I asked Jere if he wanted to surf because I wanted to get him alone so I could find out what the hell was going on. I hadn’t talked to him since he made his grand announcement at the restaurant. But now that we were alone, I didn’t know what to say.
We bobbed on our surfboards, waiting for the next wave. It had been slow out there so far.
I cleared my throat. “So how pissed is Laurel?”
“Pissed,” Jere said, grimacing. “Belly and her had a pretty big fight yesterday.”
“In front of you?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit.” I wasn’t surprised, though. There was no way Laurel was going to be like, sure, I’ll throw my teenaged daughter a wedding.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“What does Dad say about all this?”
He gave me a funny look. “Since when do you care what Dad says?”
I looked out toward the house. I hesitated before saying, “I don’t know. If Laurel’s against it and Dad’s against it, maybe you shouldn’t do it. I mean, you guys are still in college. You don’t even have a job. When you think about it, it’s kind of ridiculous.” My voice trailed off. Jere was shooting daggers at me.
“Stay out of it, Conrad,” he said. He was practically spitting.
“All right. Sorry. I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry.”
“I never asked for your opinion. This is between me and Belly.”
I said, “You’re right. Forget it.”
Jeremiah didn’t answer. He looked over his shoulder, and then he started to paddle away. As the wave crested, he popped up and rode it to shore.
I punched my hand through the water. I wanted to kick his ass. This is between me and Belly. Smug piece of shit.
He was marrying my girl, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I just had to watch it happen, because he was my brother, because I promised. Take care of him, Connie. I’m counting on you.
