Welcome To The Family, Fucker
CASH
I sank down onto Paige’s bed and dropped my pounding head into my hands. I’d been punched a lot harder in my lifetime, but the stress of the entire situation made the bruise on my face feel like a broken bone.
Paige strutted into her room and grabbed my hair, pulling my head up, and placing a bag of frozen peas on my swelling cheek. I winced as the cold shocked my throbbing face.
“Don’t be a big baby,” she said as she sat on my knee.
My arm snaked around her waist and I relaxed into her.
“Why do you even have peas in your fridge? You hate peas,” I muttered.
She laughed. “First, how do you know I hate peas? And second, someone is always getting punched in the face around here. Do you know how many times I’ve dragged Reid out of the Saloon with a bloody nose?”
I scoffed. “Reid has barely been touched. I always take the hard punches and push him out of the way.”
“And how did that work out for you, macho man?”
“Whatever,” I huffed.
Paige sighed and stared down at the peas with a weird expression on her face. It was a mixture of sadness and longing, and I didn’t like it.
“What’s going on in your head?” I asked, moving the peas off my face and shifting her closer into me.
“They’re throwing us a wedding,” she whispered, looking at the ground.
“I know,” I said, placing a kiss on her cheek.
“How do I walk down the aisle as a fake bride?”
“It’s just a party.”
“I always dreamed about my wedding. It’s supposed to be the one and only one I have.”
A tear slipped down Paige’s cheek and it nearly tore my heart in half.
“Fuck, baby, don’t cry. You’re going to have your big wedding exactly how you imagined it one day. I promise.”
She nodded and wiped at her eyes. I twisted her legs so she was straddling me and ran my fingers into her hair, pulling her face to mine. I wasn’t an expert on comforting women, but I knew exactly how to get Paige’s mind off the current situation.
I placed a gentle kiss on her lips as her hands ran up my biceps and around my neck. Paige leaned into me, pushing me down so I was lying flat on the bed. I placed both of my palms on her ass and moved her hips so she was slowly grinding into me.
A soft moan left her lips as she felt exactly how she affected me.
Paige bit down on my bottom lip with a giggle.
The sound was glorious. She planted her palms on my chest and sat up as my hands fell to the outside of her thighs.
Her white-blonde hair fell around her face in a tousled mess and her lips were swollen from my kiss.
It was a beautiful sight I thought I’d only ever see in my dreams.
“You need to rest,” she said, trailing a finger up my chest.
I barked out a laugh. “I think my face will survive.”
“I can’t take that risk, unfortunately. We can talk when you’re healed.” Her smile was all tease as I groaned and pulled her down so she was laying on my chest.
“This is so weird.” She let out a heavy breath and snuggled in closer.
“Tell me about it. I always wondered what it was like up here.”
I glanced around at Paige’s room. It wasn’t exactly what I’d imagined.
I thought it was going to be filled with pink bows and accents.
Instead, the walls were covered with framed photographs—I assumed ones she took—and the accents were neutral dark greens and burnt orange hues.
Her dressers had framed Polaroids of her with her siblings and shots of Shadow.
She had an entire wall of hats hung on hooks, and I was sure her closet was mostly filled with boots of various sizes and colors.
“You’ve never come up here before,” Paige said, pulling me from my thoughts.
“I never trusted myself to come up here.”
“Were you afraid you’d fall for me, Jesse Leonard?” Paige peered up at me with a smile.
Yes.
“I was afraid I’d have your dress off before we took a second to think about it.”
“I would have been okay with that.” She shrugged, causing me to roll my eyes. Her tone was more serious when she said, “You’re going to have to talk to Walker.”
I sighed, letting my eyes fall closed. “I know. I just don’t know what to say. He thinks I betrayed him—which I did—but not as much as he thinks I did.”
I avoided Paige for years because I was too afraid of losing Walker and the rest of the Brooks family.
One drunken mistake and that was all in jeopardy.
How did I explain that I didn’t truly betray him?
How did I explain that the first time I fucked his sister was after we were already legally married?
That feels as respectful as I could get with that statement.
“He’ll get over it. Walker is possessive and protective, but so are you. How would you have reacted if I came home with some other guy I spontaneously married?”
“No one would have found his body,” I mumbled under my breath.
Paige snorted. “You’re so dramatic, but also, that’s exactly my point.”
My jaw dropped. “Says the girl who once didn’t eat for two days because she lost a bet that meant she could only eat vegetables for forty-eight hours.”
Paige popped up and looked down at me with an expression that can only be described as disgust. “Reid was going to make me eat only Brussel sprouts. Brussel sprouts.”
“You would have lived.” I pinched her side.
“No, I wouldn’t have. I starved in protest.” Paige pinched me back.
“Your dad was so mad that you refused to eat dinner.”
“Yeah, he wanted me to fold like a fucking narc. Absolutely not.” She started laughing.
“He was so mad he banned bets for a month,” I said with a chuckle.
“Yeah, but then we placed bets on how long until we got him in on another bet.”
“Four days. You all have a problem.”
Paige dropped down to lay on me again with a huff. “We keep life interesting.”
“That you do, Pip.”
I woke up with Paige wrapped around me like a koala. I held her tighter and watched her chest rise and fall as she stayed fast asleep. I never thought I’d wake up in this bedroom alive, but since everyone knew we were married, it would almost be weirder if I didn’t sleep here with her.
I wasn’t about to complain about the time we were now allowed to spend together.
My phone buzzed on my nightstand and I picked it up to read the text, trying not to wake Paige.
Walker
Outside. Five minutes.
I dropped the phone onto the bed and closed my eyes. Years of four a.m. wakeup calls meant that, unless I was drunk, I was usually up before the sun. Walker knew that. He knew almost everything about me.
