Beyond the Sky

Chapter 5 - Love & War

Crowds of people filled the sidewalks of Ravensburg as our car rolled towards the chapel. It warmed my heart to cute kids dressed in their Sunday's best and little pink tiaras. Little boys held their swords high to cars stamped with the royal seal in pride. I even saw one guy down on bended knee in front of a crying woman nodding her head. Nothing made people more weepy and lovesick than a wedding. Don't get me wrong, I love them too, but it's more for the cake than anything. It's something about a wedding cake, baked with love, hopes, and dreams for a happily ever after that just changed the taste of the cake. Each bit tasted like pure happiness. If I could have snagged an entire tier of cake without attending the wedding at all with my date, then I would.

I'd spent the last two days effectively avoiding Nana, my siblings, and Felix. The only ones who were able to find me were Luna and aunt Sarah, solely because I had been hiding out a Sarah's with Luna. not even Cayden knew I was here and this was his house. If there was anyone who understood my need for independence it was Sarah. She was a loose cannon, only uncle James could reign her in and still sometimes even he wasn't enough. He was gone with dad so we were safe from him returning us to our dungeon as well.

We weren't long into our stay before she had us drunk and spilling our secrets. Sarah told us about the lie she and my mother made up to tell people who my father was when they weren't sure they would ever see him again. It was a wild tale that I couldn't even believe people took as truth. Luna confessed her love for DJ which we promptly reminded her wasn't a secret at all. When it came to my turn I couldn't help myself.

"I may sorta kinda like this Felix guy."

"If you like him then why did you have us runoff here? If I were you I'd be all over that. I've seen him chilling poolside without a shirt. You could wash clothes like the olden days on those abs." Luna said with her speech beginning to slur.

"Because if I admit it then she wins and I can't let her win," I said, sloshing my glass of wine around as I overdramatically explained my situation.

"She's right," Sarah said with a drunken hiccup. "We can't let her win. I hate to tell you this baby girl but your grandma can be a bitch when she wants to be."

"So I've heard, seen, and lived," I said as we all fell into laughter.

"When I married your uncle James, she didn't like me either. He wasn't even her kid and she wanted me out. Apparently I was a bad influence on him. Personally I think she's still butt hurt that I pretended to date your dad so she'd give him some free time to go out and have secret dates with your mom but that's just my opinion." Luna and I shared a look before turning to Sarah waiting for her to explain herself. I'd heard stories of their time in America but this was a new one to me.

"I'll explain another day but anyway, if I was a bad influence on James then it would rub off on him and then essentially rub off on Dalton. Well, look at me now Ex-Queen Ro-Ro. I'm the best bad influence he's ever had in his life." she said with a wag of her eyebrows causing us to side-eye her before laughing again. It was disgusting but she was right. Uncle James was a stiff but when you put him with aunt Sarah you could literally see all his layers peel away. Cayden worshiped his dad and just like him, he was a stiff too. Only alcohol and DJ were ever able to loosen him up enough to have fun. I hoped that one day he would find a girl that would be able to melt his guarded heart and hopefully that would rub off on DJ to man the heck up.

"Listen up kid. You don't have to love him. You don't even have to like him. One day, heck six hours, are all you have to handle before he's on a jet out of here. Make it through that, prove your Nana wrong, and then decide for yourself if you want to pursue something with him. Trust me. It took me an hour of rage and thirty minutes of cool off time to realize I wanted James back in America with me."