by Ashley Blake
I was getting really hungry so I was happy that we we’re having an early Thanksgiving dinner. As soon as we finished a small snack and our hot chocolate we returned our skates and headed out to the waiting cars.
When we got back to the house, dinner was almost ready and was going to be served at 3 o’clock. Bunny met us at the door and was really proud of the fact that she had finished making her dessert with plenty of time to spare.
“Okay everyone, my delicious pumpkin pies are ready ahead of schedule this year! There is plenty for everyone so we won’t run out of pies because I know you all love them. Skylar dear, I’m sure you’ll love them too!”
“I hope you like pumpkin pie. My nana Bunny makes the best pumpkin pie in the world, you’ll see.” Jonathan was beaming when he talked about his grandmother.
Mr. Hunter chimed in. “Yes, Skylar, mother’s pies really are very delicious.”
Bunny smiled at him. “Oh thank you darling. Dinner is in a couple of hours so that should give everyone plenty of time to get ready. The other guests will be arriving shortly so off you all go.”
We all chuckled as Bunny waved her hands at us while shooing us off. Jonathan came to my room for a few minutes before I hopped in the shower and pulled me down onto his lap so that I was sitting sideways and we could see each other, and casually wrapped his arms around me.
“That was fun, huh?”
“Yeah it was; you Hunter’s are really competitive! Did you notice that Abby wasn’t as nasty toward me today? That’s a step in the right direction. Hey, what’s the deal with that guy Zane?”
Jonathan rolled his eyes. "Ugh, that guy is the world's biggest loser. She's been dating him off and on for something like three years and none of us like him but that doesn’t faze her at all. She met him at some bar in New York where he’s a bartender and my parents are worried that he’s with her only for her money. They keep threatening to cut her off if she doesn’t break up with him because, I will tell you one thing about my dad, he will not give away his money to anyone. He has worked hard all of his life, has worked for everything that we are able to have and there is no way that he will allow a guy like Zane to come in and get a piece of the pie. And it’s not because he’s a bartender, it’s because he’s lazy and he doesn’t treat Abby very well. My dad doesn’t care what you do as long as you work hard at whatever it is that you do, and Zane just isn’t that guy.”
"Oh wow, well there's probably going to be a problem because I saw the way she looked at him, Jonathan, and it didn't look like she wanted to break up with that guy anytime soon, even though they’re fighting right now.”
“What do you mean?”
"From what I could see, in the brief minutes that I saw her looking at him, Abby is completely in love with Zane so he's probably going to be around for a while.”
He hung his head, slowly shaking it back and forth. “That’s not good, that’s not good. My dad will have a fit if she doesn’t dump him.”
“Well, I’m just telling you, I saw the way she looks at him and it was the same way I look at you. She’s smitten.”
He raised an eyebrow and a smile touched the corner of his mouth. “You’re smitten, huh?”
A smile slowly spread across my face as my eyes held his. “Maybe.”
His eyes filled with love as they searched mine. “I am definitely smitten.”
“Me too.” I leaned into him and gently touched my lips to his.
He slowly pulled away, smoothed my hair out of my eyes, and winked at me. “That was a good kiss.”
I giggled like a schoolgirl. “You’re silly.”
“Sometimes.”
“You haven’t mentioned the band at all with anyone here so I’m just curious, who has seen you perform?”
“My sisters have come to a couple of shows but that’s it. I told them not to make a big deal about it because my dad is so against it, so I’m just going to go along with his plan and treat this as a hobby while I’m in school. My place really is with the company so I’m just going to enjoy the singing part until graduation and then it will be time to focus on my real career.”
“Jonathan, you are so talented, I mean, like, you could actually make a living with your band. Are you sure you want to just throw all that talent away? You guys are really good.”
“Thanks sweetie, but I can’t dwell on it too much because then I’ll start to second-guess myself.”
"Well maybe that means that you should be second-guessing yourself honey. Do you think if your dad saw how good you are he would change his mind about insisting that you join the company?”
"Honestly, I doubt it. Sky, I have been groomed to join the family business from the day I was born. There's no getting out of it, this is what I have to do.”
"Okay, just hear me out on this. What if you invite your parents to a show in the city one Friday night so that they can see you and the band perform, do you think they would come?”
"I've never really given it any serious thought but, if my mom says yes then my dad would definitely say yes, so I guess, yeah, maybe they would show up. You really think I should invite them to a show?”
“I really do. I think it’s important for them to see not only how much you love singing but also how incredibly talented you are Jonathan. You probably don't realize it but when you are on stage you transform into a different person. You are so immersed in the music and you really feed off of the energy from the crowd, it’s a really cool thing to see, and I think that they need to see that. I don’t think any parent would want to crush their child’s dreams, I really don’t.”
