Forever Starts Tonight (Wilder Family #4)

Chapter 19

Poppy

“Can you remind me one more time what you said yesterday?”

Ivy’s whispered question had me jamming an elbow into her side, shoving her away from me. Behind me, there was so much commotion, but I blissfully ignored all of it and focused every shred of my attention on serving up a piece of pie.

“Olive, honey, did you want some pie?” I asked my niece as she skipped past the table.

She didn’t even stop, and I grimaced. Honestly, where were the kids when you needed them to distract people? They were always gone.

Greer sidled up on my left, leaning in just as far as Ivy was on my right. “Am I the only one noticing what’s happening here?”

I punched the knife into the edge of the pie, slicing down into a piece so big, I’d never, ever be able to eat it.

Did I still put it on my plate?

Sure did.

What good was being pregnant if you couldn’t fill half your plate with apple pie?

“Poppy is noticing,” Ivy answered in lieu of my silence. “She just doesn’t want to admit it because she tried to tell me the other day she’s not in a love triangle.” Ivy carefully extracted the giant knife from my grip. “A line, right? You’re in a love line?”

“What does that even mean?” Greer asked.

“It means that Ivy is full of shit and needs to stop talking,” I said sweetly, snatching the knife back and setting it next to the pie plate.

The three of us turned in tandem, and when confronted with the reality of what was behind us, I shoveled a giant piece of pie into my mouth. Greer used her napkin to fan her face.

“Well, whatever the current shape of your love life, I am supportive .”

The pie wasn’t enough. I’d need four more.

I tried desperately to think about a good metaphor for what was happening inside my brain, and came up blank. Tangles and knots were close, but it felt messier. More permanent.

So many people, including members of my family, did a bang-up job of compartmentalizing. Blocking out the inconvenient feelings in their life so they could function.

I was not one of them.

Wouldn’t it be nice if I could lock my past feelings for Jax in a little box and throw away the freaking key? Why did I think I could navigate any of this with a few simple decisions?

I sat in a vehicle and told Jax Cartwright he was too good in bed . With a straight face.

No wonder I’d never managed to be friends with this man. Something about him scrambled my actual brain.

Which is why I had half a freaking pie on my plate.

“Who decided this was a good idea?” I hissed. “Who decided a physical competition was a good idea?”

“Someone very smart,” Ivy said unashamedly, her eyes locked on my brother’s torso as he passed the ball to Jax .

A friendly post-dinner game of touch football. Sure. Just what we needed.

Except it wasn’t very friendly. Someone tried to suggest not keeping score, and it didn’t go over well.

“Honestly, would it kill this family to drop the intensity just a little bit?” I asked.

No one answered because we all knew it was rhetorical.

The teams were … lopsided. Greer said she was too tired, Ivy hated organized team sports, and when I tried raising my hand as an option, everyone yelled No immediately, which I thought was a little excessive, but whatever. Thankfully, Sage—Harlow’s daughter—volunteered as quarterback for the second team.

And Olive, God bless her, had no idea what she was supposed to be doing, but she agreed to play with Sage when she asked to have another girl on the other team.

So we had Ian, Jax, Parker, and Olive matched up against Cameron, Dean, Beckett, and Sage. The disparity in a few of the players provided mixed results. Olive was far more interested in plucking weeds from the grass, but would occasionally run when Uncle Cameron chased her. Ian played defense against the QB because he wouldn’t let anyone else guard his stepdaughter and risk hurting her.

This meant he wasn’t trying very hard to tackle her because I honestly thought he’d rather lose than see Sage not do well.

Parker and Beckett, as teammates for the Voyagers, they were the only two who could meet each other step for step.

And that left Dean guarding Jax.

I couldn’t even tell you how fun it was to watch the two of them try to sprint past each other or the shoving that was just past the limits of polite during certain plays.

Jax caught a pass from Sage, snagging it over Dean’s head, reeling in the ball for a beautiful catch. His teammates cheered, and I kept my pie-filled mouth shut, I’ll tell you that much.

Their team lined up again, and my eyes locked on the two men on the end. Dean swiped at his forehead with the collar of his shirt, and the quick glimpse of his chiseled abs had me digging the fork into my pie again.

Jax had lost his shirt after the first play because he hadn’t dressed for football. And it was not good for my sanity.

