“Well, I think you’ve got that accomplished.” That last gift settled, Knight angled his big body back against the gift table. The guy was built like a Marine and I knew Marines. Had one or two in my family, and this guy could give any one a run for their money with his size. He was basically popping out of his gray suit. He grinned. “Like LJ said, take it easy. We’ll make sure these get to Royal and December’s place. Go have fun. Cash in one of those many digits I’m sure you got tonight.”
A jostle from more than one of them tonight for that and the bouquet toss fiasco. I lifted my eyes to the heavens. “Eh, don’t know about that. I was just going to head home. Relax.”
Jax’s jaw basically hit the floor, like I had the audacity at all to suggest such a thing for myself, and I suppose I wasn’t surprised. Odds were, these boys were headed to the club after all this tonight for an after-party and most certainly would get far more action than me since they had girlfriends. Seemingly appalled, Jax tucked his hands under his pits. “Fuck, bro. You serious? All that damn pussy just tossed to the ether? What the fuck?”
No sooner had he said the words, than his girlfriend Cleo looked like she had somewhere way better to be, shoving him with a “Jaxen” before he snagged her arm and inched her back to him.
“I meant for him, babe. For him,” he emphasized. Clearly, this girl was the only one in his eyes. Cupping her ass cheeks, he hitched her against him. “You know I ain’t about that life anymore. I gave you my damn kidney.”
He sure had, again fucking crazy.
And where this girl a second ago looked ready to run for the hills, now seemed hard-pressed to be anywhere but beneath him. He enveloped her in a sea of hands and well-timed kisses, making her giggle, and the rest of us roll our eyes, hard. Jaxen Ambrose roped like the rest of these boys.
And so, miracles really did happen.
He got a jostle or four from his friends, but not before I got another push to do something else with my time besides Netflix tonight. They even invited me to the after-party they planned to hit (I’d guessed right, a club), but I turned it down. Today had been a lot. Hell, the last few months had. I’d been December’s right-hand guy and that was on top of my own personal shit. I was ready for a cold one and a good night’s sleep.
“Fine, brother. Lame ass,” Jax goaded, but chuckled when he shook my hand. Our rings clinked, as did mine with Knight’s and LJ’s when we shook. We were all a part of the prestigious though equally infamous Court, brothers, though in the past we hadn’t acted like it. Tonight was clearly different, those days of the past gone, and it only helped we shared a common understanding. Our best friends got married today.
I suppose that made us linked for life.
I thought I’d get away with the last of their handling and I had for the most part, but not before Jax could slip the joint he had behind his left ear to my pocket.
“You need this more than me,” he said, obviously referencing my night of impending solitude. He patted my pocket. “Don’t get too wild tonight.”
This received barks of laughter from both Knight and LJ, but a head shake and a pair of flushed cheeks from his girlfriend. I suppose I wasn’t the only one who didn’t smoke weed. I guess I had in the past, but not since high school.
I flicked it in a wave after them before thinking better of that and pocketing it. Not that kids even a decade younger than me didn’t smoke these things in these very halls. Hell, I’d been one of them.
And yes, at fucking twelve.
I used to get up to all kinds of shit, but that was the past for the most part. Even still, I decided to take a walk down memory lane through the halls of Windsor House before heading home for the night. I had properties both here in Maywood Heights and on my new campus, Pembroke University. I thought that’d be best considering my plans to delve more into my father’s businesses here in town while at the same time going to school. Having two homes gave me convenience and ample choice about where to stay if I was tired or just didn’t feel like trekking the almost two hours to and fro.
The decision to tackle my father’s businesses now that I’d arrived back in Maywood Heights seemed like a necessary evil since I didn’t have the excuse of states between myself and my family’s legacy. Currently, most of my father’s businesses had board members running things, but it’d always been the plan for me to take over. After all, he couldn’t live forever.
Though, he’d been arrogant enough to play God in the past.
The disdain I had for my currently incarcerated father reached historical levels and wasn’t something I planned to touch with a ten-foot pole at all, here in Maywood Heights or not. His legacy didn’t have to be mine, his sins his own, and as far as I was concerned, I operated through life with a mother—only. One who actually gave a shit about me more than himself. She always had and did try to protect me from him. She’d been hard-pressed. My father had always been a powerful man, something I knew too well. Even from an early age.
That joint sounding real good about now, I got it out as I strode through the brick halls of Windsor House, the thing against my lips before I realized I didn’t have a light. I actually had to double back and bum a Zippo off someone from the band, and by then, I got a text from, of all people, December.
December: Hey, goober. You didn’t get out of talking to me tonight. This is on when I get back. *wink emoji*
I shook my head.
Me: Aren’t you supposed to be, I don’t know, doing your husband right about now?
Honestly, the actual thought made me want to barf a lung. Prinze fucking anyone. Let alone my best friend.
And the girl who could have been yours.
The joint twisted in my fingers, basically mangled by the time I got to Windsor House’s aquatic area. Back in the day, my friends and I used to get high as hell under the bleachers by the pool, the ambiance a bit different now. Thick with heat, the room painted timid waves from the shallow and deep ends. The lights were off, but the area was bright from the pool’s underwater lighting.
My leather shoes squeaked to a stop as December’s text message bubble popped up.
December: I’ll let you get away with that one because I love you.
I wished she didn’t keep saying that, that she loved me, and though I loved her too, I never said it to her. I was scared of what it meant whenever I even had the thought to say it. That it would come out meaning something else and I’d look like an asshole.
At the end of the day, December and I had a history, a long one. And though it hadn’t all been bad, it was filled with more pain and suffering than anyone in their goddamn lifetime should have had to endure.
And that’d been before she chose someone else over me.
She was my friend, yes. I loved her, yes, but we weren’t together. We weren’t a thing and…
December: I just wanted to let you know you weren’t off the hook for our talk. I still want to know what’s wrong with you. Why you came back? I’m not stupid.
I knew she wasn’t, didn’t think she was. But like I’d already told her, tonight and her wedding hadn’t been the time. In any case, I was a big boy. Could deal with my own shit.
I wet my lips.
Me: Noted. Will talk in the future. Promise.
Anything to get her to move on.