He sat there for a minute and I could tell that he was letting my words sink in.
“I’ll think about it, I really will. Maybe I’ll talk to them about it before the weekend is over.”
“I think you should.”
“Okay, we should probably get ready, the guests will be arriving soon. I’ll swing by your room and pick you up.”
“Okay, see you soon.”
Chapter Five
We went downstairs at around 2:15 and Jonathan’s cousins Emily and Jeremy had arrived and there was a really cute guy with them. Emily had graduated from a top design school in New York the year before and had an internship at a fashion magazine. Jeremy’s parents had allowed him to take his first year of college off to travel around Europe for six months and then he worked at Hunter International for the remaining six months. He was going to enter our university as a freshman the following year and, like Jonathan, he was being groomed to take over the company one day. Jeremy was the spitting image of Jake and all of the Hunter men were undeniably gorgeous.
“You guys finally made it and graced us with your presence!” Jonathan walked over to his cousins and gave both of them a big hug.
“Yeah, we thought we’d stop by.” Jeremy joked with him and Jonathan lightly punched him in his arm as they both chuckled.
“Whatever. So who is your friend?”
Emily spoke up. “This is my boyfriend Jax.”
Jonathan reached out and shook his hand. “Jax it’s nice to meet you. Guys, I want you to meet my girlfriend Skylar Miller. Sky, this is my cousin Emily, my cousin Jeremy and Emily’s boyfriend Jax.”
“Hi, it’s nice to meet you guys.”
“Nice to meet you too, Skylar. Where are you from?” Emily’s gorgeous blue eyes were focused on me. She was really pretty.
“I’m from Chicago.”
“City or suburbs?” Jeremy could have easily been Jonathan’s younger brother, their looks were so similar.
I couldn't help but laugh at his question and he had a puzzled look on his face.
"Oh no, don't look like that, it's not anything bad! It’s just that Jonathan asked me the exact same question the first day that I met him.”
“Oh, okay.” He had a look of relief on his face.
“And to answer your question, I live in the city, right in the middle of it all. Do you guys also live in Manhattan?”
“Yep, not too far from aunt Sarah and uncle Joshua. That’s pretty cool that you live in a big city too.” Emily smiled at me and I felt the same way about her that I felt about Claire when I met her, I instantly liked her.
Just then Bunny came out of the kitchen where she was monitoring the chef and his staff, I’m sure the chef loved that, and she told us it was almost time to sit down to dinner.
The doorbell rang and a gorgeous, tall, dark-haired, clean-cut guy walked into the room a few seconds later. Claire ran up to him and gave him a quick kiss and a huge hug.
“Hey gorgeous.” His words were deep and sexy as they rolled off of his tongue.
"You barely made it, but I'm happy you're here! Come on, let's go put your stuff away really quickly and then we need to get back downstairs. Nana Bunny will kill us if we’re late for dinner. I’ll introduce you to everyone when where back downstairs.”
She grabbed his hand and basically tugged him up the stairs and they were back down in less than three minutes.
Jonathan was standing right beside me with his hand resting at the small of my back and he leaned down to whisper in my ear. “As you can see, the holidays can get really crazy around here. Ready to go eat?”
I smile at him and nodded. “I’m starved.”
We all gathered around the enormous dining table a few minutes later, after Claire introduced Keegan to everyone. Jonathan was on my right and thankfully Claire was on my left, but after I sat down I realized that Abby was sitting directly across from me, and right next to her was Barbi. Great, this is exactly what I don’t need.
After Mr. Hunter said grace and we went around the table and said what we were thankful for, we enjoyed a really nice dinner. Claire was just finishing up telling everyone about her next performance with her ballet company and I thought I would try to be nice to Abby and ask her what her next performance was. Little did I know that would be a big mistake.
“Abby, what is your next performance? I would love to go see both of you guys in your next productions.” I genuinely smiled at her as I took a sip of my water.
Her eyes glossed over with instant dislike as she raised them from her plate to look at me and plastered a smile laced with saccharine on her face. “My performance will be the exact same performance that Claire is performing, except as usual, I bet I won’t be performing.”
I looked at her thoroughly confused and furrowed my eyebrow. "I don't understand, if you're both in the same performance why aren’t you also performing?”
The table was eerily quiet as she spoke and I realized that I had unintentionally hit a very sore spot with Abby.
Abby turned to her sister and was clearly glaring at her while she answered my question. “Because my dear sister is always the star of the show, she never gives me a chance to shine.”