When he pulled his shirt off and tossed it on the ground, I kept my attention right the hell on my mother’s face, and I didn’t like how she raised an eyebrow in challenge. When I narrowed my eyes in a glare, she only laughed under her breath.

Not that I was doing anything laugh-worthy.

Because what I wasn’t looking at was the light smattering of dark hair across his chest. I wasn’t looking at the sculpted curves of his pectorals or the rounded muscles on his shoulders.

And I wasn’t looking at the stacked lines of his abs either. Or the way the sweat glistened on those abs in the light of the setting sun.

Fuck , I mouthed silently, right before taking another bite.

Beckett snapped the ball to Sage and took off running, and so did Jax, spinning around Dean to cut into the middle. Olive stayed right where she was, pulling up a dandelion and holding it out to Cameron with a smile. He scratched the side of his cheek and accepted it from her, tucking it behind his ear with a wink.

“He’s too tall,” Sage yelled, trying to dance around Ian as he made a few half-hearted attempts to ‘tackle’ her with a simple touch.

“Better run faster then, kid,” Ian said, darting around behind her, laughing when she ducked under his arm and shot forward. She set her feet and heaved the ball in the direction of Beckett. Parker swore when he realized he was a step behind where he should be.

Beckett caught it with a yell but whirled when Parker tried to grab him. He shouted for Jax, then pitched the ball sideways for a lateral pass. It was almost perfect, but Dean’s long arm shot forward and knocked the ball out of the air.

He shouted, pumping his fist like he’d just won the Super Bowl. Dean turned to me and grinned happily. I waved, wondering when I needed to break it to him that winning this backyard game of football didn’t actually mean anything.

Greer shook her head, chuckling quietly. “You know, in the olden days, men did shit like this all the time to gain a woman’s favor.”

Just as she said it, Parker lowered his shoulder and tackled Beckett onto the ground. Beckett laughed, shoving Parker off before he hopped back up to his feet.

“I didn’t have the ball, Parker,” Beckett said with a grin.

Parker gave him a steady look. “I know, you just looked like you needed to be knocked on your ass.”

Beckett rolled his eyes, shouldering Parker as he passed. Parker shoved back. The two started tussling. Again.

“And we wonder why their life expectancy is shorter,” I murmured.

Greer sighed, watching her normally very stoic husband wrestle our brother on the ground. Next to Beckett and Parker, Jax picked up the ball and tossed it back to Sage, who caught it neatly in one hand.

Dean strode past Jax without a second look. “That’s game, right? We won?”

No one answered him, but he jogged up the porch steps and tried to give me a hug.

I ducked away with a laugh. “Yeah right, get that sweat away from me.”

Dean’s eyes were bright in his face, and he smiled widely. “Oh come on, you love it.” He snagged a quick kiss, then hopped off the porch, picking up a discarded basketball and dribbling it around. “Anyone want another game?” No one answered. Dean drilled a three-point shot, his focus entirely on the hoop. “How about you, Jax?”

“I think I’ll pass for now.”

“Suit yourself.”

My chest felt cranked too tight.

Jax’s jaw tightened, and his eyes locked on mine for a breathless second. Then he glanced away and walked over to Cameron and Olive. Ian and Sage had taken a pause, talking to Harlow, where she sat on the front porch next to Mom. The dessert table was on the other side of the front door. Greer, Ivy, and I still huddled together while I shoveled pie in my face as a coping mechanism.

“What happened when they came out here?” Greer asked. “Dinner was good.”

“It was,” I told her.

“I bet Cameron fifty bucks they’d come to blows,” Ivy said smoothly. “I’m happy to lose, for obvious reasons, but the evening is still young, apparently,” she said smoothly, eyeing the tense exchange in front of us.

I rolled my eyes as Greer laughed.

It’s not like Jax was chatty. He was still Jax, but it was polite with him and Dean on opposite ends of the table. Pleasant, even.

Over the years, I’d honed a supernatural ability to keep blinders on when Jax and I were sharing space. Greer told me once it was just good self-control, but honestly, it was more about self-preservation than anything. And boy, did the years of practice come in handy at that particular dinner.

Parker’s surprise presence helped keep Dean occupied, they didn’t know each other very well. Parker hadn’t been home as much since Dean and I started dating.

Ian and Harlow kept Jax occupied, and next to me, Dean was his normal amiable self. We talked about his day. He kept his hand anchored over my thigh under the table, his big hand a warm, solid presence that I’d gotten used to having on me whenever we ate a meal together.

