“Excellent, then we better sharpen up your knowledge on the characters tomorrow night.”
“Erm not tomorrow, Sawyer. Hammer and James are supposed to be coming tomorrow to talk about the wedding.” I knew I looked sheepish by the glare she gave me. “You did call them, right?”
“Not yet,” I grumbled, still reluctant to have my brother around.
“You’ll do it though, right?”
“Right,” I replied.
“Good. There, was that so hard?” she asked, knowing full well it had been for me. She looked pleased with herself. “I’ve asked Tricia and Lorna to come tomorrow evening after work as well. Lorna mentioned she’s flying home on Wednesday and Logan’s parents are only here until Thursday to free up Hammer to come over.”
Since when did everything happen to other people’s timetables? When I saw the excitement in her baby blue eyes I knew forgiving my brother had meant a lot to her, and I had to agree the wedding would be easier to handle if all of my family were on speaking terms.
“If we invite them over it’ll just be something informal. Us girls can discuss some of the finer details and I’ll Skype with your mom, Tammy, and Caitlin later in the week,” Billie suggested.
“From the groom’s point of view, there’s not much to discuss. I pull on a tux and turn up looking sober, Hammer will be around to make sure I don’t duck out and James …” I shrugged. “He can help Hammer stay sober enough to do the first part.”
Billie flashed me a sarcastic smirk and shook her head. “You do still want to get married, yes?”
My eyes softened and I grinned. “That’s the one thing I’m cast iron sure of,” I replied and bent to take her mouth in a kiss. Before we got carried away, she pulled her head back and stared intensely into my eyes.
“You’ll call Hammer and James now?” she insisted, and I smirked knowingly.
“Sure, I’ll do it in a minute.” My response was rewarded with a slow and sensual kiss until I cupped the back of her head and pushed us closer together. A semi-hard-on grew in my pants until Colby’s voice cut into our intimate moment.
“Who’s James?” his inquisitive little voice asked. As far as I was concerned a bucket of ice water would have been far less disruptive to my mood. Worse than this, I figured his constant questions were a nosy disposition inherited from his mother.
Colby wasn’t growing any further on me when he became super excited about having a real uncle, until I explained, Jonathan was Tammy’s husband and Geoff was Caitlin’s so he had two uncles already.
“But they’re not your brothers, that’s a special uncle because he’s next to you and you’re going to be my stepdad.”
“I suppose,” was all I had in a reluctant reply when I looked over toward Billie, who bit back a grin. She knew her kid was riling the fuck out of me and I had no argument for what he had to say.
“I wish I had a brother,” he said in a moping tone. “Or a sister,” he added, quickly. “It’s boring being just me.”
When I looked back at Billie the smile had gone, but it was my turn to grin because without even realizing it, Colby had leveled us both in thought with his innocent comments again.
Chapter Fourteen
Taking in a deep breath, I felt my whole ribcage expand wider than I ever knew it could before I blew it out in a slow controlled manner. Billie’s arms were around James’s neck and his hand rested on her lower back in return. The hug was quick, and most would say innocent, but no matter how reassuring they both had been, I wasn’t readily willing to trust him … not yet … maybe not ever.
“Thanks for inviting me, Sawyer,” James said, a look of hope in his eyes that I couldn’t quite manage to respond to. I almost kicked myself for leaving their names with security to send everyone up. It had meant I hadn’t been given those last couple of minutes to compose myself, had I known he was on his way up.
“No problem, we’re just waiting for Hammer and the others to get here. We’re going dry tonight, if that’s okay, for Hammer, I mean. Weddings, Thanksgiving, his birthday and New Year celebrations are his nemesis. James had been around when Hammer was a struggling addict and had seen his recovery from a distance.
“Coffee’s fine,” he stated, as he stood casually dressed in his five thousand dollar tailor-made suit and glanced around him.
