Page 4 of Something Borrowed

ChapterTwo

“Did you tell her?”Jaxon asked, focused on his reflection as he tied the robin’s egg blue bowtie. He didn’t bother to turn because he could see his father perfectly in the antique mirror in the guest room where all the men had been sent towait.

“I told someone.” His dad said, sitting down on the bed with a smile.

“Oh god, she’s going to kill me,” Jim groaned, dropping onto thebed.

“Has anyone ever told you,” Jaxon asked as he turned from the mirror, “that you and my sister are literally a perfect match?”

“You don’t want to be on your sister’s bad side. She’s brutal.” Jim said, sighing dramatically. “And for the record, I am nowhere near as dramatic as she is. I just want this day to be perfect for her. Having Marco and having you step in is likely going to ruin any chance at wedding night sex I was going to havetoo.”

“Hey! Father in theroom.”

“Sorry, Harry.”

“It’s all right, I’d just like to pretend that my baby isn’t old enough to be doing that, even though she’s getting married tonight.”

Everyone in the room let out a laugh.

“So, Dad, who did you tell I was going to be a replacement in the wedding?”

“Adrianna.” He shrugged at his son. “It felt like the safe choice. She is the one you’ll be escorting down afterall.”

Jaxon tried to not smile at the idea of walking Adrianna down the aisle. While big brother with little sister’s best friend is considered an off limit relationship, he’d always had feelings for Adrianna. It would have been impossible not to have feelings for a girl like her – even in high school she was beautiful, poised and had a sassy streak that always made him smile.

He’d thought about her countless times, but he’d never felt like he had any right to contact her. An aside friending her on Facebook and the occasional post comment, they hadn’t interacted in years. He and Adrianna hadn’t been friends, and they still weren’t. Jaxon had just always admired her, and as he’d gotten older, he realized she had possessed so many of the traits he wanted in hiswife.

Wonder if she’ll think I’m still that cocky asshole from high school?

Being in the Marines had done for him what it did for every person – it made him grow up. A person couldn’t remain some arrogant sports star when they were dodging bullets while escorting children out of a war zone. He’d seen that, in fact, he’d seen quite a bit more. For the last ten years, he’d moved from deployment to deployment, each one more harrowing than the last. When he’d joined he’d been looking for a way to pay for school because his parent’s had forbidden him from going on a sports scholarship as it would “take too much time away from his studies.” There had been five blissfully indulgent months in Australia before he’d been recruited for a cleanup mission of a bombed orphanage in Iran. He would never forget the broken bodies, the blood or the way the sadness seemed to crush him into the floor.

It had been impossible to go back to sand, sun and surf after that. He put his name on every list he could find that would take him to areas where his help would be needed. He’d saved children, the elderly and every day folks caught up in a war zone. However, he’d also cradled a child as she took her last breath, watched as countless bodies were pulled from many a wreckage and had lost three brothers’ to enemy gunfire.

He was about as far away from the conceited eighteen-year-old as he could be. Yet, the idea of doing something of this nature with Adrianna made him feel like he had gone back in time. She’d never given him the time of day. No matter how much charm he’d put on, or how relentlessly he’d flirted, she’d never once given into him. In fact, had he not caught her staring at him one day he would have never wondered why she hadn’t at least asked Kailey to date her brother.

Yes, because everyone would ask to date their best friend’s older sibling.

“How badly do you think Kailey will react to this? On a scale of one to ten?” Jim asked, peeking through his fingers.

“Oh, at least a fifteen.” Jaxon grinned. “If there is only one thing about me that remains from my pre-military years, it’s that I live to bug the shit out of my little sister.”

Laughter erupted around them, but Jim’s sound of terror was still louder than his entire four-person groom’s party laughing.

“All right then,” his father said, pushing off his knees to stand up from the bed. “I believe it’s time for me to do one last sweep of the house and make certain the guests are all enjoying the delicious Brennan’s appetizer’s.”

“Jesus, is that’s who is catering? I need to rescind my offer to stand in the party, I miss Brennan’s food.” Jaxon joked as he checked his cuff links one lasttime.

“You’re joking right; tell me you’re joking?” Desperation beamed up of Jim’seyes.

“Calm down, Jim. Of course, I’m kidding. Though the food is tempting. I need to come home more often,” he said as he watched his father slip out of theroom.

And he meantit.

Five years ago his mother had passed away. He hadn’t been able to come home while she’d battled Leukemia, and he would never forgive himself for that. His father and baby sister should’ve never had to shoulder that responsibility without his help – shouldn’t have had to watch her die alone.

“Well then boys, it sounds like there’s just one thing left to do before we help make Jimmy here an honest man!” Tom grinned like a wolf as he pulled a flask from his jacket pocket. “Obligatory jitters shots!”

“She’ll kill me if we’re all drunk,” Jim warned, side-eyeing the glasses as Tom filledthem.

“Live a little, Jim. I promise my sister is going to drive you nuts for the rest of your life, she won’t want to kill you today and ruin that opportunity.”

Jim shot Jaxon a glare as Stewart passed him a filled-to-the-top shot glass. Grasping it, he tipped it to his lips, emptying the glass in onegulp.

“All right then. Let’s help calm my nerves down with one more round.” Jim smiled, though a look of uneasiness still shone out of hiseyes.

Jaxon snickered. He’d spent what time he could watching Kailey and Jim grow in their relationship the past three years. Jim was a good man, even if he was utterly whipped by his sister. It felt good to be home for a celebration this time, not a funeral.

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