Sure enough, my mom was completely fine after her visit at the hospital. It was Saturday, and when I finally rolled out of bed, I had a nice hot shower, then made my way down to the kitchen to see what kind of other greasy foods I could convince the cook to make me.
A couple fresh pretzels in hand, I made my way upstairs, where I found my mother in the large dining room with the wedding planner, all sorts of patches and pictures spread out across the huge table.
Well, at least all that size is finally coming in handy, I thought to myself as I nibbled a bite and watched from the door as the ladies worked.
“I think purple and white will work wonderfully as spring wedding colours,” the woman drawled in her upper class accent. She sounded like the Queen. “However, I wonder if you might not consider cream instead of white. White is quite a harsh colour, especially in bright sunlight, and cream has the same classy effect with a little bit of softness.”
“That’s a wonderful idea Susan. Yes, I think we will go with cream and white instead.”
Suddenly, my mom noticed me standing at the door.
“Julianne, come in, please!” my mom exclaimed. “Susan, this is my daughter, Julianne.”
“It’s lovely to meet you,” the wedding planner told me, holding out a hand.
“Why don’t you come and give me a hand with some of these choices Julianne. It would be nice to have your input,” my mom said.
“Thanks, mom,” I replied, and went over to the table.
For the next few hours we bonded over flower choices and centrepieces. Of course everything was really far from being finished. I found out that I was going to be the maid of honour at the wedding, at my mother’s request, as I had been at the last three. It was going to be held right here on the estate, and as I saw just how happy my mom was about it, I put aside my feelings that this wedding was going to be like all her others.
Finally, Susan left, after my mom and I had made quite a few of the important decisions. Invitations would be sent out that Friday, after coming back from the printer, and after giving me a warm hug and a thanks for the help, I made my way back out to the main room.
Suddenly, John Alcott pushed past me, obviously very upset about something.
“Are you alright?” I asked out of instinct.
“I am, thank you Julianne. Everything is fine, I just need to speak with Mary for a little bit,” he replied with a forced smile, and continued on.
I wondered what was wrong, since he was obviously lying to me, and went back up to my room to check on social media for a little bit.
A couple hours later I heard a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I called out, and my mom made her way in.
“Hi honey, mind if we have a chat for a bit?”
Something was definitely wrong.
“Yeah mom, what’s up?” I asked, inviting her to sit on my chair and moving over to the bay window. The sun was just finishing setting and making a nice little glow over everything.
“I just finished talking with John. Unfortunately, it turns out his son was arrested this afternoon.”
“What? Arrested?”
I knew Jack was a douchebag, and probably didn’t have the best grades, but I still never really pictured him to be the type to get in trouble with the law.
“Yes. He was caught with a couple of his friends spraying paint on the walls of one of the buildings at the University. They called the police, and he was caught quite literally red-handed.”
I’m not going to lie, a part of me was pretty glad to see him get his come-uppance. I’d only had a couple more human resources classes, and every time I tried to get there just as the professor was entering, and I was always first to leave. I could feel my brother’s eyes on me in class though, and he’d always call me “my little sis” if he was referring to me to his friends, and always made sure to do it loudly enough so that I’d hear.
The worst was the last class we had together, though. I walked in and had a quick glance. Sure enough, Jack was sitting with his friends where he usually was, but this time there was someone else there with him.
The most gorgeous girl in the class, who looked like Kate Moss and could have just as easily gotten an amazing modelling contract, was sitting on his lap, and his hands were sitting on her hips, fingering the edge of her skirt so short I was amazed it covered anything.
I tried to hide the fact that my heart had just plummeted down into the floor. I knew he was my brother, and I just shouldn’t have desires like that for someone who was part of my family now, but I couldn’t help myself, and it crushed me to see him with a girl like that, a girl who was so, so far outside of my league we weren’t even in the same galaxy.
I’d gone and sat down in my seat and tried to focus on the professor’s words instead of thinking about his hands on that other girl.
God, how I hated how he treated me. I hated how he made me feel. And I hated how my body reacted every time I saw him.
So yeah, while I was surprised he was in trouble, I wasn’t exactly broken up about it.
“So the university was going to expel him. Instead, John worked with them to work out an arrangement. Jack gets to continue his studies, and part of the agreement, on top of restorations, is that Jack has to move back in with his father.”
Had my mother just told me what I thought she had?
“Wait. Jack’s moving… here?”
“Yes. I know he wasn’t the nicest to you, and hopefully if he lives here the two of you will start being nice to each other.”
“Yeah. Sure. I’m not the problem here,” I told her. I was pissed off. Why the hell was I going to have to live with this guy who never said a single nice thing to me, ever? What had I ever done? I was being punished for this idiot’s actions?
“I know you’re not sweetie.” My mom sighed, and I felt bad for snapping at her. She knew it wasn’t my fault, and I’m betting she didn’t want this any more than I did. “Hopefully it’ll just be for a little while, ok?”
“I hope so.” I gave her a small smile and my mom got up, kissing me on the forehead.
“I’m going to call it an early night, I feel a bit of a migraine coming on. You let Anita know if you need anything, ok?”
“Sure. Thanks mom. Good night, I hope you feel better.”
A minute later I was sitting by myself at the window, watching the sun setting, wondering what on earth I’d done to deserve this fate.
Jack Alcott, the bane of my existence here in England, was going to be living here.
Worse than that, he was going to live in the room right next to mine.
Pulling out my phone, I decided to text Annie.
Hey, you know that douchebag brother of mine?
I waited to see if she’d reply, and sure enough, my phone beeped a minute later.
Yeah?
Well, he’s moving back in here.
You’re kidding.
Nope.
Oh that’s shitballs.
Certainly is.
Wanna grab a drink?
Nah. I think I’m going to call it early tonight.
Well, don’t worry. Maybe he won’t be so annoying when you live with him.
I hope not.
We continued texting back and forth for a bit, then eventually Annie said she had to go and I went over to the nightstand to charge my phone.
Ugh. This sucks I thought to myself before crawling into bed. I just wanted to have a pity party for myself. Then I rationalized with myself. Just because he lived in the same house didn’t mean I’d see him that often. And Annie might be right. When we had to live under the same roof Jack might be a little bit more reasonable.
I wondered about how much patience John Alcott must have had with his son. I wasn’t an idiot, I knew the “agreement” with Oxford would have included a hefty donation. It must be nice to be that rich, I thought to myself as I drifted off.