Hi guys, I'm early with this as it practically wrote itself this morning. My goal is two chapters a week so I'm happy to give you this. Thanks to all the new and returning readers and keep sending me your M words.

As always, enjoy x

Chapter 3: Magical

Saturday 27th August 2016, 7.16pm, Aunt Tullie's house, Summerville, South Carolina

Completing the flower quartet of Camellia, Tulip, Magnolia and Rosalind with her arrival, Aunt Rosie brought in far more baggage than her matching monochrome LV luggage set. Compelled by Cammie's urgent call the night before about this mysterious man with no last name or melanin who had their niece acting out of character e.g. having fun, she'd managed to rope in two of her sons and their wives, and to get her eldest, Jason, off the military base for the evening. Rosie's tendency to create drama started at a young age, where she knew exactly what to say to get her sisters in trouble or to make them fight amongst themselves. The fact that she'd brought Jason and his infamous temper along, knowing the fourth tour he served took his ability to control it along with his left arm, was a big enough match to throw on the fire.

Until the moment Taylor saw the cars spilling out of the driveway and lining the street, he'd never questioned if it was a good idea or not. Beyond family, there were more and more people he couldn't recognise and it was then when he realised he might need a new place to live.

A few peeks at the window made Joss more and more apprehensive as it became clear how much her mother had used party planning and subterfuge to bring them to this point. As soon as she spotted Judge Winifred Brooks and her signature red tinted shades, her head started to spin. CeCe didn't know what to do when she started hyperventilating because she'd only seen it happen on TV.

"J.J., you want some water?" She asked, wishing someone else was around. Joss responded with a wheezing noise similar to the air leaving a balloon, scaring her down the hall for help.

Gregory was used to a certain amount of collateral damage to his wife's schemes, but he never thought Joss' panic attack would be part of it. "How long has she been like this?"

"About five minutes."

He figured since Joss was leaning against the wall and her bottom lip was trembling, she was getting better. "I'm very sorry, Joss. It's turned into a…production down there." She could hear his voice, but her throat was too tight to respond. And Gregory wasn't kidding, because Uncle Sterling was carrying his saxophone. "You know; I know a man with a bike who's pretty good at disappearing acts. He can get you out of here if you want…" CeCe watched him calmly talk her down with the gentle tone of his voice, and wondered where he learnt that from. "…and we all know she can get carried away, so just think of it as a party. No pressure." Joss took a few deep breaths until it came easier.

8.12pm, Aunt Tullie's house, Summerville, South Carolina

None the wiser, the party guests (including John, the guest of honour) assumed Joss was making a fashionably-late entrance. Cousin Jason broke the game of dominoes to greet her for the first time in years. "Josie, you look good." He side-hugged her with his surviving arm, she couldn't help but notice his wife Jackie was nowhere to be seen.

"So do you. Still giving the recruits hell?"

"Just keeping up standards. So where is the man in the suit?" He asked, scanning the garden for someone he heard stuck out like a sore thumb.

Her eyebrows furrowed with confusion at hearing the pseudonym she thought was dead and buried. "Who?"

"He means John." Aunt Rosie chipped in from the card table, since chipping in was her sport. "He should be easy to spot, seeing as he's…tall." She shuffled the dominoes in her hand. "I suppose you meet a lot of tall men at work, and there's a lot of tall men in New York. Oh, there he is." She called John over with a wave of her hand. As he approached, she appraised him with her eyes; Cammie was right about his eyes and the mysterious quality to them, he had definitely seen the inside of a gym, and he wore the devil out of the English-cut navy suit. She didn't miss that their outfits matched, or that Joss' shoulders dropped when he touched her back.

"John, this is Aunt Rosie, and my cousins Jason, Jeffery and Jermaine. They're brothers. And this is John."

"My pleasure." John expected the hand-crushing, macho handshakes from her cousins, but was almost blinded by the diamond tennis bracelet on Aunt Rosie's wrist. "That's…something."

"Oh, this old thing?"

"It's lovely." Joss agreed, hoping to walk John away as fast as she could. But Aunt Rosie wasn't having it.

"So John, I heard you all met at work. What line of work would that be?" She asked, seeing as no-one had pinned down that crucial piece of information.

"I'm an independent contractor." He replied, very aware that her cousins were sizing him up.

"In what?" Aunt Rosie persisted.

"All kinds of things." Joss explained, trying to walk the line of truth. "He works with his hands, mainly. That's how I met him."

"Tell me more." Aunt Rosie egged her on with the subtlety of a neon signpost.

"She arrested me. Something about a permit. It was all a big misunderstanding."

Joss let out a nervous laugh, because she'd never had help before. "So I let him go and I felt bad about it. Imagine my surprise when he turned up a few weeks later looking like this." That was enough for Rosie to let go of the bone for the time being, so that became the story they told all night.

Between talking Reggie out of riding John's bike, and seeing John interviewed by every family member on site, Taylor thought it might actually work out and he might even get away with his part in it. Ahh, sweet, naïve Taylor. It was all going so well, too well, right up to Evelyn's announcement that Gregory was joining Uncle Sterling's band for the evening. From the first four notes of the alto saxophone, Joss remembered the times this song made her drift off on her stakeouts with John. It was Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton and found herself swaying even though she claimed to hate it. And then everything happened in slow motion. People wondered why they weren't dancing, what he was whispering in her ear and what she was whispering back. So at the end of the song, amidst the applause, instead of the magical moment Evelyn was betting on; Joss led John back into the house by the hand and shut the door behind them, leaving Evelyn with egg on her face. "They just need a moment." She covered, before following after them.

"…You let my mother talk you into an arranged marriage?" Joss asked with gritted teeth, kicking off her shoes in the abandoned living room, as everyone was outside.

Before John could answer, Evelyn played Devil's Advocate. "It's not arranged if you already know each other."

"I can't believe you. I mean I can, but I can't." Evelyn knew she wasn't talking to her like that, so it must've been directed at John.

"Come on, Jocelyn, I'm not taking you out of school and selling you off for a bicycle, here."

"No, you're just strong-arming John into something he's not ready for."

John waited for an in to the conversation, though it appeared he wouldn't get one easily. "Who told you men are ever ready to get married? They do it for the benefits, Jocelyn, because they have to. And if you're lucky they actually love you."

Joss breathed the longest breath she ever had in her life; longer than the time Taylor came home with a fro-hawk, longer than the time Paul let him drive across state lines with a permit "for practice", and longer than the time Laskey tried to set her up at an HR-owned bar downtown.

John thought this silence was his opportunity. "Joss, it might be unorthodox, like everything that happens between us, but-"

She cut him off. "If the next words out your mouth are we ain't getting no younger, we might as well do it, I'm gonna smack you."

Usually he'd relish the thought, but that was actually a warning. So he said the only thing he felt was safe to say. "Marry me."

She called his bluff. "When?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe Monday."

"Monday?"

He barely thought about it; he was never one to back down from a challenge. "Monday after next."

"Fine." And with that, Jocelyn Hope Carter and John Something Lastname wrote a cheque their asses couldn't cash.