But afterward? He’d convince Paisley to get the hell out of here early so he could enjoy firsthand the treasures concealed by her dress. He’d been enjoying them for a while now, and as much as he hated clichés, every time was like the first time. No reason to stop other than he was getting way too comfortable with the entire situation. There were times he forgot the engagement was an act, nothing more. Nothing real. Only it felt real. Yeah, he thought he loved her, but what the fuck did Zeke know about love? He’d never seen or experienced anything like this in his twenty-four years.
He forced his gaze and thoughts from Paisley.
Sadie stood in front of him staring at her feet and pushing a rock around with the toe of one of her shiny black shoes. All his frustration and anger toward being manipulated into this situation faded, to be replaced by a warm glow that started somewhere in the middle of his chest and spread as slowly as the sun burning through a foggy Seattle morning.
Sadie lifted her head. Those big blue eyes of hers met his gaze, and he was a goner. She’d wriggled into his heart. Try as he might, he couldn’t throw her out. She looked cute as hell. A protective, almost fatherly feeling rolled over him, shocking him in its intensity. Rattled, he shook it off.
Zeke bowed low in front of Sadie, more to hide the shaking inside than anything else. His clumsy attempt at gallantry was rewarded with a big smile, and she giggled. She’d been doing a lot of that lately, and his chest filled with pride, knowing he’d played a small part in putting that smile back on her pretty little face.
“May I escort the beautiful lady to the ball?”
Sadie giggled some more, ducking her head, but nodding vigorously. She managed a curtsy, looking like a fairy princess in her lacy pink dress with the flouncy skirt. Lately, she’d been on a princess kick, watching every kid movie with a princess in it over and over. He’d seen Cinderella so many times in the past month, he knew the damn movie by heart.
Zeke took Sadie’s hand. Not to be outdone, Sophie grabbed his other hand. She wore a similar dress in purple.
He tried to tell himself his affection was all for show, but deep down he knew he was bullshitting only himself.
“Brayden,” Zeke called to the boy inspecting a bug on one of the bushes nearby. “Why don’t you escort Paisley? I have my hands full with these two beautiful ladies.”
Brayden nodded solemnly, and Paisley took his arm. They looked like a family as they walked up the grand front entry of the old family mansion currently occupied by Sockeyes owner Ethan Parker and his new wife, Lauren.
Zeke’s house was impressive in its size, but it didn’t hold a candle to this place. The girls stared in awe at the huge entryway with its sweeping mirror staircases. Brayden blinked several times. Something private and wondrous lodged near Zeke’s heart as the boy looked up at him, as if for guidance. Zeke smiled down at him reassuringly.
They were escorted to the back lawn. Paisley was seated in the second row with the kids. Zeke bent down to give her a kiss on the cheek.
“That ring looks great on you.”
“Thank you. I love it.” Her eyes sparkled, and no one would ever guess this was all an act. He had to hand it to Paisley. She was so convincing as a woman in love, he believed it himself. Maybe it had something to do with some damn fine sex all week long. They’d burned those sheets to a crisp.
Reluctantly, Zeke was hustled off to the area where the groom’s party was gathered. He braced himself and forced his best fake smile as he entered the large room. He paused in the doorway to take stock of the situation before anyone noticed him.
The men, all fit and athletic, were dressed in matching tuxes like his. He knew Cooper Black, the captain of the Sockeyes, and of course, his brother Tanner. A few other guys were standing around whom he recognized as Sockeyes, but judging by their apparel, weren’t part of the wedding party. Zeke noticed the photographer, Bernie, snapping candid shots, and a videographer. He did a double take. She didn’t look like Bernie. She looked—pretty.
She turned and saw him, still snapping shots.
Crap.
Clearing his throat, Zeke strode into the room and up to his brothers, who were watching him approach. Zeke grinned and slapped Tanner on the back, giving his hand a quick pump. He turned to Isaac and gave him a manly hug.
