Chapter 4
“You did tell your parents we were crashing their party this weekend, didn’t you?
” Raelynn asks, folding her arms over her chest and cocking her hip out to one side.
She’s been supervising Brody and me for the last five minutes as we unload the car.
Or as she likes to call it: helping. This is what always happens when it’s just the three of us.
If Savannah were here, they would have already found their way inside, and she’d be asking my mother this question instead of me.
“Who do you think told me to invite you?” I ask, heaving the final bag out of the trunk.
What in the hell did she pack in there? Bricks?
I swear, Rae would bring her entire closet everywhere she went if Brody would let her.
“You think I want to spend my three days off with you when I spend every other waking moment with you people?” I chuckle as her eyes narrow into thin slits and her lips purse.
“I’m kidding, Rae. Yes, they know, and they are very excited to see you. ”
This weekend is my parents’ annual Fourth of July party, and this year, they’ve lumped their wedding anniversary in with it.
Thirty years as husband and wife. Every year, they throw an over-the-top get-together for the holiday weekend, and I won’t make the mistake of calling it a simple party like I did the first year.
Mom was quick to correct me, calling it a jubilee—the James Jubilee.
“It’s more than a party, Wolf. This isn’t just about eating food and throwing some horseshoes across the yard.
It’s a celebration of our country, our family and friends, and the connection we all share,” she said.
Simply put, it’s a family reunion with a fancy name attached to it, but who am I to burst her bubble?
“Oh, finally! I was starting to think you’d forgotten the way home.
” I hear Mom’s voice from behind me. Turning over my shoulder, I see her walk across the driveway dressed in a pair of white linen pants and a red-and-white striped T-shirt.
Navy blue oval sunglasses push back her graying blonde hair, allowing her to get a better look at us.
“Goodness, you all look exhausted. Did you even go to sleep last night?”
“We slept on the plane,” I say, pulling her into an embrace, and she returns it with an extremely tight squeeze.
The three of us left for the airport straight from the arena after Thursday Night Commotion in San Francisco and spent the next ten hours trying to get whatever sleep we could before we landed in Albany.
Normally, an overnight flight wouldn’t be so bad, but normally, we’d be traveling in the comfort of Brooks Taylor’s private plane.
Unfortunately, the Brookses won’t arrive in Wexley Hollow until tomorrow morning.
Giving my mother another tight squeeze, I kiss her forehead. “It’s good to see you, Ma.”
“I’m glad you could make it, sweetie. We’ve missed you around here,” she says, patting my cheek. When we pull away, she embraces Brody first, then Rae. “I’m glad you both could make it for the weekend.”
“We couldn’t miss the James family reunion,” Brody says, and I glare at him over the top of her head. I have told each of them over the years never to call this weekend a family reunion.
“Oh, no, Brody,” Mom starts.
Here we go.
“It’s not just a family reunion, it’s a—”
“Jubilee,” I finish with a slight influx in my tone that earns a glare.
No matter how hard I try, I can never say James Jubilee without adding a little extra something to the name. The whole thing sounds pretentious and uppity, neither of which we are.
Time to change the subject before Mom gets carried away with a long explanation of the difference between the two events. “Anyone else here yet, Ma?”
“No, you’re the first. Everyone else will start arriving this afternoon, but no one will be here until tomorrow. I made sure of that. I wanted the five of you to have some time to relax and get settled in before the others arrive…Speaking of, where are Brooks and Savannah?”
“They’ll be here in the morning, Esther,” Raelynn says. “They had to make a stop in the city on the way here.”
“Running an Amos errand, I presume?” Mom’s brow cocks, an unimpressed look on her face. “It’s always work, work, work with those two.”
“Yeah, well, someone’s gotta do it, and they wouldn’t have it any other way,” I say, stooping down to grab an armload of bags.
“Another round, Wolf?” the bartender asks, looking up from the ice bin.
He scoops cubes into four different glasses.
He’s been going nonstop since we walked through the door about two hours ago, but has made sure we never go without a cold drink in hand.
I guess that’s one perk of being one of the more famous people in town, and the only one I care to take advantage of.
