7. Ashley

7

ASHLEY

“I seriously cannot believe how much that house looks like The Notebook house!” Nadia exclaimed for the third time beside me in the driver’s seat as we drove through town.

When Stella and I got home from the pier, my car died and wouldn’t start again, so I called Nadia to come and pick me up. I would have called Skylar, but she wasn’t feeling well. In fact, she’d sent me a text asking me to pick up some saltine crackers and 7up for her.

“I know, right?” I agreed. “It’s crazy.”

“How did I not know that there was a house that looked exactly like The Notebook house on the island? I’ve lived here my whole life. Who owns it?”

“The Wolfe family.”

“Wolfe, as in Wolfe Tequila?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, I have them to thank for quite a few hangovers. Including the last time we went out.”

“Oh, right.” I’d completely forgotten that when we’d gone out to celebrate Daphne and Harlan’s engagement and commiserate with Zoe over a movie being made about her late husband’s life as a war hero, we’d been downing shots of Wolfe Tequila. What a small world.

“They also own Wolfe Clothing and Wolfe Hotels and Resorts.”

“Holy shit! How long have they lived here?”

“They never actually lived here. They bought it as a summer house in the sixties. But they stopped coming in the nineties for some reason.”

“Oh, okay. Mysterious. I do love a mystery.” She wagged her eyebrows.

“All I know is that Stella moved here because her husband of seventy-two years just died, and her grandson, who is now running the company, already fired me once, so he’s not a fan.”

“Asshole.”

“I know, right?”

“What are you going to be doing for her?”

“She wants to create a sustainable, eco-friendly athleisure line for Wolfe Clothing.”

Nadia glanced over at me, then back at the road, then back at me again. “And you’re…”

“I’m going to be doing a little bit of everything and overseeing it, I guess. To be honest, I’m not sure what all my job entails.” Maybe Declan had a good reason to fire me. “I tried to tell her that she should hire someone more qualified, but she said whatever we didn’t know, we could google it.”

A broad smile spread on Nadia’s face. “I like her.”

“She’s a badass. You would love her.”

“I already do,” Nadia confirmed as we pulled up in front of Skylar and Hank’s house.

I leaned down and grabbed my purse and the bag from the Piggly Wiggly. “What time tomorrow?”

Tomorrow was Daphne’s first bridal appointment to try on wedding gowns. It was her Say Yes to the Dress moment. Zoe, Nadia, and I were all going to be meeting her at Blush Bridal.

“Two. Let me know if you need me to pick you up,” Nadia offered.

“Okay, thanks. And thanks for the ride.” I leaned over and gave my friend a hug before getting out.

I waved as Nadia pulled away, blasting Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” and singing at the top of her lungs. Then I turned, headed up the steps to my sister’s house, and knocked on the door. After a few seconds, Luna answered.

“Hey, Lu Lu.” I ruffled her hair.

“Auntie Lee Lee!” She threw her arms around my waist.

“Is your mama not feeling so good?”

Luna looked up at me as she shook her head back and forth.

“Have you been taking good care of her?”

She nodded up and down as I walked inside and shut the door. “I made her toast!”

“Toast? You are the sweetest helper ever!”

We headed to the kitchen, where Luna proudly displayed two pieces of bread, each with a thick layer of cold butter spread on top of it. I didn’t even have an upset stomach, and the sight made me queasy. “Oh, wow! That’s amazing! Hey, why don’t I put on Inside Out 2?”

“I already watched Trolls.”

Skylar had a one-movie-per-day rule for Luna. I appreciated my niece’s honesty and felt that it should be rewarded. Also, I needed to dispose of this nasty toast without hurting her feelings and check on my sister.

I pretended to wave a magic wand in the air a la fairy godmother in Cinderella . “I’m granting an auntie pass.”

The ‘auntie pass’ system was something Skylar and I had come up with so that I could circumvent the rules and be the fun aunt without undermining her mom. Technically, I had three auntie passes to hand out every year, but we really didn’t keep count. Luna pretended to reach up and grab the imaginary pass out of the air.

After putting the movie on and making sure my niece was sufficiently engrossed in front of the TV, I wrapped the toast in a paper towel with CIA-level sneakiness before throwing it away to disguise it in case Luna looked in the trash can. Next, I fixed a glass of 7up with ice and a straw, grabbed a sleeve of saltine crackers, then headed upstairs.

I lightly knocked on the open door and entered the room to find Skylar curled up in a fetal position in bed.

“Hey, sickie.” I set the glass down and opened up the sleeve of crackers.

Skylar gingerly propped herself up against the pillows, leaning on her headboard, and took a sip of the drink. She was so pale she would give Casper a run for his money. I placed my hand on her forehead to check for a fever. She didn’t feel warm, so by process of elimination, it had to be a stomach bug or food poisoning.

I split open the package of saltines and handed her a cracker.

She took a bite as she said, “Thanks.”

“I would’ve been here sooner, but my car broke down, and I had to wait for Nadia to come pick me up.”

“Oh no. Your car broke down?” The worry etched on my sister’s features demonstrated that it didn’t matter how old I got or how old she was; she would always feel maternal toward me.

