“Jet is so jealous of me right now.”
She scoffed at me and put her hand in the curve of my elbow.
“It’s good for him. He was out of town all last week. That means he won’t be able to resist me later.”
“Does he ever? Resist you? Because if he does, maybe I need to tell him he’s doing being married wrong.”
She made a face at me and dug her nails into my forearm, which made me laugh. I knew that her and Jet couldn’t keep their hands off each other, so I was only teasing her.
When my gaze landed on Shaw as she came out of the dressing room she had been in, I was surprised at the wealth of sentiment I felt at looking at her. She was beautiful. Like something out of a fantasy or anyone’s vision of “this is the perfect bride.” Her white-blond-and-black hair was twisted all up. Her dress was poufy and long, like a ballerina’s, and tied with a pale blue sash in the middle. She was holding on to the senior Archer’s arm, and Dale looked like any proud papa should. Rome maneuvered around his dad and bent down and gave the beautiful bride to be a kiss on the cheek. It was a good day for all the Archers … and the rest of us as well.
I told her honestly, “You look perfect.”
She blushed prettily and glanced at Rome.
He lifted the eyebrow under his scarred forehead and told her bluntly, “What he said. Rule is a lucky bastard for sure.”
Shaw just giggled and looked impatient.
“Let’s do this.”
We all faced the front, the clock face behind Rule and Brite showing the beautiful Denver skyline and making the most memorable Christmas Eve ever. Jet and his band started to play “Silver Mountains” by the Deadstring Brothers and I don’t think anyone in the room had dry eyes by the end of the song. Jet was in a metal band, could scream his ass off with the best of them, but when he used those pipes to really, really sing, it just did something magical to the people lucky enough to hear it.
We made our way down the aisle. I saw Ayden turn her head so that she could watch Jet. He blew her a kiss that made her sigh, and I shifted my eyes around until I found the storm-colored gaze I was searching for. Saint was watching me. She had her full bottom lip clamped between her teeth, and she had her hands clasped tightly together on her lap. Her eyes were shiny and bright. She had pink in her pale cheeks, and even from this distance I could see her pulse fluttering in her throat. If I didn’t know better, I would say she was looking at me the way Cora was looking at Rome, the way Ayden was looking at Jet. I couldn’t get my head around it, around her, but man, did I want to. She was fascinating. I wondered if I’d ever really know what made the pretty redhead tick.
I didn’t have any more time to ponder it because we reached the front of the aisle. I kissed Ayden on the cheek, did the same to Cora, which earned me a hard look from Rome. Rule and I shared a chuckle, and I took my place next to the Archer brothers. It was a proud place to be.
Jet and the band switched to “Everybody Needs Love,” the Drive-By Truckers version, which was Shaw’s favorite, and she and Dale appeared at the back of the elegantly decorated room. I heard a couple of gasps, saw some jaws drop, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Rule physically jolt.
“Damn.”
The word was barely a breath of sound, and before either Rome or I could react, Rule was walking down the aisle in the direction of his future bride and his dad, who had stopped at his approach. Rome and I exchanged a knowing look and just shrugged when the girls looked at us questioningly.
Rule grabbed Shaw’s face in both of his hands and kissed her like he was supposed to do at the end of the ceremony. Dale stepped out of the way and Margot, the Archer matriarch, called her son’s name in frustration. It was totally a Rule thing to do. He was impulsive, a little wild, but there was nothing in the world that would keep him from that girl, so of course he was the one who walked her down the aisle and to their spot in front of Brite. I couldn’t stop grinning like an idiot, and the one time I caught sight of Saint, I was happy to see she was smiling as well. That kind of love was hard not to appreciate.
Brite was grinning as well, his smile barely visible through his long, gray beard. Looking like a jolly, friendly Hell’s Angel, Brite proceeded to marry my best friend to the girl of his dreams. It was awesome, touching, everything it was supposed to be, and so were their vows.
Shaw vowed to love Rule just as he was, to never ask him to be anything other than the man he was. She promised to wait out his bad temper and the hissy fits that he was prone to and to never question what color his hair was for the week. She vowed to love him like she had since the first time she had seen him, and vowed that he would always be her one and only. She told him that he was everything she had ever wanted. It was all true and it made me happy to hear her promise that for an eternity to my very difficult and complicated friend.
Rule was choked up, so it took him a minute to recite his vows, but when he did I knew the impact of his heartfelt words stunned all of us. He wasn’t a dude that was good with emotion on the best day, even though Shaw had helped him with that, but today he was putting his heart out there for everyone to see.
He told her that he never thought anyone would be able to fill the void in his life that Remy had left when he died, but somehow she had gotten inside of him and there was no more room for anything else. She just filled his heart and his life so full there were no more empty spots and he knew that ultimately Remy would be thrilled for them. That, of course, had everyone misty-eyed and clearing their throats.
He promised to always take care of her, to make everyone treat her with the love and kindness she deserved. He told her he would love her even when she was a doctor and making three times the money he did, and vowed to do his best to give her anything and everything she ever wanted and needed from this point on. He whispered so that only those of us standing up at the front could hear, “You are everything to me, Casper.”