Wexley Hollow is to western Massachusetts what the Hamptons is to New York, minus the celebrities, with a better mix of locals, transplants, and summer tourists.
The Hollow, as we locals like to call it, is the perfect blend of historic New England charm and natural beauty with modern luxury, situated at the base of Mount Beckett and surrounding a fifteen hundred-acre lake, Beckett Reservoir.
We moved here a month before my fifth birthday and a year before my parents got married.
So, while I may not be a born-and-bred Hollow boy, it feels more like home than Willowbrook, Texas, ever did.
“Please, Jacob. A couple of waters, too.”
“I’ll have Sam bring them over.” He motions to the girl cleaning off two tables in the corner before another round of guests comes in behind her. She greets them with a polite smile, then turns on her heel and beelines for the bar with an eye roll.
“When the fuck is Caleb going to get here?” Sam groans, walking behind the bar. “We’re drowning out there.”
“Says he’s stuck in traffic.”
“Traffic my ass. He was out on the lake earlier. That fucker is probably still drunk. Don’t look at me like that, Jake. You know I’m right. That kid doesn’t care about this job any more than—”
“Take it up with the boss, Sam. Hey, grab Wolf another round, would you?” Jacob asks, turning his back on her. He carries the four drinks he’d been making to the women at the end of the bar, and they all swoon at the sight of the red, white, and blue cocktails.
“You want some water, too?” Sam asks, pulling my attention back to this end of the bar.
“If it’s not too much trouble,” I say, sliding a fifty across the counter.
“Anything for you, Wolfie,” she says with a wink, taking the money. I roll my eyes at the nickname, and she laughs. “I’ll bring them over to the table in a few.”
I’ve known Sam since we were kids. She’s a few years younger than me, but I played football with her brother, who loved to tease her about her crush on me.
My first summer home from wrestling school in Texas, I barely recognized her at the James Jubilee.
She’d grown out of the awkward teenage phase, blossoming into a full-grown woman, and let’s say, Sam and I have kept the details of that night a secret from her brother for the last sixteen years.
It was a textbook one-night stand that never went any further, and neither of us has ever shown any interest in pursuing something more.
But if you asked my ex-wife, she’d tell you I was fucking Sam every time I came home without her.
Talk about projection. In reality, it was her fucking whichever guy she’d picked out of her rotation.
The thought makes me shake my head. I’m over it, I swear I am, but there are days I wonder how I’d been so blind to her lies.
“What about Sam?” Raelynn asks when I return to our corner booth.
“What are you talking about?” Brody asks for both of us.
“Sam—the bartender. You’ve known her since you were kids, and you guys always flirt with each other. Have you ever thought about—”
“You cannot be serious.” I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I thought I told you and Savannah to butt out of my love life.”
“You did,” she confirms with a wide grin. “But it may not be a bad idea. You know her, you’re comfortable with her, and she’d go into it without any unrealistic expectations of your schedule.”
“She has a point, man,” Brody says, just as the woman they’ve been talking about appears with a tray of drinks.
“Here we go, guys!” Sam carefully plucks three glasses of water from the tray first, then our beers. “Anything else I can get you?”
I watch the idea form in Rae’s mind as she stares up at the other woman with a smirk in the right corner of her mouth. “Actually—”
“No!” I snap, glaring at my friend. My outburst earns a strange look from a few patrons around us.
“Okay.” Sam draws out the final syllable of the word, her brow cocked. “Well, if you think of anything, you know where to find me.”
“That wasn’t awkward at all,” Brody says, lifting the beer to his lips.
“Look, Rae, I appreciate you trying to ‘help,’ but I am not interested in pursuing a relationship with Sam,” I say, rubbing the space between my brows.
“She’s nice, but she’s not what I’m looking for.
I am perfectly capable of finding someone on my own, and when I do find someone I’m interested in, you’ll know. ”
Seconds later, our phones light up in the center of the table with a single notification, and Raelynn immediately reaches for hers. “What does she mean ETA twenty minutes?”
