The Love We Choose

Chapter 2

"Take it easy.    Remember, he's the sensitive one.  Plus you got me and my guns."  She raised her arms to flex her lean muscle.  "What can I do big bro?"  He laughed at her as he instructed her to help out with bar setup.

The day and eventual night progressed quite uneventfully with the exception of Lynne becoming acquainted with the locations of the bathrooms.  The bride was a vision of delicate ivory lace whose dress floated around her as she and her groom took their first dance.  None of the guests had overindulged at the open bar which was a godsend.  Usually, a high society wedding consisted of no less than three guests having to be forcibly restricted from imbibing by infuriated family members.

Lynne worked her way through the crowds on the dance floor to the tables to drop off the assorted dessert plates that were to accompany the slices of freshly sliced wedding cake.  At one of the reception tables she leaned down to place the plate and inhaled an overpowering scent of perfume, which caused her to feel a twisting sensation in her stomach.  Fighting to keep the smile plastered on her face, she wove herself quickly through the tables in search of the nearest bathroom.  You'd think with all the trips I've taken to the bathroom tonight, I would have them memorized.  A few party attendants tried to signal her, but she just nodded in their direction, signaling she would be back in one minute.  Time was not on her side as she barely managed to make it to a garbage can hidden behind a pillar at the back of the estate, releasing the contents of her stomach.  As the wave of nausea finally dissipated she felt a hand patting her back.

"You ok, chica? I don't think I've ever seen you hurl before." It was her older brother Kris with a napkin and water bottle in his hand.  Kris was a mocha-skinned man standing six foot, four inches tall, the tallest of their siblings. His well-maintained and cared for body was hard-packed with muscles.   Square jawed, dark brown, almost black eyes sat deep into his face above a twice broken and reset, nose.   His hair was buzzed close to his scalp with a curved line shaved into the left side.   Hints of black ink tattoos peaked out from underneath the rolled-up sleeves of his crisp-black button-up dress shirt, which highlighted the corded muscles on his forearms.  

"Thanks." She said, wiping her mouth with the napkin and throwing it into the garbage can.  She took a swig of water and swished it around her mouth before spitting it into the garbage can. Taking a gulp of the water she swallowed and shook her head.  "I don't know what came over me. It's been so long since a smell has caught me off guard like that.  Not since I got sick on the airplane when they took forever to taxi our plane after that 18 hour flight to New Zealand a few years ago and the exhaust fumes came back in the plane.  The lady at table six is wearing WAY too much cheap perfume. It's like she bathed in the stuff."

Her brother looked at her with his brows furrowed.  "You scared me. Don't do it again," he told her with a squeeze on her shoulder before he returned to the bar.  Her brother was a man of few words, much like their father.  But he was ever vigilant, which helped since he was a personal bodyguard for several A-list celebrities and wealthy clientele.

Lynne tied up the garbage bag and replaced it before washing her hands and returning to her job. After dropping off the last of the dessert plates and checking on her tables she went back into the kitchen to take a load off of her feet for a few minutes.  She had just sat down when a golden honey colored hand waved in front of her face.  It was her sister Elisa, her mother's sous chef for the evening.  At five foot ten, she was buxom with an hour-glass figure most women spent weeks achieving with the aid of a waist trainer.  Her elegant brown-black 3b hair that hung in elegant curls down to the top of her butt when she didn't have it tied up in a bun for her job as a sous chef at a prominent restaurant in the city.  When she walked into a room graceful didn't even begin to describe how she floated from foot to foot.  The lightest of her siblings with her golden honey complexion and emerald green eyes, they used to joke that their parents had switched her out with another baby on the way out of the hospital.  However, once they all did genetics testing for a well-known website and had come back genetic siblings for Christmas three years ago, they put an ending to that jibe.  On the surface she had won the genetics' jackpot in every way but one.  Born Deaf, the family communicated with her via American Sign Language (ASL).  She was asking Lynne if she had a tampon on her since their cycles usually aligned.