The night before the wedding, he was playing a party game with his childhood sweetheart — the kind where you brag about something the other person doesn't have.
To win, she pointed at her own stomach and said it loud enough for the whole room to hear.
"I carried your baby once. Can you say that?"
He paused, then smiled at her, soft and doting.
"No, I can't. Fine, you win. Fair's fair."
Without a second of hesitation, he took the ring that was meant for me and slid it onto her finger, never once caring how everyone in that room was looking at me.
This time I wasn't going to worry about keeping up appearances. I walked straight over and took the ring back.
He panicked, grabbed my arm, and tried to force me to hand it over.
"Maureen Chavez! Can't you have a little dignity? A game's a game — you play fair. I lost, so I lost. Stop making a scene."
"Fine. Then there's no wedding, and I don't need you either. Dignified enough for you?"
...
"I'm making a scene?"
I slid the ring onto my own finger and cut straight through whatever little scheme Peter James had going.
"This ring is a Chavez family heirloom. My mother brought it out to help your family save face. And you just gave it away, like it was yours to give?"
"Do you even have the right?"
Peter was mortified. He kept his grip on my arm, pinching the flesh over and over, signaling me to shut up.
He was always like this, always obsessed with appearances.
All shine and glory in public, and behind the scenes doing whatever it took to beg me.
If it weren't for our families arranging it, our parents locking down the engagement long ago, he never would have caught my eye at all.
Then his sweetheart said what she said, and just like that, I had my way out.
"Peter, the wedding's off. Don't bother dragging yourself over tomorrow. I'll tell both sets of parents tonight."
"What?"
Peter didn't like that. He blew up on the spot.
"Maureen, what is your problem? If you can't take a joke, then don't come out with me. We get married tomorrow, and you're just calling it off? You think marriage is a game?"
"And these are my friends. This is how we are with each other. How do you flip on me like that? Where's your sense of fun?"
I let out a cold scoff and dragged Gayle Whitney out from where she'd been hiding behind him, enjoying the show.
"A joke? She says she carried your baby, and that's a joke too? What girl jokes about her own name and her own reputation?"
Gayle pouted and threw up her hands, all breezy and fashionable, like none of it touched her.
"We're all friends, we all know how to play, nobody actually turns on each other! What's the matter, Sis Maureen? Did you really take it seriously?"
Watching her preen like that, so obviously playing me for a fool, I slapped her clean across the face. She just stood there, stunned.
"Maureen, what did you hit me for!"
"I hit you because I hit you. Do I need to pick a special day for it? That look on your face was begging for it. And one more thing — don't call me your sister. I don't have a shameless little sister like you."
I let out a cold snort and flipped the whole table, and every one of Peter's friends went silent.
Peter's face had gone ice-cold, but he still leaned in to plead with me to leave him a little face.
I wasn't done, though. Gayle especially — I'd stopped being able to stomach that face of hers a long time ago. Every single time, she came dancing right onto the one thing that set me off.
And right as I was about to let loose, Grandpa Chavez called, and his call stopped my anger cold.
"Maureen, don't act up. Peter is your fiancé. When you're out in public you make sure to give him plenty of face. Don't forget — his grandfather saved my life once. I have to take good care of him."
"Don't give people a reason to laugh at us."
Grandpa's word was law in our family. Even when the facts were ugly, he clung to his own crooked version of the truth.
Just because Peter's grandfather had once saved my grandfather's life, it was as if he'd been handed a "get out of anything free" pass in our house, a backer for whatever he did.
Seeing my anger stamped out by force, my whole brow knotted up, Peter looked thoroughly pleased with himself.
"All right, Maureen, enough. We get married tomorrow. Don't go upsetting Grandpa. He's old. He can't take that kind of shock."
