Diane's brow furrowed, and she turned to look at her aunt. “Are you taking her side on this now? I thought you agreed this was a good idea.”
“I do,” Kerry rushed to assure her. “I want nothing more than for you to expand your business. It's just...” She sighed and turned her attention back to the crashing waves. “Your mother has been through a lot these past two years, and I think she just feels like she is protecting you from disappointment.”
“And what about me? What about what I've been through?” Diane threw her hands in the air. “I lost my dad, Aunt Kerry...” Angry tears ran down her cheeks. “He was the one who encouraged me to follow my dreams because he always believed in me in a way that Mom never did.” She inhaled deeply, then used her palms to wipe her cheeks. “And now that he's gone, she's making this all about her and what she wants.”
“Diane, sweetie, your mom is just scared. Try to see where she's coming from,” Kerry encouraged, but Diane shook her head vehemently.
“I'm sorry. I can't.” With deep-seated disappointment, she walked away from her aunt and made her way toward the family gathering. Her arms came up to wrap around her waist. She felt drained from the past week's events. Derek had been a no-show at the wedding planner, and after they argued, he promised to make it up to her. Still, on the day when she needed him the most to be her support system around her family, especially her mother, he had once again disappointed her. Then there was Jake. She'd called him last week to wish him a happy birthday and just catch up, but he'd just said, “Thanks, Sis,” before rushing off the phone with some excuse about having too much work to do.
It had left her with a hollow feeling in her stomach. “Why'd you have to leave me, Dad? You're the only one who truly got me.” She sighed mournfully.
“Hey, Diane!”
She looked up to see Rory with a few of her other cousins. Pasting on a smile, she headed in their direction.
“Hey, guys,” she greeted as she lowered herself onto the picnic blanket they had spread on the sand.
“We were wondering where you'd gone off to,” Jules said with a questioning look.
“I went for a little walk,” she said simply.
“So we were just talking about boys,” Cassidy, her uncle Charles’s daughter, whispered like it was some top secret that needed to be protected.
“Why are you whispering?” Diane asked, lifting an eyebrow.
Cassidy blinked as her brows eased together in concentration. “I don't know,” she finally replied. “I guess it seemed like the fun thing to do when I first thought about it, but now it's so cringe.” She scrunched up her shoulders and made a face. Diane and a few of the others chuckled at this.
“So what about boys?” she asked.
“Cassidy has a new boyfriend,” Sophia quickly filled her in.
“What? So soon?” Diane blurted, earning a few snickers from the others.
“You can just call her the smooth operator,” Sophia said, deepening her voice and using her fist as a mic. She burst into a fit of laughter after and dodged the cookie her cousin threw at her.
“Don't call me that,” Cassidy warned with a deep scowl. “Jim wasn't my boyfriend. We were just hanging out and having fun like normal people in their twenties,” Cassidy explained.
“And what about Casey? Hmm?” Sophia asked with a raised brow. “What about Mike, Cameron, Jerry?” She listed.
“They were… what's with the twenty questions?” Cassidy asked, folding her arms across her chest.
“Nope. More like twenty dates for Cassidy,” Sophia replied, fixing the other female with a daring grin.
Cassidy's look was almost murderous at that point. She opened her mouth with a snarl. “You know what, Sophia?”
“All right, guys. Why don't we take it down a notch? Yeah?” Sara, Cassidy's older sister, stepped in. “We're here to have fun. Whatever's going on between you two needs to stop. We're family. Family must stick together,” she continued to say.
“I'm sorry, Cassidy. For everything I said,” Sophie apologized.
“That's fine,” Cassidy said, giving her a reassuring smile.
Diane began to relax after those tense moments, only for her muscles to tighten and her heart to beat erratically when Rory asked,” So, Diane, how are things going with Derek?”
ChapterTen
Diane
“Hi.”