A collective sigh went up from the group when Shaw smiled up at him through the tears running down her face and said simply, “All I want and need is you.”
Brite called it good enough, they exchanged rings, we all cheered and offered hugs and high fives, and just like that, Rule and Shaw were man and wife.
We had all gathered in the back of the clock tower, took forty-five minutes for fussing, congratulations, and photos, when Phil slid up next to me and muttered in my ear, “You better work some magic or your date is going to bolt. She’s a sweet little thing, but she’s as skittish as a newborn filly.”
I swore and maneuvered my way through the crowd, waved Rowdy off when he tried to stop me, and eventually had to ride the elevator twenty stories down to the lobby in order to find her. She had her cell phone in her hand and seemed like she was having an argument with herself.
“Saint?”
She jolted and looked up at me. There was no way to describe the look on her face other than guilty. Like I had just caught her in the midst of doing something wrong.
She held her phone out like it was a shield between us.
“I’m just going to call a cab to take me back to my car. You go back to your friends.” Her voice was high and breathy. I frowned because I didn’t have a clue as to what was going on.
“If you want to go home, I’ll take you back to your car.” I hooked a finger in the knot of the tie at my throat and pulled it loose. I would give anything to read this girl’s mind.
“No, no … you stay. It’s fine. It was really lovely. Thank you for inviting me.”
I was done arguing with her. She already had her coat on, so I just grabbed her wrist, the one she was holding out in front of her, and dragged her to the front door. Her high-heeled shoes clicked frantically as she scrambled to keep up with me.
“Come on.”
She huffed out a protest and tried to pull free, but I didn’t let her. I just marched her unwillingly to where the Charger was parked on the street. I was annoyed and I was frustrated, but more than that, I was confused why she had agreed to come with me if she didn’t want to be here in the first place.
We didn’t talk the entire way back to the apartment. She was breathing low and shallow, twisting her hands together, and staring straight out the window. When we got to the Victorian, we simultaneously climbed out of the car and I slammed the door shut harder than I needed to. I stared at her over the roof of the vehicle and she opened her mouth like she was going to say something, so I held up my hand to stop her. I couldn’t figure out why one of us always seemed to be warding the other off.
“Just … have a good night, Saint.”
I jogged up the sidewalk to the front of the building and didn’t look back to see if she even got into her little car or not. That was pretty rude of me and I never did stuff like that, but this chick was messing with my head and I wasn’t sure how to navigate that along with everything else in my life right now. I had the key in the door and was pushing it open when I felt small hands at my back. Before I could turn around and look to see what was going on, I was shoved forward into my apartment and the door was slammed shut behind me. I spun around to face Saint and she gazed up at me like a wild Valkyrie. Her red hair was curly and wild all around her face, her steely eyes were open wide, and her chest was rising and falling in an erratic rhythm. A pretty awesome sight really, but I was still pissed off at her.
“This is so screwed up, Nash. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, couldn’t say anything because all of a sudden she was right in front of me and her hands, shaking and nervous, were pulling on the buttons of my black shirt and stripping the tie from around my neck.
“What?” I sounded bewildered because I was, but there was no way I was going to stop her. Not when she was pulling the tails of my shirt out of my pants and her hands were brushing enticingly across my abs and lower back with a frantic haste.
“Everything that I know is logical tells me I’m so sure about things, and then my body sneaks up on me and screams at me and I feel like I don’t know anything anymore. I can’t tell if I’m coming or going. I saw you up there, you looked so handsome, so perfect, oh my God, I just wanted to jump you, and that so isn’t me. And then I saw how happy everyone looked, so in love, and I almost had a panic attack, and I can’t even explain why. I just had to get out of there. I’m sorry.”
I put my hands on her shoulders to hold her away because this was insane. But she had her fingers under my belt buckle and my zipper was going down without a fight.
“Saint, stop. I would’ve just brought you home if you told me you were uncomfortable. Anyone might be in a room full of people that are emotional. And it was intense, because Rule and Shaw are intense. I would’ve understood, and no one could blame you for needing some space from it. Fuck, I was just happy you even agreed to go with me.”
She stopped what she was doing, which was pulling my shirt off my shoulders and pushing me back until my ass was resting on the back of the couch. When there was nowhere else for me to go, she put her hand flat on the center of my chest and looked up at me with those thundercloud-colored eyes.
“I know, and that’s what made me freak out.”
“I don’t understand.” I was trying to be coherent and reasonable, but my dick was starting to pay way closer attention to what she was doing than my brain was.
“I don’t know who you are, Nash.”
“I don’t really know who you are either, Saint, but if you gave this half a chance, we could change that.”
She shook her head and leaned into me so that we were pressed so tightly together there was no end to her and no beginning of me.
“I don’t know that you would like me once you got to know me, and the Nash I thought I knew …” She looked so lost all I wanted to do was give her a hug. “I hated him, but you … this Nash … all I do is want him.”