16. Jedd
JEDD
I expected to be nervous the day of my wedding if I ever got to this point in life.
Instead I’m standing under a canopy of flowers promising my best friend forever. I saw the exact moment the sheer emotion I couldn’t have hid if my life depended on it registered to her as my father escorted her to me.
I watched her expression shutter as she locked a part of herself away so she didn’t come to the wrong conclusions about why I would be overcome with emotion at the sight of her in a goddamned wedding dress walking toward me. Promising me her forever.
Go ahead, Mischief, think that this is fake. Think that all you want.
Not a single second of today is fake to me. Nothing that I’ve ever felt is pretend, and I’m done hiding it. Done hiding from her.
Finch and Jem step toward the middle of the arbor that we’re standing under, the two of them getting ready to start the ceremony.
A frisson of unease started in the pit of my stomach at the thought that Andy’s not mine—yet. I’m not nervous for today, but there was an unsettling part of me that worried that something was going to come and take this away from me.
Not happening.
If I have to throw Andy and her acres of skirts over my shoulder and kidnap her to marry her, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
Jem starts out talking about love in all its forms, and Finch effortlessly picks up where she pauses, adding in his own views of love, before he leads us to the traditional wedding vows we agreed on for today.
Andy’s eyes sparkle in the light, and I listen as she repeats after Jem.
“I, Andrea Donovan, take you, Jedidiah Calhoun, to be my lawfully wedded husband. I promise to love, honor, and cherish you in good times and bad, forsaking all others for as long as we shall live.”
You already do, Mischief. You already do.
Finch turns to me, and I repeat the vows while making some of my own mentally.
I promise to love and cherish you forever.
I promise that as long as you have me, you’ll never face life alone.
I promise to be the best man I can be every day I have you in my life.
I promise that my days will start and end with you.
I promise to let you use me to warm up your feet, and you’ll never be cold as long as I’m around.
I’ll dance with you in the rain and laugh through all of the pranks we throw at each other and through the ones life throws our way.
We’re forever, Mischief, you’re my forever.
“By the power vested in us …” Jem starts.
“By the state of Idaho …” Finch continues.
“We now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.” They finish together.
Fucking finally.
Something clicks together in me. Maybe it’s the knowledge that Andy is finally mine. That I’m hers. That we’re officially each other’s, I don’t know. But elation sweeps through me, threatening to take me off my feet.
I step forward and lightly frame Andy’s face with my hands, determined to get this right. To be right for her.
Lightly, I brush my lips over hers. Once. Twice. Three thudding heartbeats accompany the pass of my mouth against hers.
She tastes like all my best secrets and inky nights under the stars rolled into a powerhouse packed punch to the gut. Spicy, sweet and a swift kick to the throat.
I pour everything I am into the kiss. Every hope, dream, fear, and want I have for us into the five-second lip lock.
My fingers flex against the underside of her jaw and as if she can sense the emotions storming through me, she pulls back, breaking the kiss about three eons before I’m ready for her to.
Emotions flit across her face everything from lust to fear in the three-point-two seconds we stare at each other.
I rub my finger along the length of her jaw as a promise. A promise to be hers. Even if she’s not fully mine—yet.
Music is playing by the time we finish the official photos.
The girls arranged for us to have a photographer, and I absolutely want photographic evidence of the day I made Andy mine.
She breaks off from me to greet some of the women from her monthly business meetings, and I’m quickly swallowed up by well wishes from Dawn and my employees from the shop.
“Well I’ll be fucking damned. It wasn’t a lark,” Clancy says, his arm in a sling, bottle of beer lifting toward his mouth. I invited him and Angel to the wedding when I stopped by his house to check on him this week.
“Hey, man. How’re you doing?”
“This thing is fucking annoying.” He shrugs his good shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I say, not knowing what else to say. He got hurt because the shop wasn’t safe for him to work in. The ever-present thought racks me with guilt. It’s one thing for me to work in less-than-ideal circumstances, it’s completely different for me to expect my employees to do the same.
The only comfort is that if Andy has her way—and she likely will because I’ll give that woman anything she wants—that’ll all change soon.
“Eh, man. It was an accident, could have happened to anyone. You covering the hospital bills and making sure I’m still getting paid is really helping, so don’t sweat it, okay?”
I pulled funds from my savings account to make sure he, Angel, and the kids were taken care of. I’ll be damned if they feel the financial pinch of him being out of work because of my negligence.
Samson nods to me from where he’s talking to Finch. The two of them are close friends, so I assumed he’d be here.
I catch a bit of their conversation as I make my way toward them.
“No one’s happy about it, man, but we still have to do it.”
Of all the Calhouns, Finch and I have the most interaction with Samson. Finch’s base of operations for his handyman and exterminating business is his house, to get a tax break on his mortgage, so he has to subject himself to inspections.
I haven’t even thought to ask him what the new specifications are going to make him do to the big ass barn-like shed he has in the backyard where he stores all of his chemicals.