Fuck, this wasn’t going to be good.
I knew I had to face him, but I thought maybe he would take a day before beating the shit out of me.
I decided that anything he threw at me I’d take in stride.
The hurt and betrayal he was feeling was justified, and I had to pay my penance.
I slipped out of Paige’s grip, causing the softest little groan as she cuddled up in the blanket.
I tugged on my jeans and fished a fresh black tee out of my suitcase—it was less likely to show blood stains. I stepped into my boots and picked up my hat, placing it on my head.
“Sneaking out on me, Leonard?” Paige’s sleepy voice made me smile as I noticed her sitting up with a pout.
“Walker wants to talk,” I said, sinking down onto the bed next to her, brushing her messy hair behind her ear.
“No, I want to cuddle and not clean up more blood from your face. It’s too early for that,” she whined.
“I’ll be fine, baby.” I kissed her forehead and stood, heading for the front door.
“Text me so I know I’m not a widow!” she shouted as I opened her door and stepped out onto the landing.
I chuckled and shook my head, but my smile fell quickly when I glanced up and saw Walker standing at the bottom of the stairs with a bag in his hand.
“If there’s a gun in there, I’m going back inside,” I said, raising my hands in surrender.
Walker answered me with a grunt. “Get your ass down here.”
He didn’t wait for a reply and stalked off toward the stables.
Reluctantly, I followed.
Walker led me to the training paddock where we usually spent time working the horses in the early morning hours. Reid and Axle were standing in front of the gate talking to each other casually. When they heard our footsteps, they got quiet and faced us.
This wasn’t usually the most serious group of guys, unless someone fucked with someone they cared about.
Walker stopped next to them, facing me. The three were glaring at me in a way I hoped they never would, like I was a stranger who was trespassing on their land. I worked hard to never feel that way here only to blow it up after a night of reckless fun.
“All right, boys. How is this gonna go? Three against one isn’t exactly a fair fight,” I said, slipping my hands into my pockets in an attempt to look casual, even though my heart was pounding.
“We’re not going to hit you, Cash,” Axle grunted out.
“They wanted to, but Mom said if we bruised your face again before the wedding then we’d be sorry and none of us want to know what that means exactly,” Reid added in, his attitude a little lighter than his brothers.
While Axle and Walker prided themselves on being grumps, Reid had more faith in Paige’s decisions.
I was sure he felt hurt that we hadn’t told him about our relationship, but he also knew that if this was what Paige wanted then she deserved to make her own choices.
She never asked any of them to defend her honor.
She never asked me to defend her honor, either.
“We’re going to handle this the way we would handle any good old-fashioned hazing.”
The edges of Walker’s lips tipped up as he opened the bag and dropped the contents on the ground in front of him. A bottle of whiskey, a rope, a Sharpie, and a roll of duct tape fell to the dirt.
“I saw a horror movie start like this once,” I muttered, as the guys chuckled deviously.
“Bring him out!” Walker shouted at the stables.
Buck and Tweety guided out a horse who was thrashing his head around so hard they had to restrain him. It took both of them to corral the Mustang into the ring. They let go of the reins and he broke into a sprint, jumping around and throwing his body into the fence.
“Sorry, Boss,” Buck said with a look of remorse.
My heart sank as I started putting together what was about to happen.
“Shirt off,” Walker barked as he picked up the bottle of whiskey and unscrewed the cap. I dropped my hat in the dirt and stripped my shirt off before taking the bottle from him and taking a long pull.
So what if the sun was barely above the horizon? Guess it was going to be an all-day affair…
Twenty minutes later, my right hand was duct-taped to the mustang’s saddle and obscene words were written across my chest. I’d had about half of the bottle of whiskey and my stomach was already starting to churn since I hadn’t eaten anything since last night.
Walker slapped the horse’s ass and he took off, running in a circle around the ring. My body thrashed around as I tried to gain control with my one free hand.
“You go until you throw up,” I heard Walker shouting as I went in circles.
I knew they were going to make this a slow process so I settled in for a morning of pain.
It took two hours and the rest of the bottle of whiskey, but eventually the guys had me on my knees, hurling up the limited contents of my stomach. I flopped onto the hard ground, attempting to catch my breath, and willing the sky to stop spinning as the sun shone in my eyes.
Walker stepped in front of me, blocking the sun and casting me in shadows. He huffed, but offered me a hand, hauling me up to my feet as I coughed and continued to dry heave.
“Welcome to the family, fucker.”
He clapped me on the back as Axle and Reid cheered—the guys had cracked their own bottle so now we were all appropriately drunk at nine in the morning.
“That’s it?” I asked in disbelief. I mean, this was not a fun activity but it was a hell of a lot better than broken limbs.
“We love Paige and she loves you, so.[-” Reid shrugged.
“Let’s get one thing clear, though.” Walker met me eye to eye. “You hurt her, cheat on her, or lay a hand on her in the wrong way, and there are parts of these mountains where a body would never be found.”
“I promise I will never hurt her,” I said sincerely. I would literally rather walk on hot coals than hurt Paige Brooks. That didn’t mean she didn’t have the ability to hold my heart in her hands and crush it to dust when this all ended in a few months.
“Pony up, boys,” Tweety said, approaching us.
Walker, Reid, and Axle groaned as they fished their wallets out of their pockets.
I turned to Tweety and clapped him on the back of the head.
“You bet on me?”
He flinched and rubbed where my hit landed. “I bet you’d last longer than an hour. I had faith you were tougher than they thought you were.”
“You all have a fucking problem.” I grabbed my shirt and headed back to the rec room.