Claire jumped right in. "Abigail Marie Hunter, you know that is not true so please do not play the ‘poor me’ game, I am sick and tired of it! You know that I have encouraged the dance company to let you take my place some days, but they will not do it. You are my understudy and that is not my fault. Maybe if you practiced more often and were more dedicated to dance you would be able to be the star of your own show. It’s not my fault that you don’t put the same amount of time into your work as you do your questionable boyfriend!”
You could have cut the tension in the air with a knife as the two girls sat glaring at each other across the table. Mr. Hunter opened his mouth to speak but Bunny raised her hand to stop him.
"Girls, you stop this rude behavior right now! I will not have you arguing like this at a holiday dinner in front of our guests, do you understand me?”
Both Claire and Abby instantly looks remorseful and they apologized to Bunny and to the entire room, but I could tell that they were both really pissed at each other and I felt like it was all my fault. I felt that I had to say something to try to break the ice.
I looked at Abby. “I’m really sorry that I asked, I didn’t mean to stir up any trouble.”
Jonathan gently rubbed my leg, silently letting me know that it was okay, but I still felt horrible. Who knew that the sisters had this kind of animosity toward each other?
Bunny spoke up before anyone else did. "Skylar dear, you have nothing to apologize for. What you witnessed is something that has been going on for years and should have been resolved ages ago. These girls know better.” She gave them both a disapproving look as she finished her sentence.
Things were silent for a couple of minutes and then everyone broke off into different conversations. I was really relieved that the awkward silence was over. There were probably four groups of conversations going on at the same time, and I was talking with Claire, Keegan, Emily, and Jeremy when I heard someone ask me a question. Jonathan was in deep discussion with his uncle Jake and aunt Lauren so he was oblivious to whoever was speaking to me.
“Skylar, have you been there?”
Who is talking to me? I looked around the room to figure out who had just asked me that question and my eyes landed on Abby’s cold, hard eyes.
"I'm sorry Abby, I didn't hear what you were talking about before you asked me the question." I tried to sound as nice as possible because this girl clearly did not like me. What did I ever do to her?
"Barbi and I were just talking about how fantastic Aspen is and counting how many times we had been there. I think everyone at this table has been there at least twice. Have you ever been there?”
The question sounded innocent enough and if anyone else at the table, besides Barbi of course, had asked me I would not even have thought twice about the motive behind asking me that question. I would have just answered them. But I could see that there was an edge of nastiness in her eyes and an air of arrogance in her voice and it made me really uncomfortable. I didn’t like that she made me feel this way and I started to get irritated with her nastiness.
“No, I’ve never been there. Actually, I haven’t really been anywhere outside of the country.”
The look of shock on her face was annoying.
“You haven’t?” She glanced at Barbi and they both started to giggle.
I felt like something was wrong with me with the way they were both looking at me but I held my head up and pushed my shoulders back. I decided I was not going to let these girls intimidate me. For whatever reason Abby did not like me and I knew that Barbi was jealous of my relationship with Jonathan, but that was their problem. Besides, very few people in the world had access to the kind of wealth that these two did.
I looked her squarely in the eye and held her gaze. “No, I haven’t. Why is that funny?”
The tension between us must have been palpable because the table became silent and I could feel all eyes in our direction.
Jonathan must have seen the cold glares exchanged between us because he turned to me and instinctively put his arm around me. He looked back and forth between his sister and me, pausing quickly to also glance at Barbi. A look of concern quickly fell over his face.
“What’s going on here?”
“Nothing Jonny, we were just talking about Aspen.” Abby tried to look innocent but I don’t think she was fooling anyone.
An exasperated sigh escaped his lips as he narrowed his eyes at her. I glanced around the table and my eyes fell on Mr. Hunter who did not look pleased at all. His voice boomed across the table as his eyes turned cool toward his daughter. “Abigail! What did you say to Skylar?”
She looked sheepish as she glanced down at her plate and slowly moved food around with her fork.
“Look at me when I am speaking to you!”
She raised her eyes to his and her face turned ghost white.
“I just asked if she had ever been to Aspen.”
He pursed his lips and clenched his jaw as he ground out his words. “Given the silence in the room, I know that your question was not asked in a genuine manner. Skylar, I apologize for my daughter’s rude behavior, my family and I do not want you to feel uncomfortable in our home in any way.�
�� He looked at Abby and it was the look that a parent has on their face when they are fed up with their child’s behavior. “Abigail, apologize right now!”
She looked at me with apologetic eyes but also was terrified. “I’m sorry I was rude Skylar, I didn’t mean any harm by it.”
“That’s okay.” My words were soft because I couldn’t believe that I was in the middle of this scene.
"It is most certainly not okay and Abigail, I want to speak with you when we are all done with dinner. Everyone, please accept my deepest apology for my daughter’s rude behavior. Now let’s enjoy some of mother’s delicious pumpkin pie which she has been preparing for us all day today.”
