Chapter 62

Hayden

Drunk Jamie was funny.

"I love you!" she shouted to her brother at the end of the night. I was forced to sweep in and collect her, lest she tip over and fall flat on her face. "You too, Nads!"

Nadia's very pretty name had been shortened during the night in classic Australian fashion.

"I love you too!" Nads' eyes started to fill with tears and Frankie had to rush forward and hug his girl as well. "You should be a bridesmaid." She clasped her hands under her chin. "Pleeease?"

"Ew…" Jamie let out a god awful burp, something that had her cackling and Nadia as well. Us blokes all stood around, supervising this moment of feminine bonding. "Weddings give me hives." Nadia's bottom lip started to tremble. "Not yours. If you're silly enough to want to tie yourself to Stanky over there–"

"Stanky…?" Nadia looked at Frankie and started to giggle uncontrollably. Once she started, so did Jamie and…

I loved it.

I loved seeing her lighter and stronger and having a fucking moment. The same kind of moment my spoiled little sister took for granted. I wanted Jamie to feel that too, to never worry about what any member of her family thought, because all they would show her was the love she deserved. The two girls fell into each other, laughing and laughing until tears rolled down their cheeks and they were just crying.

"You're the best SIL ever," Nadia said. "You found me the perfect dress. I want you to stand beside me when I marry your stinky brother, be my sister, but…" They pulled apart and stared at each other then. "You'd hate that, and I don't want to do that to you."

"I'll come," Jamie said. "I'll come and use all of my savings to buy the most expensive thing on your wedding registry."

"No, just bring you…" Nadia's eyes swung to me. "And all your hot guys! You can't break up before the wedding, OK? I want all of you there!"

"No chance of that." My grip on Jamie's waist tightened and I brushed my mouth along the back of her neck. She smelled of perfume, tequila, sweat, and her, and I couldn't stop breathing her in.

"She's not getting away, even if she tries really hard," Hunter said.

"Ooh, all growly and possessive!" Nadia exclaimed as Jamie's cheeks flushed bright red. "I love this for you."

"You haven't seen anything yet." Brock stepped forward, pulling Jamie from my arms and slinging her over his shoulder and then marching her out the door. "Say goodbye, Jamie."

"Bye, Jamie!" Our girl called out, half the party waving back as we left.

I had ideas, dreams, fantasies I'd been playing over and over inside my head since the moment I saw Jamie in the mocked-up version of the suit. Some of them involved her sitting on the edge of a desk, a ruler in her hand as she beckoned me forward, but right now they just involved getting the damn thing off her. We all stumbled up the steps of her apartment building, Brock forced to take over as he was the sober one, but when we got to her door, I pressed her against it rather than let her put the key in the lock.

Her keyring fell to the ground with a clatter as my lips found hers. Our kisses were messy, open mouthed, and tasted of tequila and I couldn't get enough of them. I needed her panted breaths, her teeth raking across my bottom lip, the way her hands shoved at my jacket, then my shirt. Of course my brothers couldn't let me have this moment. One of them grabbed the keys and opened the door, leaving us to stumble inside.

I felt like a wolf in the darkness, or some big cat. I tracked Jamie's every movement as she backed up, only just missing the couch, then catching her hip on the kitchen bench. Her little yelp had me sweeping her off her feet, because I couldn't bear for her to hurt anymore, because having her in my arms felt so damn right.

Because this was the fantasy I indulged in the most.

Jamie laughing, her heart light now. Every frown, every bit of tension, was wiped away, and when I laid her down on her bed, she went limp, completely relaxed. The way she stared up at me, then my brothers as we clustered around her was everything I dreamed of. She was free. I wasn't sure for how long, if this schism between her and her mother was permanent, but all I could focus on was right now.

The way her smile widened, twitching as we drew closer, a loose cackle of laughter filling the room, then falling away with a sigh. Her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks, fighting a battle to stay open that she lost with a sigh. One dream died the minute I heard it, my dick punching me in the gut with longing, but as her breath evened out, it was replaced by another. Sex we could have any night of the week, all of us in the room, or just her and me, but this? The way she fell into sleep with all the abandon of a small child, I hadn't realised how much I needed to see that. Instead of stripping her naked and gorging myself on the beauty of her body, I pulled my clothes off and hers, crawling onto the bed to curl around her and hold her tight.

