Chapter 5
DUTTON
“Cute,” I say as I snap a family picture of Shelly, Randy, Gabe, and Amber. It makes me smile how well they all seem to get along. I’m not sure I could be as cool as Gabe is with the man who is now married to his ex-wife—but they seem to make it work.
Shelly looks radiant tonight too—beaming with joy, clearly happy with where life has left her. I wish all families could be like theirs. Gabe and Shelly’s marriage may not have worked out, but they’re for sure making it all work and fit together for Amber. That’s all that matters.
And this little girl is one of the happiest kids I’ve ever met. “Thank you, Uncle Dutton,” Amber says, striding over to me in her maroon-colored velour dress, holding a doll in one hand and fiddling with the tool belt she apparently insisted on wearing with her other little hand.
The kid does what she wants, and saying that her parents are the only ones she has wrapped around her finger would be a total lie. Everyone in Oakley’s Crew is obsessed with this kid.
“No problem, kiddo. You make it easy to take pictures.” I raise my hand to my mouth like I’m telling her a secret. “Makes having to take pictures of all these ugly mugs around here much easier.” I wink at her, and she giggles.
“They aren’t that ugly,” she says loudly, which draws a lot of chuckles.
Shelly huffs in embarrassment. “Amber,” she scolds, but it’s playful.
“Uncle Dutton said it first.”
“He did. I heard him.” Walker saunters up and wraps his arm around my shoulder.
“But he just says that to make himself feel better, Amber.” He grips my chin.
“I mean, look at this face,” he teases, and Amber snickers, her cheeks rosy from the fireplace being way too stoked for this many people in the main part of the house.
“You love this face,” I counter, and Walker just grins, but he can’t argue with that.
“Get a room,” Gabe grumbles, bumping into me playfully as he picks Amber up, and Shelly and Randy follow to go talk to Oakley, leaving me alone with my man.
“You gonna take my picture?” he asks, his eyes lit up with happiness. He loves this party, and he loves his job, and he loves me. It’s a good feeling, seeing the man I love so full of joy.
“You want me to?”
He pulls me over to the tree I was using for the background but keeps our backs to it and leans into me, squishing our cheeks together. “Selfie.”
“I’m a professional photographer.”
He holds up his phone in front of us. “Just smile.”
And smile I do. I can’t do much else when this man is around. I grin, then turn my head so I can lay a kiss on his cheek just as he snaps the picture. He chuckles and shows me the picture, and I have to admit he captured the moment beautifully. All I see is two sappy men in love.
“I should hate it.”
“But you don’t.” He pockets his phone.
“Not at all.”
His eyes move to the camera I’m still holding because I’ve been using it to capture the party this evening. “You going to put that thing down for dinner at least?”
“What? You don’t think Oakley and Travis want candid shots of people eating?”
“I really don’t,” he says, playing along with the joke.
“I suppose I can put it down for a bit.” I notice Travis and Shelly are setting the table and put my camera down on the counter in the kitchen. But Jackson catches my eye, and I remember an encounter I saw a little bit ago between Asher and him.
“Hey, what’s up with Jackson and Asher?” I ask Walker but keep my voice down. I know Jackson brought a date tonight, but I’ve barely seen him with her—and that one moment with Asher seemed . . . intimate.
Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe I spend too much time looking through a camera lens, but I’ve learned to pick up on things that most people don’t see. And I swear I saw something there.
A spark.
“What do you mean?” Walker looks genuinely perplexed as he grabs an appetizer and pops it into his mouth.
“Is there something between them?”
That one sentence almost loses me a boyfriend because he immediately starts choking on the pig in a blanket he was chewing on.
I have to slap him on the back and hand him a drink to help him out.
His voice is still a little hoarse when he looks at me again, his eyes watery from choking. “Asher and Jackson?”
I shrug. “What? Would that be so weird?”
“Yes,” Walker says immediately, taking another swig of water. “Really fucking weird.”
“Um! I heard that, Uncle Walker!” Amber says, popping up out of nowhere, I swear. She wasn’t here a moment ago.
“Amber,” Shelly says, laughing. “Come help me with the silverware.”
“Sorry, kiddo,” Walker says.
“It’s okay, Uncle Walker!” she says before sprinting to the large dining room table to help her mother, and then Walker’s eyes are back on me, and his voice is quiet.
“Oakley’s Crew members don’t date each other. That would be a disaster.”
“Why’s that?” I ask, curious.
Because I suppose that makes a little sense. Walker and I couldn’t be more different, and Cane and Archie may be similar, but they don’t work together. I think they’d kill each other if they did.
“Because we’re all like brothers. And we’d kill each other.” I laugh because that’s what I’d kind of assumed.
“Oakley and Travis own the business, and they’re married,” I say triumphantly, like I won something.
“Yeah, and Travis can send Oakley out with any crew whenever he starts to annoy him.”
“Well, damn.” I grin. “You got me there.”
He tilts his head at me. “Why did you ask that anyway?” He glances to the side where Rebecca is standing, chatting away with Missy and Shelly. “He brought a date tonight.”
Rebecca seems like a really nice woman, and I don’t know Jackson all that well—though I’m starting to get to know the whole crew.
They’re like a big family—one I didn’t even know I wanted.
They’re pushy and loud. They care a whole hell of a lot, and they’re nosey as shit, but I wouldn’t change them one bit.
They’ve become my family too. And I don’t see even a quarter of the spark when Jackson is near Rebecca that I saw in the half second I caught with Asher and him.
“No reason. Just curious,” I say. “I’m starving.”
He looks suspicious but doesn’t call me on it and instead takes my hand, leading me to our spot at the table.
Dinner is chaos and not because of the five-year-old. Nope, it’s the big kids.
Laughing it up and threatening a food fight—which I’m pretty sure has Travis clenching with nerves. Thankfully, no food is thrown, and it’s delicious.
Like I said—family.