“Yeah.”

“Where were you?”

“I was out on Birch Tree Lane, you know, the place where I thought I had a job but then didn’t. The house that looks exactly like the house in The Notebook . I took a picture of it this time.”

I pulled out my phone and scrolled through the photos, showing my sister the pics.

“Wow. It does. So what happened to the job?” Skylar asked as she ate another cracker.

“Well, as you know, the grandson fired me, but Stella rehired me.”

“That’s the assistant job, right?”

“Actually, it’s more than that. Stella wants to make sustainable fashion, starting with an eco-friendly recycled clothing athleisure line. I think that’s why the dean recommended me, because of the work I did to make the art department greener. I owe this to your brilliant little mini-environmentalist daughter.”

“Aww, that’s amazing. So what’s the grandson’s problem with you?”

“I can’t say for sure since I haven’t even met him, but if I had to guess, I would say it’s because of something Stella mentioned today. Apparently, he hired a nurse for her.”

“A nurse? Is she sick?”

“Not that I know of. But she is ninety-two. Not that you can tell. I would have thought she was in her seventies. I think he is just worried about her. She says he thinks she needs a babysitter.”

“Oh.” Skylar nodded in understanding. If anyone understood worry, it was my sister. The older I got, the more I understood why she was always so worried. She’d had so much responsibility from such a young age.

From what I’d heard about her husband Hank, he’d experienced the same thing. After his mom died, his father basically checked out and spent his days being drunk. Hank cared for and raised his two younger brothers. I’m sure that they must have bonded over having to step up and care for their siblings.

“So, is he okay that she rehired you?”

“I’m not sure he knows. From what she told me, she wasn’t aware he’d fired me in the first place. She found out when I didn’t show up for work today, and the nurse she fired—whom he rehired—did.”

Skylar started to say something, but before she could, she covered her mouth and rushed to the en-suite bathroom. After being sick, she crawled back into bed.

“Do you think it was something you ate?” I asked.

“No.” She shook her head as she exhaled slowly through her mouth. “It’s not something I ate.”

“The last time you were this sick was when you were…” My eyes widened, and I gasped. “You’re pregnant.”

A small smile curled on her lips. “We wanted to wait to tell everyone until I was further along. I’m only six weeks.”

“I’m gonna be an auntie. Again.” I leaned down and pulled my sister into a big hug. Then I realized I shouldn’t squeeze her and pulled away. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks!”

I felt myself tearing up. I was so happy for Skylar. She’d sacrificed so much for me, and now she had an amazing husband and the family she’d always wanted. “Is Hank so happy?”

Skylar nodded. “He is. I think he’d be happier if I was covered in bubble wrap and stayed in bed for the rest of my pregnancy, but he’s happy.”

“He just doesn’t want anything to happen to you. It’s sweet.”

“I know. I had to force him to go to work today. If it were up to him, he’d take all nine months off.”

My sister wasn’t being hyperbolic. Hank was extremely protective of Skylar, and I loved that about him. I’d always worried about my sister when she was with Luna’s dad. In fact, the reason she’d had to move all the way across the country in the middle of the night was because of him. He had a drug habit and owed dangerous people money. They trashed her apartment, looking for him to collect his debt even though she and Luna’s dad weren’t together.

Thankfully, we’d inherited the house I was now living in from our grandfather whom we never knew. Skylar packed up and drove across the country from Seattle to Georgia in the middle of the night. Our grandfather’s house happened to be on Hank’s land, and that’s how the two of them met. Well, they met when she fell asleep because she’d driven all night, and Luna went and knocked on Hank’s door.

Since she and Hank had been together, I never worried about her. I knew he’d do anything to make sure she and Luna were okay. And it wasn’t only him; he had two brothers and a sister as well. And they all had spouses. The entire family looked out for one another. She’d hit the in-law lottery.

I was in-law lottery adjacent and appreciated being accepted by the Comfort family, but I still wished I had a husband of my own to worry about me.

My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out. It was another message from Declan Wolfe.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s the grandson.”

“Did he fire you again?”

“No.” I read the message.

“What does it say?” Skylar demanded.

I sighed, “It says that I will have another onboarding interview with someone named Hannah next week, and if I want to keep my job, I need to be professional and not take his grandmother to the pier to film an audition for a reality show in a death trap of a car. He also said that I am on probation and that as acting CEO of Wolfe Enterprises, he will be overseeing all ventures of Wolfe Clothing, including new product lines. He will expect daily progress reports of design, source materials, production, price points, market, and distribution.”

“You took his grandmother to the pier?”

“Yeah, to film my audition for Married by a Matchmaker.”

“Oh, you applied?”

I nodded.

My sister had no poker face. I could tell she was not happy about my choice to throw my name in the ring to marry a stranger, but she was also expecting a child by the love of her life, who she was married to, so she didn’t know how hard it was out there in the dating app streets.

“Did you know that the job entailed all that?”

“No, not really.”

“Can you do all that?” Skylar asked.

Part of me wanted to say no; there was no way I could do all that. But there was another part of me—the part that wanted to say yes. It was the part that wanted to prove Declan Wolfe wrong.