Chapter 53
Chapter Fifty-Three
DREW
“So, you gotta treat her right,” Deeks said for the hundredth time, his finger pointing right at me as he leaned forward, resting his gut between his parted legs.
“I heard you, brother.”
“You don’t get second chances with angels like her, you understand?”
“More than you know,” I said, slapping his shoulder firmly and gripping it tightly. “Thank you.
“For giving you a lecture?”
“For loving her almost as much as I do.”
Deeks dropped his finger, his shoulders relaxing, and his familiar smile rising into place. “If I’d have been twenty years younger…”
“Don’t make it weird.” I laughed, and he laughed, too. That’s all any of us had done: laughed. No dark cloud hung over Babylon that night. Our town was clear, the stars shining bright overhead, blessing our day with a new sky, a new air—a new road to ride upon.
Man, my heart had turned from stone to feathers, the lightness of it a joy, so full with the fluttering twirling around inside my chest.
I’d spent the night talking and laughing with friends who were more than friends. They were family, and where I once thought the responsibility was mine to carry them, it felt good to let them carry Ayda and me for a night.
Deeks was halfway through telling a shit joke when Slater and Jedd came up to me with a huge tumbler of whiskey, thrusting it in my face for the fifth time in the last hour.
“Come on, you pussy. Just one.”
“Fuck off,” I told them again, pushing the drink away carefully. “I’ve told you already. I don’t want to drink tonight.”
“Remind me why not…” Slater slurred, the effects of all his consumption enough to make him sway when he walked now.
Resting my forearm on the table, I looked up at him and pressed my free hand to my knee. “I always said you were too pretty to be intelligent, too.”
“Is that why you’re ugly as fuck, brain box?” He grinned.
“If I didn’t love you so much, you’d be seeing stars right now, brother.”
“Come on, Drew.” Slater jabbed my shoulder with a weak fist. “Tell me, your best friend, and tell Jedd, your VP, why you won’t have one teeny, tiny, lil drink with us after all we’ve been through.”
“Because, shithead. This is a day I want to remember forever. Every detail. So much of my life has been a blur. I want tonight to be crystal clear. All of it.”
“You’ve changed.”
“God, I hope so.”
Kenny and Moose joined us, Ben not far behind, and the rest of my brothers soon gathered around.
The night was growing darker, and I’d yet to spend any reasonable amount of time with Ayda.
Every time I looked her way, she was beaming, talking to someone with enthusiasm and an energy I wished I could bottle for my darkest of days.
In this world of mine, where darkness had always been present, she had become the bright light I couldn’t look away from.
I imagined a nice country boy—someone with a plot of land, a homely ranch, several horses, and a mom who could take Ayda under her wing and drag her into a loving family.
Into a home where they ate together every Sunday and baked pies for each other just because their love was pure.
I imagined someone loving her who wasn’t me—a man without any stains on his heart or blood on his hands.
When I looked at her, I knew with every part of my soul she deserved that man.
But none of that mattered.
Because when I looked at her, I also knew no one, no cowboy, no straight-laced, church-going momma’s boy could ever love Ayda the way I did.
They could never cry out to the universe for them to rain pain down on their lives every day, so long as they got to curl up in bed with her at night and fall asleep in her arms with her lips pressed against their head.
She could have done better.
She never would get better than me.
Together, we were perfect, a fantasy I never realized I’d had until I saw her laughing with her friends, wearing a wedding ring that marked her as mine for life.
“I hope I look at a woman like that one day,” a voice sighed.
I turned to see Rubin standing beside me, happy and carefree, like a young kid his age should.
“You will,” I told him. “Just go for the one who makes you angry the first time you lay eyes on her, and know that that anger isn’t because you hate her…
it’s because you know she’s going to be the one to break down all your bullshit and expose you for who you really are.
Then watch that hate slide right into love, brother. ”
Rubin smiled, reaching out to grab onto my shoulder. “Mind if I come to you for advice if that happens?”
“You’d better.” I reached up and rested my hand on his, tapping it twice. He was a new feature in my heart—another thing for me to protect and provide for. I planned on upholding all the promises I’d set to him in recent months.
“Happy wedding day, bro.” Rubin offered, his eyes sparkling with contentment.
