Jolene

Hollande had been running around all morning making sure that everything was ready for today. She loved having friends over for barbeques, it was her favorite thing to do honestly. But, after being away for so long, the house was not ready for it. She was half convinced that Zacky didn’t even touch the pool while she was gone because it had been so cloudy when she opened it up two days ago. It was better now but she knew the chlorine was a bit high and she worried about how that would affect the others who showed up.

It wasn’t supposed to be a big get-together. There were two types of parties that were hosted typically – the large all day events where everyone and their brother came and the small lowkey events that were mostly just composed of the band and the family. Hollande prefers the small events because it was so much easier for her to keep tabs on everything, but they were always being invited to the larger parties and those just made her head swim. Since she’d only been back for about a week, this one was just going to be the band and some of the extended band family and she was grateful for that. Lowkey was exactly what she needed in her life.

She was beyond grateful when Lacey and Johnny had finally shown up because it forced her to stop cleaning. It wasn’t long after them that Kelly and Brooks arrived and then the rest of the crew slowly started rolling in. Regardless, just having the people around made her feel better. It was finally a breath of fresh air to have people around again other than Zacky. Zacky’s sister had come as well bringing her children and husband which thrilled Hollande because she loved spending time with Zina. Growing up as an only child, she’d basically adopted Zina as an older sister when she started dating Zacky and was glad for the partial sibling relationship it afforded her.
“Oh, hey, Hollie!” Zacky called walking over to his girlfriend who sat seated at a picnic table with his sister. “I forgot to tell you, a friend I met at the golf course is coming over too. Is that chill with you?”

“Yea, I don’t care.” Hollande shrugged and Zacky nodded happily before walking off again to join in with the guys at the pool.

“When are you two getting married?” Zina joked watching her brother walk away.

“Probably never. Other things keep getting in the way.” Hollande responded lightly not really digging too much into the issue. It used to bother her, but with everything that had been going on in her life recently, she was thankful to not have that on her shoulders anymore.

She and Zacky had a decent relationship – in that they’d been friends for almost 15 years and dating for the better portion of that time as well – but the idea of marriage had been postponed indefinitely at this point. They’d originally gotten engaged around eight years ago, and were planning on getting married. Everyone expected it and they were happy with each other. When Jimmy died though, that had thrown them both off. Hollande had been best friends with Leana and pulled away from everyone to help support her. Zacky called off the engagement and they went close to a year without talking to each other. After some prodding on Zina’s part, the duo had gotten back together and they’d started talking again but it had never really been the same after that. At this point, they’d only been continuously dating for about 5 years. He’d proposed shortly after they started dating again but she’d turned him down because she wasn’t convinced he was genuine about it – she was pretty sure it was just him proposing because he thought it was expected. Since then, they rarely brought up the topic when speaking to one another. A large portion of Hollande wanted to marry Zacky and have kids, but she knew it was a sore subject with him.

“It’s a shame. I was so looking forward to being your maid of honor.” Zina sighed and Hollande laughed. Zina had claimed the title of maid of honor before they’d even started dating.

“Maybe one day. I’m pretty sure he’s still angry I turned him down last time.” Hollande confessed with a small sigh. Zacky and grudges went together like peanut butter and jelly. She loved the man, but he was not good at letting go of the past.

“Geez, I don’t know what he expected. You were dating for what 2 weeks?” Zina rolled her eyes and flicked her hair over her shoulder. “He gets caught up in his feelings so much.” She groaned dramatically.

“That’s what I like about him though. He never half-asses anything. It’s always all or nothing with him.” Hollande said with a small smile as her eyes followed Zacky around as he fucked around with the guys at the pool.

“You two are disgustingly cute together.” Zina said with a laugh as she realized that Hollande was staring at Zacky from across the yard.

Hollande heard a car door shut and realized that Zacky’s new golf buddy must have arrived. Zack had been going on about this guy, Joe, for the entire week and how excited he was to have someone other than Matt to play with. Matt was hardly consistent in golfing with him since the kids had been born and Hollande knew how much he liked going on a weekly basis.

“I should go greet the company.” Hollande murmured excusing herself from Zina and walking around to the driveway where Zacky had already run off.

“Hollie, perfect timing!” Zacky exclaimed as Hollande rounded the corner. Hollande felt her jaw go slack as she came face to face with two beautiful young women. “This is Jo and her roommate, Olivia. Jo’s the golf partner I’ve been telling you about. Jo, Olivia, this is my girlfriend Hollie.” Zack introduced.

“Jolene, or Jo.” The redhead started off offering her hand to Hollande who smiled weakly and accepted it.

“Olivia,” The other one said reaching out and shaking hands as well.

“Hollande. Or Hollie. Whichever you prefer.” Hollande answered softly.

Jolene looked almost exactly like one of Zacky’s high school girlfriends and it made Hollande’s breathe catch in her throat. She was everything Zacky had always been attracted too. The long bright auburn hair that curled gently over her shoulders, the bright emerald green eyes that held equal parts of friendly and seductive, and the bright smile with perfectly arranged teeth. She even had cute dimples!

Olivia was cute as well – short cut brown hair and deep chocolate brown eyes. But the difference was that Zacky hadn’t spent the last week talking about how great Olivia was. Olivia wasn’t the epitome of every girl Zacky had ever dated before Hollande. Jolene was. And that terrified Hollande.

“Come on, lemme introduce you to everyone else.” Zacky said with a smile sweeping the two girls away and leaving Hollande to trail behind them.