“Hey, Samson, Finch giving you a hard time?” I ask.
“Hardly.” Finch scoffs. “I am a motherfucking delight to work with.”
Samson chuckles and shakes his head. “Yeah, you’re a one-man operation out of your backyard. Jedd has multiple full-time employees in a commercial building. I’d be worried if you were harder to work with.”
I laugh at that. It’s not that Finch’s business is less important than mine, but I tend to have more to manage than he does.
“Any luck on the lot?” Samson asks me.
I shrug. “I’m working on it. The second I solidify it, I’ll let you know. But even if I do get it, it’s gonna be months before I can fully reopen, even with expediting the building process.”
And that fucking sucks.
I have people depending on me for a paycheck. I have bills to pay, and I’m stuck in a holding pattern until I get the all clear to reopen, and then stuck again until the expansion is complete.
Assuming everything goes according to plan with no deviations.
“Actually …” he starts before we’re interrupted by the sound of clinking glasses and bottles.
What the … I look around to everyone—mainly my brothers clanking something against their drinks.
“We can talk later. You have a pretty bride to kiss,” Samson says, and Finch grins at me, knowingly.
Oh fuck. I forgot about that tradition.
When people tap their glasses or the neck of their beer bottles, I have to kiss Andy.
Don’t mind if I do.
And then I remember the way she shut down before the ceremony.
Fuck.
I find her in the crowd, her resigned gaze coming to mine making it clear that she understood what the clinking meant well before I did.
We agreed to public affection as long as we were comfortable with it. And she looks anything but comfortable.
Samson claps me on the shoulder as I step past him. I don’t want to force Andy’s affection, but everyone is watching us.
By the time I reach my new bride, her shoulders are straight with determination. Before I can even open my mouth to offer her an out, her mouth is on mine in a fiery trail of malicious compliance.
Where I’ve worked hard to keep myself on a leash when kissing her, she doesn’t have the same reservations I do if the depth of this kiss is anything to go by. Her tongue traces against my lower lip, and I open my mouth for her, my tongue dipping out to taste her fully.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I’ll never get enough of her. Of this. Of us. I have to convince her that she’s it for me and coax her into seeing that I can be it for her too, because I’ll die before I give this up.
I reach around her waist and tuck her more fully into me. Her hips brush against mine, and I know that she can feel me—feel what she does to me. Her body pressed against me while her mouth is on mine is more than I could have ever hoped to gain in this life.
The kiss lasts a few heart-stopping seconds, and when we come up for air, it’s to the sound of our family and friends cheering for us.
“Okay. Okay you two. Break it up,” Maisie calls as she balances Audra on her hip. “Let’s get some food into these people to soak up the alcohol.”
I want nothing more than to scoop Andy up and disappear with her—even for a few minutes. To see how she’s feeling, what she’s thinking, what put that look in her eyes before the ceremony.
But I can’t. Our friends and family are waiting for us to celebrate.
And we can’t let them down.
Not when they pulled off this backyard wedding in less than a week on our behalf.
I snag Andy’s hand in mine, and we kick off the buffet line.
Dawn arranged the food for us in this last-minute shindig. We have pulled pork sandwiches, potato and macaroni salads, along with all the traditional BBQ sides. Once we’re seated, I watch Andy push the food around her plate.
“You look beautiful,” I say after a swallow of beer. I should have said it before, but I was struck stupid at the sight of her walking toward me earlier, and I haven’t had a chance since recovering a percent of my wits.
“Thank you. You look very handsome.” Her tone is prim and formal, something I’ve never heard from her.
Okay. I have to fix this. Between the way she’s closed herself off and the resignation in her gaze during our last kiss, I know that something’s wrong. But I don’t know how much I can get into it when we’re literally the center of everyone’s attention.
“Mischief …” I start.
“It’s okay. Just a weird day, right?” She huffs out a light laugh, a fake laugh, and I don’t like it. I don’t like feeling off-kilter with her. All of my dreams came true today, but she’s sitting next to me like she’d rather be anywhere else.
“No. Not weird at all.”
She uses her fork to pick out flecks of celery from her macaroni salad before taking a bite.
“You’re really good at this,” she says with a wave of her now-empty fork.
“Good? Good at what?”
Her eyes meet mine, and I see a little bit of heartbreak in them.
“Pretending. Acting. Or faking. Whatever,” she says with a dismissive shrug.
It hits me then. Lightning strikes with the realization. I’ve spent so long hiding my feelings from her that I didn’t see she has her own feelings—for me. That’s why she looks so sad. That’s why she closed herself off. She isn’t upset with the charade. She’s afraid that it’s only pretend.
“Mischief,” I say while locking my eyes on hers. “I’ve never had to fake loving you.” And then I kiss her again—but this time is different. This isn’t for the people around us. Or for us to sell a story.
This kiss? This one is just for us. For me to show her that I’m hers and she’s mine.