We held her tight.

I'd always shared a strange kind of bond with Hunter due to the whole twin thing, but right now any distance that had existed between Brock and us was gone. We were joined now with bonds stronger than blood. Love, that beat through every single one of us, and so we pressed kisses to her body and then let ourselves fall asleep.

The darkness of sleep was perfect. In that space, there was no pain, no anguish. No listening to Majorie say shit about her daughter I wouldn't say about my worst enemy. Just closeness, something that throbbed with a life of its own, the pulse growing louder, stronger with every second until I was forced to open my eyes.

Light had turned into knife blades, stabbing themselves into my eye sockets, forcing me to screw my eyelids shut right as I felt that same heavy pulse inside my head as well as my heart.

I still loved Jamie, but damn, I was hungover as fuck. Rolling over, I expected to nestle into her softness, share the pain between us and hopefully lessen it. Orgasm was as good a painkiller, wasn't it? Unfortunately, it wasn't my girlfriend that I felt, but my brother's chest. Brock grunted and then shoved at me before snorting and going back to sleep.

Not me.

I was up and out of the bed, groaning as soon as I stood, hand slapping down on my head, which just made the pain worse. Stumbling, I went out of the bedroom to find Jamie standing at the kitchen bench, her phone in hand.

"Babe…?" Her smile was so damn dazzling as she turned to face me that I forgot all about my headache. "What're you doing?"

"Planning our future." She looked down at her phone and kept on scrolling. "I deleted Mum's number and then blocked it so she can't ring me anymore. I was tempted to do the same with Dad, but… Steve wrote me a shitty text, so he's gone as well." Her smile widened. "I'm cleaning my contact list up. People that treat me with respect, like I'm an actual person, make the cut, but the rest…"

"So… am I still in there?" I settled in behind her, hugging her close.

"You picked my mum up bodily and tossed her out the door like a sack of potatoes." She leaned back and kissed me. "So yeah, you made it." Another kiss. "That was really fucking hot."

"Any other family members you want tossed?" I asked. "I reckon Amber could do with a good yeeting."

"She's out too. Dumb bitch thinks you and Hunter are too hot for me? Gone. I admit, not seeing her sour face again is a pleasure I never expected to experience, but…" Her phone dropped down. "My niblings."

"Maybe we can get Frankie to sneak them around sometimes?" I said, then spied what she was looking at on her phone. "To our new home with a pool?"

"I'm just looking?—"

I was too. The phone was plucked from her fingers despite her protests. What was she dreaming about? I needed to know, but when I looked at the house, I could see it.

A nice, four bedroom place, nothing too fancy, but it was in a good neighbourhood not too far from the garage. Plenty of space for each of us to have a room, but I think I knew what the selling point was. Not the pool or the recently renovated kitchen, it was the massive shed in the backyard.

Jamie could set up her own workspace there, work on cars for fun. We'd come and hang out while she and Brock argued about how to restore a car. Maybe Frankie and Nadia could come by as well, hang out with Millie and the rest of our family on the back deck. I dropped the phone on the counter, then marched into the bedroom, slamming the door as I entered.

"What the fuck…?" Hunter's head jerked up off the pillow. "Where's the fire, dickhead?"

"There'll be one in the bed in a minute if you don't get up," I snapped.

"What. The. Fuck…" Brock groaned. "What time is it?"

"Time to go and look at our future home."

Jamie protested at that, but I had my brothers' attention. They were up and off the bed, blinking like owls.

"Whereabouts?" Brock asked, yanking on his suit pants, and I gave him the address. He made a show of considering that, then nodded slowly. "Nice and close to the garage."

"And the beach." Hunter's hair was wild, sticking up at crazy angles as he struggled to wake up, before turning to Jamie. "Is this what you want, babe?"

"I want us." It felt like this was the most vulnerable, most honest thing she'd ever said to us. "It'll be hard to do that here or at one of your houses, but… Us, that's all that really matters."

"There's an amazing shed," I told them. "Perfect for a workshop."

"Or a garage." Brock grinned, doing up his shirt. "Alright, dickheads, get a wriggle on. What time is the open inspection?"

"In half an hour," Jamie said.

"Dressed, in the car and, a run to Macca's for breakfast on the way. Let's do this."

Jamie hesitated, some old instinct kicking in, but I was relieved to see her smile.

"Let's do this."