forget you.

chapter one.

all subject to change at writer’s discretion, correction graphic made by @blackromanceconnoisseur

playlist linked here.

“How do I look?” Ayda Forde, my soon-to-be sister-in-law, glided out of her dressing room in yet another soft yellow wedding gown.

“My Lord.” My mother, Camilla Henley, firmly gripped my hand as Ayda sauntered further into the room for all of us to see and critique.

“I would like to see it in white.” Ayda’s mother, Claudette, smiled.

“Absolutely stunning. I give it a four.” Renee Carrington, Ayda’s friend and assistant, held up one of the scorecards she said she made “just for today,” but a big part of me felt that she used them regularly.

“Thank you.” Ayda’s deep brown eyes darted around the room until they landed on me. “Julissa, what do you think?”

Her stare was trained on me as I desperately tried to find something to say. I wanted my words to be helpful, insightful, so we could move this dress fitting along, but all that came out was the truth.

“I still don’t know why you’re marrying my brother, Tremaine, but this is a great dress to do it in since that’s what you want to do.”

“JuJu!” My mother reached over to pop the hand she’d just been holding.

“What? She asked for my opinion. You wanted me to lie?” I gasped but didn’t even bother to rub away the sting on my hand because I was used to being popped.

I was the “mouth” of the family. Getting popped came with the territory.

“I want you to act like you have some home training. Goodness, JuJu.” Camilla Henley gave me her most disappointed glare before turning to Ayda’s mother with an apologetic grin.

“It’s okay.” Ayda laughed. “I needed to laugh. I’m so nervous.” She ran her hands down the front of the dress, then faced the mirrors that lined the walls around her.

“That’s natural. I was a shaking mess before I married your father.” Claudette Forde chimed in between sips of champagne.

“Can we please refrain from mentioning my cheating father while I’m wedding dress shopping?” Ayda pouted. “Now, back to the dress. I don’t think this is the one.”

“Don’t let JuJu bother you, Ayda. You look stunning like Renee said.” My mother cut her eyes at me again.

“I literally said the same thing.” I shrugged, still not knowing what I’d done wrong by telling the truth.

Ayda was out of my brother’s league. She was smart, gorgeous, and incredibly successful. She could have any partner she wanted, but she was in love with Tremaine Henley. Hearing his name sent her into such a tizzy that sometimes I said it just to giggle at her reaction. That was the thing about love — you couldn’t hide it.

Or forget it. My conscious hollered like a hit dog.

“You look amazing in every dress, Ayda. You could wear a paper bag if you wanted. Wear what you like. Is that better, Ma?” I turned to Camilla, who still looked like I had pulled my titties out instead of simply saying what we all already knew. Tremaine Henley was blessed and highly favored.

“Anything is better than calling your brother a bum in front of his fiancée.”

I fixed my mouth to respond but quickly closed it because I knew better. I also knew that I was in for a good talking-to on the car ride home.

I can’t win. I groaned to myself and then reached for my own champagne flute to take a gulp.

Tremaine was not a bum, nowhere near it. However, the verdict was still out on whether or not he could rise to the occasion of being Ayda Forde’s husband. At least, it still was for me. I loved my brother unconditionally, but Ayda Forde was the baddest. She was so full of passion that it overflowed and rubbed off on you. It was impossible not to like her, or at the least, want to be like her. Her resume was longer than a pharmacy receipt and she was also the only daughter of one of the the wealthiest families in Washington, D.C.

She and my older brother met five years ago and time had only made Ayda more successful, more beautiful. She was full of guts and passion that inspired me, and I am hard to impress. My brother Tremaine, on the other hand, had floundered around for quite a while, looking for direction. Eventually, he found his footing and was now the CFO of Forde Financials, one of the largest Black-owned wealth management firms in the country. These days, Tremaine’s face was plastered on every business journal as the industry’s new wunderkind because of his meteoric rise to the proverbial top.

In his short time as CFO, Tremaine added both a sports management agency and a foundation to the Forde empire, which skyrocketed the family’s net worth. Everyone wanted to know how the single father and former college athlete became the second-in-command of an almost billion-dollar company relatively overnight. Not even the nepotism of being Ayda’s boyfriend could explain Tremaine’s fortune, but I knew the answer. I could explain it. In fact, I was looking right at it, and it was her — Ayda Forde.

She was a Godsend, an angel; at least, that was how I made all of this make sense to myself. It had to be God.

Your brother blowin my high. Thirty minute convo about cuff links & I’mma still wear what I want.

A text message from my brother’s best man, Davin Osei, pinged across my phone screen and I could barely hold in the laughter.

Woo, woo, woo. We have scorecards for the outfits. Wanna trade?

I quickly text him back with a gif.

Hell naw.

Davin zipped back in the message thread, but my heart was still on hold as he continued to type. Davin and I had been “friends” since college, so I knew him well enough to know that he could be typing anything right now on the other end.

I miss you. Hit me when you land back in D.C. tomorrow.

The first three words slammed into me as I read them and my legs clenched together. Texting Davin was one thing, but seeing him was something different. He was my friend, but he also pushed all of my buttons. Right now, our on-again-off-again relationship was off because we were both recovering from break ups.

But I knew he wanted to be “on”again for good. I did, too. The only thing left to figure out was how and when we were going to tell my brother.

“What’s wrong with you?” My mother’s voice cut through my flashbacks of Davin grabbing my neck and pulling my hair.

“Nothing.” I pretended to glance down at the bottle’s label while an assistant to the dress designer came over to refresh my glass.

Like I needed to get any hotter.

“Are these bottles of champagne monogrammed?”

I found something to comment on to keep my mother’s prying eyes from searching me further. The words ‘dress fitting for the future Mrs. Ayda Patricia Henley’ were neatly engraved onto the expensive champagne’s logo alongside the date. I shook my head at immediately knowing my brother was the culprit. He was behind all of this extravagance, a small token of his adoration for his bride-to-be.

“Isn’t it cute?” Ayda giggled, still staring at herself in the mirror. “He is the sweetest.”

My mother and I glanced at each other before snickering a little. No one had ever said those words about my brother before, but that was the power of love. The playboy formerly known as “trickin’ Tremaine” was now dubbed “the sweetest.”

And, he was really getting married.