Chapter 49

Hayden

You need to take Jamie to the dress fitting today.

I sent the message to Brock before turning back to the bacon and eggs I was cooking, flipping the rashers over to see it was perfectly crispy on one side.

Why?

My phone buzzed almost immediately and I shook my head at Brock's reply but didn't get to respond because that was when Jamie walked out of the bedroom. Wearing only a t-shirt, she looked like a freaking wet dream, her hair mussed, her lips swollen. My t-shirt I realised, barely able to suppress a smile.

"Breakfast?" I asked, tilting the pan her way.

"I better get going," she said. "I don't want to be late for work."

"You won't be." Hunter emerged from the shower with just a towel wrapped around his waist. He picked her up and set her down on one of the stools on the other side of the kitchen counter. "We made sure to get up early, to have breakfast done by the time you woke up. Then we'll get you on the road and back home…"

Where she'd walk out of our arms and into Brock's.

Hunter had woken me before the sun had risen, and after I blinked at him in the grey light, he'd jerked his head towards the door, asking me to do the one thing I didn't want to, walk away from Jamie. But when he got me out of the room, we both watched her snuggle back down into the pillows and then he proposed something insane.

"It's the three of us."

"What's the three of us?" I'd asked, even though I knew. We were moving towards this point since the moment Millie announced we had the go ahead to date Jamie, I just thought it would end differently. Her choosing me, my selfish little heart had shown me a tantalising slide show of dreams where she did just that. The trouble with fantasies is that they ignore reality.

"Jamie." He shook his head, making clear he saw through me. "No one wants her choosing one of us over the other, not really. It'll tear the family apart rather than doing what it should do."

Bring us together. I didn't need to hear him say it, nor need him to explain when he started pulling food out of the fridge. We'd get ready, we'd make her breakfast, and then we'd take her to her place before handing her over to our brother. That selfish little part of me that just wanted her all for myself didn't like this much, but a larger part liked the idea of her always being with one of us. If we worked together, we could look after Jamie, keep her safe and protected at all times, and I wanted that far more. When I nodded, my twin grinned, as if he'd just been waiting for me to come to the correct conclusion.

"So how do we do this?" I asked, finally feeling like this might be possible. Last night might not be just a libidinous fever dream, but…

A promise of a beautiful future.

"We get Jamie through this fucking engagement party first," he said, the words coming out faster and faster. Hunter had obviously been thinking about this long and hard. "She has this dress fitting thing today."

"She has to be fitted for a dress?" I asked with a frown.

"No, the bride is looking at dresses, and apparently it's a big deal. All the women in the family get together and look at dresses as the bride works out which one she wants to buy. It's this whole big thing. Jamie said her mum is demanding she take some time off from work to attend, and when she didn't sort that with Brock out fast enough, her mother rang our big brother."

I snorted, knowing exactly how that would've gone.

"He's in the shit now, just so you know." Hunter's comment had me grinning. "Reading Majorie the riot act is gonna do that apparently, but…" He looked back down the hallway to where our girl still slept. "She'll go. Jamie always does what's expected of her, whether or not her family deserves that courtesy, so we have to get her through that, the party, everything, because when the dust settles and the need for ‘fake' dates is over…"

Then we could start moving towards a real future.

I'd nodded, starting the breakfast that I now slid onto everyone's plates.

"I can't eat all that," Jamie protested, but I'd just pushed some cutlery into her hands.

"Eat what you can, then we'll get you home."

"You don't need to come up," she told me when we rolled up out the front of her apartment complex. "I have to get ready fast, and if you guys come up?—"

"We'll make sure you're late."

Hunter shot her a shit-eating grin, right before leaning over and doing something I wish I'd thought to do first. A kiss pressed to her lips before she could protest, I was moving in and claiming my own as soon as Hunter pulled away. That dazed expression, the one that came before she could collect herself and pack everything she was feeling behind her walls, was something I fucking loved so much. She looked younger somehow, completely unguarded, eyes wide and cheeks flushed before she stammered a goodbye, scrambling out of the van. We watched her go upstairs before Hunter turned to me.

"Foot to the floor," he instructed me. "We need to visit Brock before work starts."

The van took off with a squeal as we shot down the road to do just that.

Brock was obviously anticipating someone else when he came down the stairs, toting a coffee in a travel mug. His face fell as he took the two of us in, that all-too-familiar frown forming.