“Thanks, kid.”
Laughter erupted behind us, pulling our attention in that direction, and when I looked behind me, Autumn was charging forward, her eyebrow raised as she approached.
“Oh, hell,” I muttered under my breath, but she was on me before I could ask any questions or try to protest, pulling me up by both hands, her strength surprising me.
“Up you get,” she said through a heavy breath, standing me on my feet and brushing her hands down over the chest of my tailored vest to smarten me up.
“Autumn?”
“Come on now, Drew. You know more than anyone that the best part of a wedding is always the first dance with your lady. I do believe she’s wearing the right boots for a bit of two-stepping. Go spin her around while we all watch on like fools.”
When I looked up, Ayda was being led to a small dance floor by Sloane, the two of them giggling, and their eyes bright with enthusiasm.
With a small flourish, Sloane spun Ayda into the middle of the dance floor, leaving Ayda to slow to a stop in front of me. Pulling her dress up, she flashed a pair of white cowboy boots and tapped the toes together before glancing back up at me.
“You owe me a dance, husband,” she called out above the buzz of conversation, silencing almost everyone between the two of us.
Husband.
Fuck, yes.
I turned to her fully, my legs shoulder-width apart as I reached up to unfasten my bowtie, my eyes on hers the whole time as she watched me.
I unraveled it and left it hanging around my neck before I popped the top two buttons of my white shirt open, and then moved to open every button on my black tailored vest, pushing the edges back before I walked over to take her in my arms. With one hand around her waist, the other holding her hand tightly, I pulled her close, so our faces were only an inch apart.
“At your service, wife,” I whispered.
“Say that again,” she moaned quietly.
I dropped my mouth to her ear, my lips brushing against her lobe as I breathed warm air onto her skin. “Yours for life, wife.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, her lips still smiling. When she opened them again, all I could see in those pools of blue was warmth, love, and raging hormones.
“I think I’m ready for that ride now,” she said quietly, the last words fading as the music started.
Together, we danced a dance so natural, the two of us moving in perfect time as our song rang out around us—a song I’d chosen to tell her what I felt about her.
Tangled Up in You by Staind led us around the dance floor, the lyrics I’d listened to a thousand times now there for everyone to hear and understand how I felt about the woman in my arms.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her, couldn’t get her close enough or tell her how much I loved her.
Everything I felt was all-consuming, wrecking me, and reducing me to what I was as we danced together.
I mouthed the lyrics to her as we moved around, and when it came to an end, I didn’t stop dancing, needing to hold her this close for so much longer.
“You and me now, darlin’,” I told her softly.
Pushing her fingers into my hair, Ayda pressed her body to mine. “Forever,” she whispered.
Deeks and Autumn joined us on the dance floor, as did Kenny and Sloane, and an awkward-looking Tate, with Libby dragging him along. Once the space around us was crowded, I knew it was time.
We’d shared enough of our day with everyone else.
It was time to step into the night on our own.
With a small kiss to the forehead, I pulled away from Ayda and jerked my head in the direction of the exit. She didn’t have to say a word. The blush of her cheeks and the excitement in her smile told me everything I needed to know. She couldn’t wait for us to be alone either.
I led the way, pulling her along as I walked backward and she followed.
We’d almost made it to the exit when I turned around and slammed straight into the chest of my father.
He was there, as always, blocking the way, his arms behind his back and his legs parted like he was a doorman or some kind of security.
Standing right beside him was Sutton, and that familiar smirk of his made me step back and raise a brow as I pulled Ayda into my side.
“What’s going on?” I asked, eyeing them both.
Sutton shrugged, enjoying every second of whatever this was.
“Sorry, son. We can’t let you leave yet,” Eric said smoothly, pulling an envelope out from behind his back and holding it in front of me.
“Why not?”
“We’re under orders ourselves,” Sutton said, his southern drawl dragging the words out longer than they needed to be.
“There’s someone important here who wanted to say something before the night was through,” Eric added.
I stared into my father’s eyes for far too long, taking the envelope from him with a slightly shaky hand before glancing at Ayda for reassurance. With reluctance, I peeled myself away from her and opened the envelope, pulling out a one-page letter with a script I recognized in an instant.