Chapter thirty six: Royal

The second the words boyfriend left my lips the girl in front of us shifted. She looked at Apple then me then back to Apple as if it would be completely preposterous if Carmella and I were together. That seems to be everyone's reaction, her mom and her aunts both had the same reaction. "Hello, I'm Lyra, this is my fiance Quinn and this cutie is Bea." "It's nice to meet you all." I say with a polite nod still sort of upset at everyone's reaction."Hey Apple, you want to go sit on the dock?" She gives a small nod then we walk down to the metal dock. Carmella kicks her sandals off and sits down, her toes dipping into the cool water. "Your family seems nice so far.""You've only met the decent to semi decent ones. My mom asked me how much I paid you.""What?" I bark out."Yeah," She laughs. "must have thought you were an escort or something.""This is absurd!""Calm down hot shot that's more offensive to me than to you.""I'm not talking about your mom thinking I was an escort I'm talking about the way they look at me and you when I say I'm your boyfriend.""How do they look at us Royal? Like they pity you, like it's crazy, like they must have dreamt it up. I know Royal, ok. I know that's how they look at us.""Why, I don't understand.""I'm not the favorite one Royal, I'm not the favorite child, I'm not anyone's favorite cousin, I'm not anyone's favorite grandchild. I'm the one that gets forget about in the group picture. For some reason for something good to happen to me is like the world spinning at a different degree. It's completely crazy to them.""Thats bs, you're their family, they should want good things to happen to you, for you.""I learned a long time ago, blood doesn't mean family." We sit down here for another ten minutes or so. Taking in the boats as they cruise around. The gentle sound of the little waves. Then there's a loud commotion, laughter, hoots and hollers, loud 'hellos' and 'heys'."Charlie's here." Carmella smiles, though it looks sad. She stands and slides her sandals back on."Sure you want to go up there? We could jump in the water right now and swim to the other side then make our escape.""As much as I love swimming, I'm afraid we'd likely get run over by a boat or get concussed by a tube." She slides her hand into mine and we start to walk back towards the cottage. We're barely up over the embankment when someone hollers out."Holy shit! Is that Mel?" Someone comes charging at us. He's tall, same dark brown hair, same face complecture, same well, damn near same everything. Charlie. He approaches us at lighting speed, sweeping Carmella off the ground and into his arms. She doesn't smile like one would after an embracement like that."Charlie put me down!" She squeals."Hey baby sis." He says giving her a noogie that messes up her hair. She swats his hand away with a few slaps."Whos this douches? Ellie forget she's married to Max or something?" Charlie says sizing me up as if were about to have a beat down or he's going to kick me out. He's about my size but I probably have 50 pounds of muscle on him."Charlie fuck off, this is my boyfriend, Royal this is my brother, the infamous Charlie. Charlie this is my boyfriend Royal." He looks at me septically, not knowing whether to shake my hand or spit on my shoes."I don't like him." Charlie says looking at Carmella now."Never said you needed to." She smiles, but it's gone almost as soon as it was there. A woman walks over, she radiates sunshine and warmth. Her mocha skin glowing in the sun, big brown doe eyes. Charlie sees her aprochs and its like hes a different person. Suddenly cool and put together, smiling like a fool. Is that how I look around Apple?"Sunny this is my sister." Charlie says placing a hand on the small of her back and nudging her forwards. "Carmella this is my wife Iris."