“Congratulations, bro. How you managed to convince a lovely lady like Avery to tie the knot with the likes of you is beyond me.” He kept the smile on his face. To a casual observer it was all typical brotherly bantering, but Isaac’s jaw twitched. Just once. Other than that, they were the perfect picture of three loving brothers.
And it was all perfect bullshit.
They made small talk about sports. His brothers complimented him on his season so far, which was actually turning out to be a good one. He made a few comments about their own seasons.
Pictures were snapped at an alarming rate, including several of the three brothers grinning for the camera with their arms around one another.
As the wedding time approached, Isaac began to pace and wring his hands. It was comical to see his badass brother reduced to a bundle of nerves over a woman. Zeke loved it.
Ethan Parker poked his head in the door. “Fifteen minutes, gentlemen.”
The color drained from Isaac’s face. He looked ready to throw up or pass out. Maybe both. Zeke had to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Isaac said in a squeaky voice meant to be intimidating but sounding more like his brother had inhaled some helium. Zeke laughed harder. Tanner and Cooper joined in.
“You sound like a girl,” Tanner said.
“He’s acting like a girl,” Zeke added. The two brothers fist-bumped.
Cooper snorted. “He is a girl. You should hear him whine when he gets slammed into the boards.”
“I don’t whine.” Isaac defended himself, and a little color returned to his cheeks.
Zeke may not like his brother, but he liked Avery, and he’d hate to see her huge wedding ruined by a groom heaving all over her gorgeous dress the second he said I do. Their digs on Isaac’s manhood distracted him enough to waylay some of his nerves.
“He’s always been like that.” Zeke added.
“Yeah, he sure as fuck has,” Tanner agreed.
“You’re both delusional.”
Tanner turned to Cooper. “He thinks we’re delusional?”
Cooper raised a brow. “Yeah, you should hear him on the phone with Avery. He turns into a fucking pussy. He’s even written a few poems—”
“That’s enough,” Isaac interrupted. His glare promised homicide, but the guys just chuckled.
“Poetry, huh?” Zeke raised a brow in his brother’s direction.
“Maybe one or two. They weren’t very good.”
“Oh my God. You’re pussy-whipped.”
Tanner grinned. “He’s whipped, all right.”
“And you aren’t?” Isaac shot back. “Who plants a new rosebush for his wife for each month they’ve been together?”
“She loves roses. I’m all for something that gets me satisfaction in the sack.”
“If bribery is the only way you can get satisfaction, you might want to work harder on your delivery,” Isaac said with a triumphant smirk.
Tanner glared at his brother, while Cooper and Zeke snorted.
“You’re on, boys,” Ethan said from the doorway.
They filed out of the room, but Zeke hung back, waiting for the rest of them to exit. He felt like a traitor because he’d actually enjoyed their brief moment of being a family. Such thinking was ludicrous and would only get him slapped down in the end. He couldn’t trust them. Not for a minute. They were selfish assholes who only cared about themselves. He hated them, he reminded himself, and for very good reasons.
Try as he might, Zeke hadn’t been able to heal the damage wrought by their father and his brothers’ indifference to his situation. Bile rose up in his throat as he purposely recalled the abuse he’d suffered and the promises both brothers had made but n
ever kept to extract him from the situation.
He could play the game as well as anyone, but at the end of the day, nothing had changed.
Nothing.
Tanner waited for him near the door. Everyone else had left. Zeke frowned and stopped a few feet away.
“Watch it. You might actually end up liking us, Z.”
Zeke set his jaw, certain it’d explode from the pressure. “Never happen.”
“I used to think like you. Holding on to the hate hurts you and those you love more than it hurts the people you’re hating.”
“I don’t love anyone.”
Tanner raised a brow, his expression one of skepticism. “What about that sweet fiancée of yours?”
“It’s convenience. Nothing else,” he lied.
“Yeah, I used to tell myself the same thing. Guess what? You’re full of shit. You do care. Too much, or shit wouldn’t get to you like it does. You’re not fooling anyone but yourself, little brother. We’re going to wear you down, because we’re not giving up on you. We need one another. All three of us.”
