Free Weddings and Wasabi by Camy Tang Page A

“Oh, no you don’t!” He darted toward them, and Mimi shot him with a blast of water from the water cannon.

    “Go! Go! Go!” Edward took the stairs two at a time, Lex and Venus behind him. Trish helped Mimi soak her youngest brother while Jenn ran into the kitchen. She yanked open the drawer.

    Nothing.

    Where would they be? “Mimi!” Jenn whirled in the kitchen. She started pulling open drawers and cabinets.

    “Oven!” Mimi shouted from the living room. “Oh, you’ll pay for that—”

    Suddenly, Aunty Aikiko’s shrieking from upstairs sliced through the air. “What are you doing? What’s going on?”

    Jenn opened the oven door. Nothing inside but some rusty racks.

    She pulled on the broiler, but it stuck. She tugged again, straining against it. It groaned open.

    There! One of her pans. With a gigantic black spot in the middle. Aunty had burned something in her new pan!

    Jenn tucked the pan into the satchel she carried and kept searching. Thumps and bumps rattled the ceiling as the battle waged upstairs.

    Mimi and Trish rushed into the kitchen. “Hurry! The boys are forcing Edward, Lex, and Venus down the stairs!”

    “Where’s Ryden?”

    “He ran out the front door, the coward.”

    Mimi pulled open some cabinets. “Here are two of the pans.”

    Jenn found the fourth one under the sink. “We’ve got them all. Let’s go!”

    They hustled out of the kitchen, slipping a little on the water in the tiled foyer. “Retreat!” Jenn roared up the stairs, where her cousins and Edward were pelting and being pelted by water.

    They raced out of the house. Jenn activated the car unlock by remote as they ran, and they scrambled inside, followed by their male cousins.

    “Go!” Trish screamed as they clambered inside.

    Jenn turned the key even as she slammed the door shut. The engine gunned to life.

    The RAV4 screeched away just as the boys reached them, their hands pounding on the windows. Jenn just barely remembered to check for any other cars before pulling into the empty street. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the boys standing in the middle of the street, trying to run after them, getting smaller and smaller.

    They had done it!

    “We did it! We did it!” The cousins screamed and danced in Jenn’s kitchen like little girls again. “We did it!”

    Jenn pulled Edward into an exuberant hug. His arms tightened around her, and suddenly it was like those movie scenes where the action stops but the camera pans around.

    All she heard was the rushing of blood in her ears. All she felt was his solid chest, his strong arms. All she smelled was his musk, with a hint of thyme and verbena.

    And then suddenly the movie started playing again.

    He loosened his hold on her, releasing one arm to reach into his back pocket. “This calls for a real celebration.”

    “What do you mean?”

    He kept his eyes on her but didn’t answer. Instead, he spoke into the phone. “Mama? I’m bringing five beautiful ladies to dinner.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

    This must be what heaven is like , Jenn thought as Edward’s mother embraced her in a paella-scented hug. Mrs. Castillo was short and round, with a wide smile and wider arms.

    “Welcome, welcome!” She embraced Mimi as well. Venus, Lex, and Trish couldn’t make it, but Jenn and Mimi had jumped at the chance to eat Spanish home cooking.

    “You’re both too skinny! Come, we’ll fatten you up. I hope you like Spanish food.” Mrs. Castillo kept talking as she led them inside toward the kitchen. “Edward gave me so little notice, so I only made three courses, but I always make a lot of food since we have so many people. You all like Spanish food, yes?” She barely paused for an answer as they entered a gigantic kitchen boasting a huge dining table. “Here is everyone! Let me introduce them all.”

    People packed the room, adults and children. It reminded Jenn of her own family gatherings, except the Castillos seemed to speak in louder voices