"What do you two want?" He turned to me. "And why did you tell me I needed to take Jamie to that dress fitting? She needs to keep the fuck away from her insane family."

"No arguments here," I told him, something that seemed to take him by surprise. "But you know she's going to go anyway. Her mother will wear her down with a million calls today." His frown deepened. "She'll come over here and make a scene, drag Jamie out by her hair."

"She can fucking try." His growl, the way his free hand formed a fist, was the kind of energy we were looking for. "I'll have the cops arrest her for trespassing."

"But Jamie will still go." Hunter and I stared him down, watching him struggle to accept the same thing we'd fought to get our heads around. My twin had made that clear when we discussed the conversation he'd had with our girl. "She'll still go because they are her family, and when they make demands of her, she feels like she can't say no…"

I was frowning then, looking down at the gravel driveway of the garage, not my brothers.

"And that's why she's so fucking skittish."

"Love means obligation." My eyes jerked up to meet Hunter's, because somehow he already knew. "Love means being smothered alive."

"Love means disrespecting someone's healthy boundaries." Brock shook his head. "The way her mother has pestered me and we only met the once."

"This is why Jamie's terrified of really connecting with any of us, because she's expecting the same treatment." My teeth locked together, because right then I swore I would never put Jamie in that position. "We can't stop her from engaging with her family."

"But we can protect her as best we can while she does." All the heat seemed to go out of Brock in that moment, and his expression was a strange one. Feeling out of control never sat well with our brother, and he was struggling with that right now, though not for long. He straightened up and nodded. "So I'll take Jamie to this wedding dress thing, be sitting at some cafe up the road, ready to get her out of there the second that hour is up. Then I'll bring her back here, where she belongs."

As if in response to that, we heard a car pull up out front of the garage, Jamie jumping out moments later.

"Some sort of McDonald family meeting happening?" she asked, then looked around. "Is Millie still to arrive?"

"Just letting Brock know that there's a family dinner on tomorrow night." There wasn't, but if I volunteered to do the cooking, Mum would get on board real quick. "They'll be expecting to see you."

"Right."

The way she flushed had me thinking that she was remembering all the ways things had changed since the last dinner.

"And I'm taking you to that wedding dress thing today," Brock rumbled. When her eyebrows shot up, he forged on, "You know you'll end up going, but this way I can get you in and out as quickly as possible."

"And tonight, we're all going to my tailor."

"What?"

We all stared at Hunter, which just had him smirking.

"One of us is going to take you to this engagement party, so we need to look sharp. I already have a suit." I let out a little growl, Brock looking similarly pissed. "So the guys need something to wear just in case you make the fatal mistake of choosing one of them instead of me. Also…" He looked her up and down slowly. "Your mother wants you to wear something fancy to this party. No one said that has to be a dress."

Jamie in a suit, tailored to fit her curves? Damn, it had me thinking things I had no right to. As I stared, imagining just that, I caught the moment she flushed.

"A suit?"

"You can try some things on, see what you think." Hunter stepped closer to Jamie. "Maybe you'll find something you like instead of something your mother will tolerate. Something that'll make the party enjoyable even."

"Are we still talking about suits?" she asked, eyes narrowing, but my twin just grinned before pulling away.

"C'mon, dickhead," he said to me. "We have to get going or we'll be late for work."

"And you need to start your day right," Brock told Jamie, holding up her coffee. She made gimme gimme hands as she reached for it, but he just used them as a means to drag her closer. "But you need to pay for your coffee first."

As he pressed her against the nearest car, kissing her senseless, my feet began to drag. I wanted to be right there with Brock, but Hunter pushed me onwards.

"Don't go getting jealous," he instructed. "We've got a job to do today and then a much more pleasant one to do tonight. See you two at seven!"

Jamie looked up then and I couldn't help but stare, taking in her own wide-eyed stare, her parted lips. For the first time, seeing her kissing someone else didn't feel like a punch to the guts. Instead, compelling visions of Brock kissing her, then Hunter, then me filled my mind, ones where I pulled her close, whispering filthy things in her ears as they drew closer.

"Now you're getting it," Hunter said with a broad grin.

"You're gonna be a total prick about this, aren't you?" I picked up speed to keep pace with him. "Aren't you?"

"I don't want to be prick." He stopped and looked back at the two of them, one kiss seeming to blend into another. "I just want to be right."

Only time would tell if he would be.