13. Jedd #2
Rhett holds his hands up. “No harm done. I can appreciate. Just like I can appreciate that Jem’s legs look a billion miles long in her cutoff shorts, and Maisie is the literal definition of ‘wife her up,’ though Harlan’s taking his sweet ass time there. Doesn’t mean I want them for myself.”
Finch points finger guns at Rhett. “Exactly.”
Harlan and Boone share a look and each of them smack a brother upside the head.
“Hey!” Finch cries.
“Yeah. What the fuck? It was a compliment,” Rhett says.
“How about you leave the complimenting our wives to us, and we’ll leave the eyeballs in your head,” Boone bites out.
“Not wife in his case.” Rhett points his thumb at Harlan and leans out of Boone’s reach. Harlan comes half out of his chair, but Dad stops him.
“Y’all need to focus,” Duke says once Harlan sits again.
Their attention turns back to me. I grip my patience like it’s a physical thing.
These fuckers sure do know how to give me a headache.
“Yeah, the same Andy. We’re headed down to the courthouse tomorrow?—?”
Outraged hollering ensues.
“You can’t get married at the fucking courthouse, idiot,” Finch cries.
“Andy definitely deserves better than that,” Rhett agrees, phone in hand.
“I can’t believe I’m going to be an accomplice to these shenanigans,” Harlan mutters.
“I’m texting her. Someone needs to warn her off from this dumbass.” Duke shakes his head. “Idiot can’t even give her a real wedding before trapping her with him forever.”
I lunge out of my chair, reaching for his phone, but Finch shoves me back down.
“Enough.” The barked shout comes from Dad. “All of you hooligans sit down. Duke stop texting her.”
Duke sets his phone down, but the look he shoots me says as soon as Dad isn’t looking anymore, he’s going to pick back up right where he left off. “She should at least be here to prove this bullshit.”
I point a finger at him, but Dad holds his hand up before I can tell him to mind his own business.
He turns to me, face serious. “You doing this for Pipsqueak?”
I bobble my head in a shaking nod. It would be so easy to let them think that it’s just for Piper, but it’s not.
And I’m going to need their help and advice to pull this off.
“Yes and no. Of course I want to help Andy get custody of Piper. I want them to be safe and healthy and happy. But I’m also doing it for Andy. ”
“And you,” Harlan says. “When I suggested a relationship, I didn’t mean for you to marry her.”
I nod. “And me.” I take a deep breath. “I love her. I’ve loved her for so damn long.
And now I finally see an opening to win her.
To finally show her how good we could be together.
Should I use her niece and the custody case she started as a way to weasel my way into her heart? No, but I’m going to anyway.”
I hold my breath. I really need them on my side for this.
Harlan cocks an eyebrow at me before sharing a loaded glance with my brothers. Finch sets his phone down—when the hell he picked it up, I have no idea. “We know. You’re not telling us anything we haven’t known for years.”
“What? Bullshit. You didn’t know.” They can’t have. If they did, I would have gotten so much more shit over the years from them.
But I haven’t.
So they didn’t.
It’s not possible.
Boone smirks at me. “You remember a couple months ago when Harlan was sitting in his office trying to deny his feelings for Maisie after you tattled that he kissed her for the first time? And I made the comment about being obsessively in love with my wife being the reason I could tell he loved her already? Yeah, we know. We’ve known this whole damn time.
You can’t keep the lovesick expression off your face anytime that woman is within five miles of you. ”
I look to each of my brothers as they nod at me.
Oh fuck.
They knew.
They knew this whole time and didn’t say anything.
These fuckers.
I spin to Har. “You’re the reason that Maisie has been giving us such a hard time lately, aren’t you?”
Smug satisfaction crosses my brother’s face. “I didn’t tell her anything I suspected, but I also didn’t discourage her conclusions to what all of us have seen for years.”
“You fuckers,” I say around a chuckle, both exasperated and relieved that I don’t have to keep this secret that wasn’t really a secret anyway.
“You’re welcome,” Har says with a grin as he spreads his hands like he’s laying out a master plan for us plebeians.
“How can we help?” Dad asks. He also has a knowing look on his face, and I want to face-palm. I should have known that I wasn’t fooling my brothers. None of us can keep a secret from each other worth a damn.
“You can’t tell Piper that it’s for the case. I don’t want her to have to lie for us or even think about keeping this secret.”
“But it’s not for the case, at least not for you,” Duke points out.
I nod. “It’s not. But I can’t tell Andy that I’ve loved her for years and still expect her to go along with marrying me. She has to believe this is the only way to help her case to get custody of Piper.”
And that fucking sucks.
I wish I would have seen something, anything, to give me an in. To confirm I could share my feelings with her without scaring her away.
But she didn’t. So here we are.
Finch throws his hands up in the air. “Why the hell wouldn’t you tell her the truth? I swear the two of you need to get out of your heads and just be honest with each other. If I had a woman that means as much to me as Andy does to you, I’d have locked that shit down.”
I roll my eyes at him. “That’s easy for you to say, but harder to actually do.
Andy’s got this idea in her head that she’s not capable of long-term or serious relationships.
” I probably shouldn’t be telling my brothers this—it feels like betraying her confidence—but maybe they have some ideas to help me get over this hurdle.
“What?” Rhett asks. “How the hell does she figure that? Haven’t you seen the way she?—”
“Eh.” Har holds his hand up to stop Rhett. “Uh-huh.” He shakes his head.
“The way she what?” I ask.
“Never mind that. Why does she think she can’t have a solid relationship?” Duke asks.
I explain, “Look at her mama, she ran through men for her own security like it was her full-time job. Now her sister is trying to do the same but with a drug addiction. Is it really so crazy that she would avoid romantic relationships so she’s not like them?”
I know for a fact that Andy isn’t anything like her mother or sister, but convincing her of that is another story. If only she could see how amazing she is and trusted herself along the way.
“Yeah, but there’s a difference between running through men in a manipulative way and being in a healthy relationship,” Har points out in exasperation.
“I know that, and you all know that, but Andy’s convinced that she’s not cut out for the long-term.”
“The happily ever after,” Finch says with a nod. “Well, she’s wrong.”
Rhett jumps in. “Exactly. She’s been in a relationship with you for the last fucking ever—sure it hasn’t been romantic, but it’s still a long-term relationship—not to mention the friendship she has with all of us.” He shakes his thumb in our direction.
“I don’t disagree on any of those points,” I say helplessly. Because I can show her how good we are together every second of every day, but she has to choose me. She has to choose us, and I don’t know how to bring her around to that.
“So your path is clear,” Dad says from the head of the table.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You have to help her keep Pipsqueak and prove to her beyond the shadow of a doubt that she’s lovable. That she deserves the happily ever after—the fairytale life—with you.”
My brothers all nod in agreement with him.
I scoff. “If I had the faintest idea on how to fucking do that, Andy would already be mine, and as Finch put it—locked down.”
Six grins shoot my way. “We’ll help,” Boone offers. “The first step is maybe not marrying the love of your life in a rushed courthouse wedding.”
“There’s nothing wrong with getting married at a courthouse,” I say.
Duke nods. “You’re right—there’s not. But it’s not you two.”
Harlan picks up his phone and starts texting.
“What are you doing?” I ask, slightly freaked out that he’s messaging Andy right now.
Harlan is the sheriff. If she finds out that he knows I talked her into marrying me for Piper—or so she thinks—she’s going to second guess our decision and could stop this marriage before it even gets off the ground.
And then I’d have to go back to being just her friend.
I don’t want to do that. Not anymore.
“Untwist your panties brother. I’m calling in reinforcements.”
Oh fuck.