“Take a seat,” Billie prompted. He followed her lead and sat nervously on the edge of the couch. I thought how eager he was, being the first of our guests to arrive. Billie sat beside him for a moment and behaved perfectly naturally toward him, which gave me a tight knot in my chest. It was only when she went down the hallway to see Colby for a moment that I realized I was supposed to make the drink, and had no idea how he drank it.
“Black?” I asked, lifting the pot from the machine and pouring the black liquid into a mug.
“Creamer too, if you have some.” This surprised me because it was how I drank mine, something we had in common, while the rest of the family drank theirs black.
“Are you my uncle?” Colby asked excitedly, his head poking around his bedroom door from the farthest room in the apartment. He practically skipped down the hallway and into the sitting room.
“Whoa, who’s this big guy?” James asked, immediately making Colby’s chest swell.
“I’m going to be your nephew,” Colby stated proudly. He was totally transfixed by the whole relative thing.
“You are? That must mean you’re…” he pretended to think, and Colby was immediately captivated by him. “Colby, am I right?”
“Yes!” he exclaimed. “You know me already?”
“I know of you because a few little people I’ve been spending some time with have talked about you nonstop.”
“Milly, Bella, and Brock?” he asked, catching on immediately. He was a smart little kid.
“Hey, are you a mind reader?” James teased, and I saw Colby loved all the attention. Same old James in this sense, he always did have a way of winning people over in the first few minutes that they met him.
“Did you know, your brother is going to be my stepdad?” he asked, like he was telling James something he may not understand.
“So I hear, and you want to know what I think? I think he’s going to be an awesome dad.” A knock on the door distracted me from reading too much into his comment. Strolling over to the door, I opened it and saw Tricia soaked to the skin but still smiling.
“I’ve been around every wine bar in town looking for my shining knight in Armani, but he failed to show up. I guess his stalker thought it was too wet to hang around him today.” I grinned warmly at her and shook my head.
“You’re a freak,” I teased. “Let’s get you inside. I thought you’d blown us off in favor of a church coffee evening or something.” Tricia shrieked with laughter when I referenced an excuse she’d used for leaving Billie and I alone the first night I met her. My girl had obviously taken Colby back to bed and when she heard Tricia laughing, she came rushing down the hallway to meet her.
Tricia broke the hug and stepped back, her hungry eyes falling on my brother. I knew immediately when she glanced toward Billie with big round eyes, she was interested. I briefly wondered if Billie told her about all the issues we’d had between us and decided this thought was wasted. Tricia and Billie had the kind of relationship that most of us aspired to have with the one special friend who always had our back.
“Tricia,” she offered, immediately making a beeline for James without waiting to be introduced.
James stood, smoothed his jacket down, and shook the hand she held toward him. “James Wild, Sawyer’s brother,” he replied in a smooth tone, like there was any doubting who he was. We looked and sounded practically the same.
“I know,” Tricia said in her understated way, and sat on the couch next to him before he retook his seat. When James sat down, she was almost in his lap and I couldn’t help the small chuckle that escaped my throat. My brother turned his head sideways and looked at her, and even I saw his star
e was a little too long.
“You look freakily like your brother,” Tricia blurted out, still staring at him and James’s curious eyes shifted from hers to mine.
“You think?” he asked. I knew he was looking at my beard when he smoothed his bare chin, before he looked back at her.
“Yeah, but Sawyer’s the slightly dark and dangerous version of the two, you’re more like the James Bond one.”
“You’re James Bond?” Colby asked, excitedly from his bedroom door again.
“Colby Drummond, get your butt back into bed, it’s not going to be fun in the morning when you won’t get up for school,” Billie admonished, in her best authoritative hot mom tone.
“Only one more question, Mom, I promise, is Uncle James, James Bond?” he asked in a whiny voice.
“No, it’s Tricia behaving like a crazy bag lady, as usual,” Billie chided, glancing at Tricia who shrugged.
“So, you’re a bag lady?” James asked, his face and voice tone perfectly serious, and I’d forgotten how quick he was at regaining control of situations in conversation.
