Chapter Twelve
Jacket
After bringing my bag into the house and depositing it up on the third floor, in the same bedroom as Bella for chrissake, I make myself useful for rest of the day. I’ve never had so much fun in my life. Standing around the kitchen, doing as I’m directed by the army of tiny generals. I’m the resident beefcake – ordered to unscrew jar lids and reach up to shelves for long-stored away serving dishes. Who knew the amount of work and fussing around it took to get a wedding together?
But I love the camaraderie of being inside the family. I never had that growing up. I catch Bella’s eye periodically and she’s looking at me strangely. I can’t tell whether she’s happy or pissed. But each time she smiles at me a weird pang goes through me, first to my heart then straight to my dick.
“Ahh,” one of the aunties will say, catching our gaze and misinterpreting it for love or some shit.
I’m set to cutting up about a thousand damn cucumbers into dice and I don’t even mind. What with all the stories coming out from times past and the hysterical bickering these amazing old ladies get into over who misremembered, who’s telling ‘porkies’ and who’s plain senile.
Stick and Scherri disappear for the longest time but when they come back, those eyes on me are not so benevolent.
I get it. This is kind of an awkward situation. But it’s not like I set this up. I had no clue Bella was Scherri’s sister. I wish I had. It would have made the last six months of my life a whole lot fucking easier. Although I guess Scherri wouldn’t have been that amenable to me hooking up with her sister. She might even have warned Bella off me.
“Now Jacket’s here, why can’t the others come too,” Scherri’s saying when they come into the kitchen.
She finds me with Bella and the aunties finishing up preparing lunch for us all. We’re making a buffet spread for all the family that will be arriving today, for the rehearsal dinner tonight and the ceremony tomorrow.
“Babe, I told you, I just want it to be you and me,” Stick tells her gently but firmly. “And your family of course.”
“But Jacket-”
“Babe, can we talk about this later please?” He says with a commanding tone you don’t usually hear out of Stick, not when he’s talking to his girl.
She stops pushing him and immediately joins her sister preparing chicken salad, digging out some curry seasoning. They look at each other then look away. The emotion between them fills the room with pressure. I notice it and I see Stick detect it too. I wonder if he wants me out of here.
My eyes are drag-drawn back to the two sisters. They make an absolutely stunning picture together but my gaze is naturally drawn to Bella. Even is she weren’t here, I still wouldn’t be making any kind of eyes at Scherri. She’s my bud’s girl and I never let a man down.
What happened between us three, that was a single moment in time. Never to be repeated. It brought Stick and I together and maybe freed those two in their relationship. I don't know and of course I can’t be sure what occurred between them. But they’ve made it to this point and that’s freaking huge. More than I could ever imagine for myself.
Bella looks up at me from stirring the orange powder into the mayo mix and smiles nervously.
I grin back at her, trying to ease her anxiety, hoping to let her know I’ve got her back. Her secret’s safe with me. I’m just so freaking happy to be here with her, watching her with her family. And also to be with my buddy on his big day. It makes me wonder whether any of the other guys from our unit have made it up the aisle into the shackles.
“Sorry,” Bella whispers to me, bringing me a plate as we all settle down for lunch.
“Don’t be,” I say, meaning it. “I’m having the time of my life.”
She grimaces at that, like I’m teasing her, or holding her to ransom. Well if she thinks that, let’s prove it. I scoop her around the waist in front of everyone, tugging her to me so her pelvis presses into my thigh and makes my cock unfurl eagerly. Shit, she is so gorgeous my chest aches. I half lift her into me and tip down to take her mouth again, gathering another chorus of approval from the aunties. But not from Scherri, who disguises a glare of disgust too late.
A flare goes through me about what will happen if she tells her sister about last summer. Should I tell Bella about that first? But what if she tosses me out before we spend the weekend getting acquainted?
Fuck it. I still have Bella trapped in my arm hooked around her and I bend down hungrily to claim her soft lips again. She doesn’t resist me at all. Far from it, her mouth opens like she wants to tug me inside, her tongue reaching for mine.
More people are arriving so we’re forced to break apart, exceptionally reluctantly on my part. Soon as lunch is over, there are guests to entertain and more prep work to be done in the kitchen. I don’t get a chance to be alone with Bella until she pops up beside me.
“I didn't know you knew Stick,” she whispers.
“I didn't know you did.”
“Or that you were in the military,” she continues.
“We didn't get to the pleasantries last night.” I grin, hoping to deflect her.
I bend down to taste her soft mouth again, addicted to the caress of her lips against mine.
“Ooh sorry,” an auntie pops up between us like a gopher. “I need a platter from the top shelf in the pantry.”
“Your servant,” I tell her, eliciting a shiver from Eloise, I think it is, and a grin from Bella.
She seems happy that I’m getting along so well with her family, All the aunties that is. Scherri not so much this time. I catch her glaring stony cold at me every time we cross paths.
“Look at you all dolled up already,” Eloise snaps, the first time I’ve heard snark come from her otherwise sweet and affectionate mouth.
From behind, I see an over-dressed woman with stiff hair straight from the beauty parlor has joined us. It takes me a moment to recognize Scherris mother Lyndsey and it also clicks that this is Bella’s mom too.
“It looks like it’ll be my only chance to be the mother of a bride,” she announces to eight stunned women.
She doesn’t notice me in the pantry, holding the platters I’ve brought down from the top shelf.
“Rubbish,” Eloise quips with a sneer at Lyndsey. “Bella’s next, aren’t you darling?”
“We can only dream,” Bella’s mother says and I step forward, ready to take Bella’s game to the next level.
Whatever she’s up to, I’m happy to support her in it for the weekend. Unlikely though it would have seemed to me before I was thrown into it, this being a fiance lark is fun. I have a family and a woman that loves me even if she is only pretending for whatever reason. I haven't had a chance to ask her about that. As soon as I get her alone, I’m going to have way more physical demands than inquiring what she’s up to.
Before I can reintroduce myself to Lyndsey, Bella grabs her mother’s arm and drags her from the kitchen. I catch her muttering something about her opinion on pies and I’m left with six faces frowning at me. They’re clearly wanting me to take care of something, but I have no clue what.
“She’s turned into quite a nasty piece of work with those girls,” Matilda says to the sister beside her.
Man, will I ever distinguish all of them before the weekend’s over?
“Shush, Matty,” Eloise tells her, still frowning
“You shush. Don’t shush me, I can say what I think. It’s not good for a girl to have a mother that’s jealous of her.”
“Scherri and Bella aren’t girls anymore,” Dottie says.
“Not good for grown women either. Makes them hungry for love wherever they can find it.”
Twelve eyes land on me and I throw them a grin. Suddenly I wonder what I’ve dropped myself into. It hits me that Bella isn't only smart and funny and sexy as hell. She’s a real woman with deep emotions. Like me she has a past that determines her needs. And dreams.
“Platters,” I say, setting the stack of outsize plates down and distracting the way the conversation is headed.
This might be more than I’m prepared to handle.