“Well, when someone puts the letters E-T-A, they are generally referring to their estimated time of—”
“I know what it means!” She lets out an exasperated sigh. “Savannah says they are twenty minutes out from the airport and asked if we’d bring home the pizza from Marie’s they just ordered. What happened to staying in the city?”
“They probably had to leave early or risk doing something else,” I say, taking a sip of my beer.
“Amos is going to squeeze every ounce he can out of them before they retire, or before Brooks decides he’s had enough of this shit and runs off to Hollywood for good.
We’re not exactly spring chickens anymore, y’know. ”
“Speak for yourself, Wolfie boy. I feel great,” Brody says, but his wife’s eye roll tells a different story.
Brooks and Brody are the two oldest guys on the active roster, and I can tell it’s starting to wear them down, regardless of what they might say.
I can see it in the way they carry themselves, the slight change in their posture, especially when they think no one is looking.
They’ve been doing this—wrestling—for over two decades.
Twenty-two years, if I remember correctly.
And as much as we all hate to admit it, they aren’t going to be around forever.
Physically, they can’t. There are plenty of days I wake up and wonder how in the hell I’m going to get out of bed and back in the ring after a brutal match the night before. I can only imagine how they feel.
“Come on, let’s go! We need to go if we’re going to pick up their food and make it back to the house on time,” she says, urging him out of the booth.
He pouts softly. “But I haven’t finished my beer.”
“Chug-a-lug, Reaper.” Rae laughs when his nose crinkles in response. “Your lack of college party experience is concerning.”
“It’s easy,” I say. “Just open your throat and let gravity do the rest of the work.”
“Speaking from experience?” Brody asks.
“So, I had a little fun while I was in school, sue me.” I shrug, lifting the bottle to my lips and doing exactly as I explained, swallowing the whole thing within two seconds.
Brody’s head tilts slightly, gaze narrowed. “I don’t know whether to be concerned or impressed by that display.”
Marie’s Pizza has become a staple in Wexley Hollow, opened by Baxter and Marie Fairchild over thirty years ago.
They haven’t changed a single recipe since opening, but every week they feature a new special with a funny name.
It’s typically a pun, and according to the chalkboard on the sidewalk, this week’s special is named How Do You Solve a Problem Like Mozzarella?
A reference to The Sound of Music, maybe?
It’s a white-sauce pizza with mozzarella, parmesan, garlic, spinach, red onions, and prosciutto…
Just reading the ingredients makes my stomach groan.
A few steps behind Rae and Brody, I walk inside the restaurant and am immediately smacked in the face by the aroma of fresh dough, cheese, garlic…Holy shit, I’m starving.
“I’m fucking starving,” Brody says, echoing my thought. “How mad do you think Savannah will be if we’re late because we had to wait for another pizza?”
“She’d be pissed,” Rae says, appearing at his side. “But you don’t have to worry, because I placed an order on the way over here.”
Brody affectionately grabs both sides of her face and pulls her close, pressing a hard kiss to her forehead. “I fucking love you. This is why I married you.”
She tries, but can’t fight her smile.
“Did they say how long it’s going to be, Rae?” I ask.
“Should be any minute,” she says, and pulls her phone out of her back pocket, no doubt checking Savannah’s location to see how long until they arrive at the house.
When I called Mom on our way over from the bar, she already knew about their updated arrival time. Apparently, Sav sent her a text before they left Boston. Glad to know where we stand on the totem pole of sharing information.
“Rae!” the youngest Fairchild daughter calls out from behind the counter, lifting three boxes of pizza high above her head.
“Thank Christ,” Brody breathes out. He swims through the crowd surrounding the counter and takes the boxes with what I can only assume is a grateful smile. Let’s fucking go, he mouths over the heads of the other patrons.
As I get closer to the door, I can see Brody holding it open with his foot, allowing a couple to enter as he impatiently waits for me and Rae.
Another couple walks between us, and I fall a few paces behind her.
Walking the final distance takes longer than it should, but I feel like a fish swimming against the current as more people file inside.
When I finally reach the other side of the stream, I’m about to walk out the door that Rae now holds open when a girl runs through and straight into me.
She practically bounces off my chest, both from shock and momentum, stumbling straight back toward that damn chalkboard sign.