“Only on Mondays and Thursdays, Wednesdays I work at the Food Bank and the rest of the week I work with Billie.” Both James and I chuckled at her equally quick comeback.
James shook his head, but I could see his head was turned by her. “I like you,” he admitted, deadpan.
“Well, the jury is still out from the judge’s bench on my end,” Tricia warned. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to impress me. I can make my own mind up, and I’ve met enough shady fuckers in my life already.”
The smile James wore immediately froze. For a moment, I was a little taken back by Tricia’s pointed comment, but I knew it had been said with the best of intentions. Billie obviously hadn’t brought her up to speed on the latest version of events.
When the doorbell rang again, Lorna and Hammer arrived together, and it appeared Lorna had spoken to Hammer and arranged to pick him up from Billie’s old address. Until then I hadn’t known they communicated independently of me.
Finally, Colby settled in bed and everyone sat around the dining table drinking coffee and eating cake Billie had brought home. Taking her laptop out, she began taking notes, with the input from everyone else, to organize our wedding day.
Chapter Fifteen
A week before the wedding, it occurred to me Billie hardly knew any of my friends, apart from Aiden, Jenson and the guys in the band. Since the start of the year, our lives had been all about managing other people or moving home and very little about us.
With all of this in mind, I decided to arrange a pre-wedding party at The Penthouse on the twenty-first floor of The Standard Hotel. This provided a relaxed environment for my cousins, friends and Billie’s friends to get to know one another. Fortunately, my sisters had flown in earlier that week as well.
Until then, 1 OAK nightclub had been my usual hangout, but occasionally I preferred the low-key vibe at Le Bain because it didn’t draw as much attention from the celebrity seekers or celebrities, for that matter, 1 OAk did.
My parents were already busy receiving guests at the house as some of our other relatives arrived early in order to spend some time with them.
When I first suggested the party to Billie, she appeared a little off until she said it was because she had no one to invite. In the end Tricia, Tricia’s parents, Betty and Lester, her older Marnie and her husband, Franco her boss, Karl, and two women, Joslin and Gretta who she used to work with all came. I reminded her my sisters would be there, and kept my friends invites to the closest ten and their partners or plus ones so as not to make her feel too outnumbered.
Once my relatives were added there were plenty of people. The only other person I’d have like to have been there was Kevy, but he couldn’t find someone to cover his bar. It had felt weird not having Hammer there, but I knew that was totally for the best. Although he could enjoy himself without a drink, Wiggy had been due out of rehab any day at the time, and he knew he’d needed his A-game for this. So being mindful he gave himself a break by not putting temptation in his way.
Thankfully, Logan was doing better, dry and motivated by Colby to stay that way. Hammer was still in residence at his place, but felt Logan was staying strong. Thankfully, he’d found employment in Bergenfield Public Library and his parents came through for him again and had traveled from Florida to support him during the wedding.
Billie told me they were moving back to New York permanently to be near their son and grandson, and I was especially glad about this, as it gave Billie less to fret over on the lead up to our wedding day.
James had taken care of the reservation at The Penthouse at the Standard and Le Bain for us all, in case we wanted to go to the club. When he had suggested this venue, I had agreed the space was ideal, and with James being a well-known party animal it hadn’t proved difficult to secure the spots, since the management there knew him well.
Eventually there were sixty-eight people there; including a few members of Tricia’s family, which had turned out to be the perfect number as the atmosphere was intimate and relaxed and the music played at a level where people hadn’t had to shout.
Billie had looked sensational in a short black silk halter-neck dress with an A-line skirt that fell just above her knees, black silk stockings, and ruby red stiletto heels that matched the lipstick she wore.
Watching her move elegantly around the room took my breath away. She looked like a movie star with her petite frame and the cute way she carried herself with pride. My hungry eyes took everything in, from her long dark curls that flowed freely down her back to the beaming smile on her face, and the feeling of pride that swelled in my chest stole my breath again.
