A/N: Backstreets back, alright!
It all started on a Tuesday.
Isn't it funny how some of the worst, yet most pivotal things happen on a Tuesday? 9/11, Columbine, my birth, and today, Tuesday, July 7th, 2017.
My sister's wedding.
The venue was a gorgeous, lavish cathedral. Saint John's, maybe? I didn't bother to get the name, I was already dreading the event anyway.
You'd think I'd be happy for her, her being my sister and all, and I am, don't get me wrong. What I'm not happy with is what events like these entail. You know how when you were a kid at weddings and your older family members would poke you and tell you "you're next"? Well, my family still does it. At the fossil age of 23.
Every time, without fail, someone hunts me down and asks me the exact. Same. Question.
This time, my hunter was my Aunt Becky, and I was her prey. Just as I was about to sit down at my designated table to enjoy my feast of filet mignon and potatoes and have my second drink of the night, she pounced.
"Vanessa, I just don't understand why you won't settle down already. Your sister is younger than you," she bemoaned, "You're a very pretty girl, and our biological clocks don't tick forever!"
Her last seven words made me scrunch my nose in disgust.
"Aren't you on your third marriage in three years? Shouldn't you be the one worrying about settling down already?" I retorted, not in the mood for these shenanigans. I had just been laid off from my job this morning at the local cafe and wasn't exactly in a chipper mood.
At the neighboring table, I heard a low noise, that almost sounded like a laugh.
Oh god, not him, I thought, knowing exactly who it was.
I was wrong.
I whipped my head quickly over to the direction of the snort, expecting to see my annoying little cousin, Jerome.
Much to my surprise, it was a different man, who I didn't recognize.
He was rather muscular, with long dark hair framing a pale face with a slight smirk, making him look like a child trying to sneak a cookie when his mother's back was turned. He sat with his arms folded in front of his chest, which added to the almost elvish look. When he saw me looking at him, I swear his smirk grew tenfold.
Just as Aunt Becky opened her mouth to speak, he did first, but not before walking over to my table, where I still stood, holding my plate of food that I suddenly no longer had the appetite for. He was a little bit shorter than I had expected him to be. Especially for how cocky he was.
"Oh, Vanessa, don't be coy, you can tell her the truth."
His rough, deep voice caught me off guard. I certainly wasn't expecting something like that from a man I had just called elvish mere moments before. I felt something odd in the pit of my stomach but shoved that feeling away.
How did he know my name?
Aunt Becky gasped loudly, and suddenly cathedral was the was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
The room exploded with applause, and I had never wanted to die more in my life. I couldn't fucking believe this shit. I wanted to crawl into a hole and never, ever, EVER come out of it.
Before I could make the move to bury my hands in my face, another man I hadn't seen before, taller, with long curly hair that looked like he only washed it when flies started swarming, appeared behind the mystery man my "boyfriend" and clapped him on the back.
