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Chapter Five
It had been an age since I’d been to a yard party, and that afternoon it dawned on me I’d grown to prefer ones like the kind Hammer threw, instead of the superficial nightclub parties my buddies and I had lived for when we were all single.
During that time, most guys I knew envied the lifestyle I led. The playboy I once was, had been cocky, sometimes arrogant, but nevertheless a magnet for ballsy women or those my friends had called inheritance chasers. It was a lifestyle I managed well, and back then I didn’t attend intimate social gatherings in someone’s home unless it was a family occasion.
Being the eldest of my siblings, I had felt there was an unspoken expectation that I should have been the most confident within my sibling group; that my primary position should have made me more resilient than the others, but for some reason it didn’t. With every new sibling’s arrival, I’d viewed them as competitors and in my opinion from the attention they received, I didn’t feel as important because their needs were always greater than mine in the eyes of my parents.
Growing up, I wasn’t the most outgoing boy. With each new sibling who came on the scene, I guess I felt farther out of favor with my mother until by the time Sawyer was born, I had felt invisible.
My solitary behavior earned me the reputation with my mother as her ‘broody child,’ and as such, I learned people only considered the action someone takes and seldom questions or tries to understand the reason behind why someone behaves like they do.
It took guts to accept a proposal from my father, but it had proven to be a defining point in my life. It’s true I’d avoided that role, mainly because I had figured I’d fail him. As I grew older, I learned the only people who failed were those who never took risks, and as my father wasn’t getting any younger, someone had to step up to the plate.
Being the eldest heir to an extensive multi-agency firm, it had been my father’s expectation I’d join the company. It had been my expectation not to. I rebelled when it was suggested, partly for the reason I said before, and partly because I felt my father related to Sawyer better than me.
However, deep down, I guess I had always known I was the right person for the job. It was my place to succeed him when he retired, but I knew a role like his took great patience and nerves of steel, and at the time when it had been proposed I was very immature.
In the years since, I had joined the firm and taken my rightful place. It had been a steep learning curve, which had kept me humble, and I knew I had grown to be a man much like those in business who used to intimidate me. A powerful boss, impeccably dressed on the outside, with the ability to make or break a man, but because I had lived my life differently I knew inside I wasn’t the same.
It had taken a while to realize my worth in life, and I knew there was still a mountain of material to learn from the piranhas who crossed my path daily, with their ruthless attitudes in the world of finance. But I also liked that I knew this. I was flawed, but reformed, and harder—but not unyielding—unlike the self-important egotistical narcissists who enjoyed listening to their own conversations and whose word they thought was God.
In short, I was proud I’d battled through and became sure-footed in my identity. It may have taken me a long time to mature, and along the way I had made many mistakes, but I found those mistakes came with experience. In business I was balanced and fair like my father, never brutal, but my tolerance for bullshit was low and had no problem casting out those who would try to gain an unfair advantage either.
Turning from my waist to look behind me, a smile crept on my lips when I saw Juliette had been joined by my sister, Lorna, and Hammer. The way Lorna tilted her head while Juliette waved her arms when she spoke animatedly was a sign of approval from her. Lorna had another ‘tell’ and kept touching Juliette’s forearm when she replied, and it confirmed for me my sister liked her.
Lorna, was my mom’s youngest daughter. Mom referred to her as her ‘affectionate girl,’ but I knew Lorna only ever invaded a person’s personal space when she became lost in a conversation she enjoyed. She, like Sawyer, made friends with most people and no one was off limits. She’d even developed an easy and close friendship with Sawyer’s now business partner, and long-time recovering drug addict, Hammer.
To most people it would have appeared a strange relationship; Hammer was a handsome, muscular, tall, and blond band drummer, who in the previous year had discovered tattoos. A stark contrast to that of Lorna’s social debutant background and her proper schoolmarm, no-nonsense approach to life.
Lorna had an upbringing of privilege that was a world away from Hammer’s poor start and less than structured rock star lifestyle. But he was a great guy and as weird as they looked alongside one another, they had always gotten on great. As I watched the three of them from a distance, I turned my attention back to the task at hand of getting Juliette a drink.
Scanning the yard, my focus settled on four large brightly-colored ice chests placed in the shade on the wooden porch. They were next to Hammer’s kitchen door. I crossed the yard, nodding at one or two of the familiar faces I recognized until I reached the porch. There weren’t many people I knew as most were personal friends of Hammer’s.
“Trust me, just taste it, you’ll love it, Billie’s an amazing cook.” My heart stalled in my chest and stuttered back to life when I heard the woman who had always immediately primed every nerve in my body.
Once the shock of potentially coming face-to-face with Tricia Mattison again sank in, my heartbeat raced. For the previous couple of years I’d successfully, if somewhat inventively, avoided any events where I knew the possibility of running into her had been more than average. Fuck.
I had thought we were ancient history, until I heard her voice, but the instant I knew she was near, my body had reacted to the sound of her unmistakable familiar tone. I hadn’t even set eyes on her, but the anticipation of seeing her had been enough to bring back that ache in my chest and the restless feeling I had always felt when she was around.
Hearing her voice had sparked that insane euphoric feeling I got from the crazy chemistry we shared, and I realized that feeling had never left me. It was nothing like how I felt when I was with Juliette.
How do I know I recognize that feeling yet, I can’t explain how I feel for Juliette?An internal comparison I’d rather not to have made, took control of my mind. Juliette is exactly what I need… I love her.
Do I, or is this what I want to believe? If it’s Juliette, then why is my body behaving like a hard-up teenager becauseTricia is here?
My whole body felt wired in expectation, and like a flash, the time we’d spent apart instantly fell away and my thoughts plucked the raunchy memory of that last night I’d spent with her from my memory bank and set it on play at the front of my mind.
Another erotic image of her coming undone beneath me dropped into the mix, adding a heady cocktail of frustration, need, and an urgent pang of desire to see her.
Angrily, I squeezed my eyes shut tight, opened them again and strode toward the nearest cooler, set on getting the drinks, ignoring what I felt and moving the fuck away from the porch. Dipping my hand into the icy cold, partly melted ice, I pulled out a couple of beers. Not even the temperature in the box could distract the rage in my heart at my train of thought.
Rationally, I told myself Tricia’s voice was only a trigger to a long past memory and I loved Juliette, but deep down in my soul, my heart and my body were at odds with that thought as a sudden burst of adrenaline put every last nerve ending I had on its highest alert.
What Tricia and I had was a physical attraction, and I’d always favored physical tasks over mental ones in life. My contact sports were testament to that preference. The glowing calmness I felt after a good long workout had always truly centered me.
To entertain my feelings as anything else, with regards to Tricia, would have meant admitting I still felt I had unfinished business with her, and that was something I didn’t want to be my truth.
Caught up in my thoughts, I turned to make my way back off the porch and hadn’t realized she’d made it outside and was right there … in front of me, staring intently toward me. For a long moment we both froze, our eyes soaking in how the other looked, until I realized my breath had caught in my chest and breathed it out in a sharp huff. She looks incredible.