“I don’t fucking need either of you. My life is just fine without your brand of brotherly love.”
“It would’ve broken Karen’s heart to see us like this.”
Low blow. The lowest, in fact.
Zeke pushed past Tanner and strode down the hall. Tanner had said the one thing that he knew would get past Zeke’s defenses. Zeke was shaking, and sweat broke out on his forehead. He felt almost light-headed. Desperately, he sought an escape, a place to hide for a few minutes while he composed himself.
He stopped dead when he saw the wedding party, waiting for their turn to walk down the aisle.
Shit.
There was no escape, not from his brothers, and not from the pain gripping his throat in a vise. He wiped his sweaty palms on his dress pants, used the sleeve of his tux to swipe at his forehead, and closed his eyes, counting to ten.
With a smile so forced it hurt, he walked forward with a deceptively casual gait.
He was tugged him into position next to Cooper’s wife, Izzy, one of the sisters of the bride and a bridesmaid.
“You’re looking good, Zeke,” Izzy said with a demure smile, as cool and calm as he was a hot mess.
“You’re looking great, Izzy.” Goddamn, that confident voice couldn’t have come from him.
She merely nodded, put her hand through his arm, and led him forward as they started their walk down the aisle.
Zeke tried every relaxation and mind-clearing technique he’d learned over the years—deep breathing, focusing on pleasant things, hell, even imagining Paisley naked.
“Relax,” Izzy whispered. “You’re not the one getting married. There’s nothing to be nervous about.”
He wasn’t fooling her, even though she didn’t have a clue regarding the true reason for his tension.
Zeke nodded and drew in another deep breath. He took note of the people seated on the vast expanse of lawn with the sweeping views of Puget Sound. The guests were a who’s who, representing Seattle sports and Seattle money. He doubted the city had ever seen so much power and so much muscle in one place since its founding fathers had come ashore.
He made the mistake of glancing around and met Tanner’s concerned gaze. Zeke narrowed his eyes and looked away, the picture of indifference on the outside, or so he hoped.
Playing nice to his brothers for the next several hours was going to kill him. At least he’d have Paisley by his side once the wedding was over. She had a calming influence on him. He needed that right now. Desperately. He glanced her way. She was watching him. Her radiant smile wiped out his anger and replaced it with something he couldn’t define. The world became a brighter place, and his brothers faded to inconsequential mile markers on the road he was traveling. Better to keep them in the past and never go back down those roads again.
He didn’t need them, despite Tanner’s threat that they wouldn’t give up on him. Guilt did powerful things to a guy, and they must be feeling some hefty guilt. Only they didn’t even know the half of it. The truth was hidden in places a person couldn’t see, such as his heart.
No one could fix him, and his brothers brought back bad memories, not good ones.
He took his place next to Tanner, while Isaac fidgeted under the arbor. The guests stood and turned as Avery came down the aisle. Even Zeke did a double take. She looked gorgeous, and she only had eyes for Isaac. Her radiant smile could’ve lit up the entire city of Seattle.
This was how love looked.
He’d never seen love so clearly on display. He’d seen lust, but not this. There weren’t words to explain it.
His chest tightened. For one frightening moment, he feared he might be on the verge of a heart attack until he recognized the pain for what it was. Zeke wanted what his brothers had. He wasn’t just jealous. Jealousy he could handle. He’d been jealous of his brothers before. This went deeper than that. They’d found normalcy; despite their destructive childhoods, they’d moved on and healed.
Zeke hadn’t. As much as he denied it, he was still trapped in the past. Zeke wanted to be loved. He wanted to be needed. He wanted—
Loneliness and longing were the origin of the pain in his chest.
Like a magnet pulling him in, his eyes locked on Paisley. She was watching the ceremony with her hands clutched to her heart and tears in her eyes. As if she felt the intensity of his gaze on her, she looked his way. Their eyes met.
She wanted it, too. What his brothers had. What their wives had. She wanted it. Just like he did.
His gaze dropped down to the ring on her finger and back to her. For the first time, he wondered if maybe he could possibly make a go of a relationship. After all, his brothers had; why not him?