When I had seen her stop and talk to people she had never met before it made my heart clench tight, because I knew she wasn’t used to being the center of attention and this didn’t come naturally to her.
“She’s stunning,” Josh, James’s best buddy since we were kids, told me when he caught me staring at her.
“She is,” I agreed, without reservation.
“Got any sisters?” he asked, wistfully.
“Nope, she’s one of a kind,” I told him with a chuckle.
“Story of my life,” he muttered, seriously.
“You’re hanging out in all the wrong places, my friend.”
“It would appear so, since I’m here with Meribelle,” he added, nodding at his sister.
I chuckled. “Yeah, that’s illegal,” I replied, staring straight into his eyes then widening mine.
He laughed. “Good to see you and James are on speaking terms again,” he informed me, and I felt some of the glee in my heart ebb a little. “He told me what happened at the time and swore me to secrecy. I understood he was scared, but he should have told you.” I nodded, not wanting to talk about this anymore and caught the eye of my friend, David.
“Excuse me, David wants to speak with me.” Thankfully, my friend, David, was looking at me at the time so I left Josh standing and walked over and stood beside him. David St. John was special to me for the same reason Brian was. He was the guy who had arranged Brian’s bachelor party and if it hadn’t been for his madcap idea, I may never have met Billie.
“Am I a decoy?” he asked, immediately reading the uncomfortable scene that had begun to develop.
“Something like that,” I said with a chuckle and warmly slapped his back for having mine. We stood talking for a few minutes and my eyes drifted over to where Billie stood. Our eyes immediately connected and mid-sentence she smiled.
I couldn’t begin to describe what I felt in that moment as love poured from my heart, as I looked at her and her eyes softened, projecting her love for me in return. We kept to our pact and stared at the other until I guessed she’d counted to twenty when she eventually looked away. All conversation had stopped until we’d shared our moment and made things awkward for everyone else. Although we were already together, the feeling of knowing she was going to be offic
ially mine forever overwhelmed me and I needed to touch her.
Excusing myself I walked toward her, her smile widening with every step as she took me in, and just as I reached her the lighting dimmed and the music shifted to a more intimate mood in the room. Ed Sheeran’s “I’m in Love With The Shape of You” began to play, and I grinned because it was the perfect song for the way I felt about the beautiful woman who was about to be my wife.
People had been dancing in The Penthouse for more than an hour while Billie and I spent the time making pleasantries with our guests, but I took this as my cue to rescue my girl and give her some time to breathe.
“Enough, if you’ll excuse my fiancé, I want her to myself for the next few minutes,” I stated, smiling down at her. I slid my hand around her waist and pulled her into my chest. “Did I mention how thoroughly ravishing you look in this dress?” Billie’s cheeks immediately flushed pink, even in the dimness, and it made me smile as I steered her toward the dance floor.
As we moved out of reach, she glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, I know this. I feel especially sexy with these lacy stockings and garters, Tricia insisted I buy from Victoria’s Secret,” she murmured seductively, as her nervous eyes darted left and right to ensure no one heard her. The grin on my face made it ache.
“Fuck, you’re kidding me,” I said, spinning her around by her arm and holding her close front to front, knowing full well she wasn’t. I had already clocked the sexy seam that ran up her legs from the moment she came out the bedroom earlier. Not only that, I’d fantasized about running my fingers slowly from her heel to her panties under the pretty dress she wore.
“Would I do that to you?” she teased. “Not so sure about the crotchless panties though, they’re pretty drafty in this dress.” I stared in disbelief at her newfound confidence to talk back to me with sass. I loved this version of Billie equally as much as the quiet nerdy version she presented at home until I got her into bed.
“Crotchless? You wouldn’t dare, Ms. Collier.”
Dare Me, Part Two Dare Duet Sawyer and Billie: Unchained Attraction Series Page 13
