always led to horrific fights with Martini.
    This brought up another problem, which was how Martini was going to handle my sorority sisters’ attendance at our wedding. Only some of the girls would go with the idea that Martini was so great looking that it was natural I’d said no to Chuckie. The rest of them would point to four years of him and me being inseparable and really question what the hell was wrong with me. Guilt—always ready to remind me that I’d been too dense to realize Chuckie had been serious when he’d proposed the first time, when he’d taken me to Vegas for a week—was joined by its new bestest bud, Stress.
    “I’m so screwed.”
    “We’ll figure something out,” Reader said reassuringly. “If Tim, Jerry, and I have to be unasked, we’ll all survive.”
    “I want you up there.”
    He stroked my face. “You don’t have to be scared. I’ll be there, whether I’m nearby on the altar or in the pews. I promise.” He pulled me to him and hugged me. “Jeff’s not picking up how frightened you are, is he?”
    “I think he thinks I’m worried about other things, not the getting married part.”
    “You’ll be good at it. Being married. I know you think you won’t be, but you will.”
    “But I still like Chuckie. I . . . I’m afraid I might be in love with him, at least a little.” I hadn’t meant to blurt it out, hadn’t planned to tell anyone, and I knew I’d done a pretty good job of hiding it because Martini wasn’t on a rampage. But it was true.
    I was relieved that I’d managed not to add the word “still” around the “be in love” part. The realization that I’d been waiting for Chuckie until Martini had shown up wasn’t one I was proud of, even if said realization had come after Martini had proposed and I’d said yes. A part of me really regretted Chuckie proposing, clearly and comprehensibly to me, after I’d already met and fallen in love with Martini. And all of me felt like a rotten person and a worse fiancée for thinking about any other man when I was engaged to the greatest man on the planet.
    Reader kissed my forehead. “I know. It’s obvious.”
    “Oh, great. So I’m hurting Jeff for sure?”
    “No. It’s not obvious to him, not even empathically, or if it is, he understands. I don’t even think it’s obvious to Reynolds. It’s obvious to me.”
    “Why?”
    He sighed. “Because the pressure you’re under would make it incredibly appealing.” He gave a bitter laugh. “My parents have no idea of what I do, they just hate the fact that I gave up a great career—a career I’d been working at since I was three years old, by the way—to do something vague with people they have nothing in common with. They don’t understand what I see in Paul, other than the fact that he’s great looking. But it wasn’t as if I’d dated dogs before. They’d just managed to accept that I was gay when I ran into the A-Cs.”
    I hugged him tightly. “I’m sorry.”
    “It’s okay. But I know what you’re going through. I have a couple of old boyfriends I’m still sort of in touch with. And they’re in touch with my parents. And there are days, hell, girl, there are weeks, when I wonder if it would be easier to just go back to my old life.”
    “Why don’t you?”
    “Same reason you haven’t left yet. I love the man. I also know what we do is a lot more important than standing in front of a camera looking good and making clothes and accessories look good.” He hugged me again. “And instead of getting to just fall in love with Jeff and deal with all the normal things a couple goes through, like I did with Paul, you two have been busy saving the world from bigger threats than Paul and I had to deal with during our first year together. Not to mention you have the fate of every A-C under thirty riding on your nuptials. Kind of a lot of pressure, at least from where I sit.”
    “His mother hates me, too.”
    “Well, maybe not hate, but I know what you mean. And I’ll bet Reynolds’ parents love you.”
    “They do. I’ve known them since we were thirteen.” And I knew,