He managed a weak smile, and Paisley’s returning smile flashed brighter than millennial fireworks.
The ache in his chest lightened, and a ray of hope warmed the coldness inside.
* * * *
Paisley didn’t know what had just happened minutes ago, but something changed between Zeke and her. He sought her out as soon as the wedding ended and didn’t leave her side. The kids took off to run around the lawn with the other children. The Parkers had thought of everything, including activities for the children with professional childcare workers doing the supervision, leaving the parents to enjoy the party worry-free. Even so, Paisley couldn’t help keeping one eye on the kids.
“They’re fine,” Zeke told her, making it sound as if they were an old married couple.
“It was a beautiful wedding.” Paisley sighed.
“Too big for my taste.”
“It was large, but it was done so well it seemed smaller and more intimate.”
Zeke chuckled. “Sure, just like the seating for all those people under those tents seems small and intimate. I can’t believe my brother ever agreed to this media circus.”
“He was so nervous. It was sweet.”
“Yeah, I was waiting for him to puke all over her dress.”
She swatted at his arm. “Zeke.”
He shrugged. “I’m just being honest.”
Paisley shook her head. He was incorrigible, but she liked him that way. She liked everything about him, even though she shouldn’t. Zeke’s demons beat most people’s all to hell. She didn’t need to fall for a man with more issues than she had, but it didn’t matter what she needed. Her heart wasn’t listening to her head. It never did, and she never learned. According to her mother, she wasn’t capable of learning from her mistakes, not that her mother had room to talk.
Zeke took her hand as Bella and Cedric approached them. They chatted about a lot of nothing, the wedding, the look on Isaac’s face during the ceremony, and the chances of the Seattle teams in their respective championships.
Everything was going well, and Zeke appeared to be avoiding his brothers until they sat down to dinner. They’d been seated at a round table with both brothers and their wives, along with Bella and Cedric. It made sense as t
hey were all related. So much for avoidance.
“Your children are adorable,” Emma gushed as she sipped her wine.
“Thank you. They’re actually my sister’s children, but I have custody.”
“Well, they’re precious.”
Paisley got the impression Emma would consider a black widow spider precious.
“So, little brother, how do you like Seattle so far?” Tanner asked as he tipped a microbrew to his mouth and took a generous gulp.
Zeke was silent for so long, Paisley elbowed him.
“It’s beautiful.” Zeke guzzled his beer and asked the waiter for another.
Paisley caught the glance between Tanner and Isaac. With the cameras off Zeke, he’d stopped playing the game and didn’t seem interested in polite conversation.
As silence fell at the table, Izzy spoke up. “When’s your wedding?”
“Late summer.” Paisley gave her usual answer.
“That’s not far off. Do you have a date set? A venue? Any kind of plans?”
“No, we’re going to elope.” Zeke interrupted before Paisley could answer.
Paisley glared at him. If she was going to have a fake engagement, she’d plan an imaginary dream wedding. “No, we’re not. We’re going to have a nice, intimate outdoor affair on the water with a maximum of seventy guests.”
“Yeah, like ours?” Isaac teased, winking at Avery.
“I’m sorry. It got a little out of control, and Izzy, is, well, Izzy.” Avery smiled at Isaac.
“It’s a wonderful wedding,” Izzy pouted.
“Izzy’s a little overbearing,” Cooper explained.
“A little? That’s like saying a mother grizzly is a little nasty.” Bella laughed and the twins joined in, while Izzy frowned.
“I can help with the planning,” Izzy volunteered.
“Oh, could you? That’d be wonderful. I don’t know where to start, but I do have ideas.”
“Absolutely.”
Zeke nudged her under the table and gave her a look. Paisley ignored it. He deserved this, since he wouldn’t play nice with his brothers.
“Zeke, I’m assuming you don’t have a strict budget for this wedding? We’ll need to spend top dollar at this late date.”
Bottom of the Ninth: Seattle Skookums Baseball (Game On in Seattle Book 6) Page 23