He was one of those guys, always wanting to sit on the same side of the booth or table when we went out to eat. Easier to hold my hand, he always said. And he did that often, content with his arm around me or his hand in mine, his palm and fingers draped possessively over my thigh.

It was that same hint of possession present in his kiss when I arrived too. I couldn’t hold it against him, really. Knowing my history with Jax, any man would feel the slightest bit threatened, but watching the two of them on that football field gave me the sinking feeling that I would have to admit something that I didn’t want to admit.

That possessive display, even if it was understandable, sat on my skin like an oil slick I wanted to wash away. It wasn’t giving me butterflies, and there was a low-level buzzing that this was just wrong, wrong, wrong .

Greer nudged me with her elbow, and I blinked out of my snarly, uncomfortable thoughts.

“What happened?” she asked again. “Did you see, Ivy?”

She shook her head. “I was helping your mom set up the desserts.” Then she perked up. “You saw the cookies I made, right?”

Greer and I shared a loaded look. “They’re very nice, Ivy,” my sister answered diplomatically.

The plate on the table held a large pile of flat, slightly misshapen cookies that no one except Olive had tried.

Ivy narrowed her eyes. “Aren’t you going to try one?”

Weakly, I held up my serving of pie. “Not sure I should have any more sugar, you know?”

Greer took a conspicuous sip of her iced tea. When Ivy continued staring at her, she patted her stomach. “I’m stuffed, but, uh, next batch, I promise.”

Ivy muttered something under her breath .

I fought a smile. “Nothing happened,” I told them. “It was Ian’s fault, really.”

“It always is,” Greer murmured. “We can’t take him anywhere.”

“What did he do?” Ivy asked, picking up one of the cookies from the plate and setting it back down with a slight grimace.

“He was dumb enough to put them on opposing teams, and apparently, that was all it took to trigger some dumb caveman switch in their dumb brains.”

I swallowed hard, watching Dean abandon his lone game of basketball to pick up the football. He looked like an athlete, even next to Parker and Beckett. The long legs, arms roped with muscle, the trim hips and big hands. He tossed the ball in the air, then told Parker to run a route.

He heaved the ball, a perfect spiral, that landed into Parker’s outstretched hands.

Jax was standing behind them, hands on his hips, his chest bare and the lines of his stomach glistening. My heart rate jumped, and I tore my eyes away.

“You’d think they’d have so much to bond over,” Greer said lightly. “Given their shared sexual attraction to this very fine young woman here.”

If looks could kill, my sister would be so freaking dead.

“Sexual attraction isn’t enough,” Ivy said thoughtfully, “Dean doesn’t actually have any sexual encounters with Poppy.”

Greer made a small aah sound.

My face was seven thousand degrees. “I’m never telling you guys anything ever again.”

Greer patted my arm. “Yes, you will. None of us can help ourselves.”

“Think about it,” Ivy continued. “Jax has quite literally staked his claim on you.”

“He really didn’t,” I said firmly. “There is no claiming of anything, and it’s so much better that way. ”

Ivy ignored me because she was the worst. “He didn’t just sleep with you. He left his seed inside you. His line is continuing inside of your body, visible proof of his virility for all to see.”

The fork in my hand slowly lowered back down to the plate, the nugget inside me choosing that precise moment for a few little fluttery movements. My eyes pinched shut.

“I can quite literally feel the feminism leaving my body as you’re saying this,” Greer whispered. “It’s bizarre.”

I blew out a slow breath.

“Even if Dean’s reasons for wanting to wait are valid and understandable, in the alpha male hierarchy, the boy’s at a disadvantage, and he knows it.”

“I don’t need him to be in the alpha male hierarchy,” I hissed. “That’s not even a real thing.”

“Yes, it is,” they said in unison.

Jax chose that moment to pick up his T-shirt off the ground, the muscles in his stomach flexing as he pulled the shirt back over his head and tugged it back over his chest. My pulse skittered at the way his massive biceps curled under the surface of his skin. When the shirt fell back into place, the dark line of hair that split his stomach disappeared.

“Dean doesn’t need to sleep with me to prove anything,” I said, but the words sounded weak even to my own ears. “He’s a good boyfriend. A great one.”

“We know,” Greer said gently. “And it’s obvious he’s crazy about you.”

He was.

So why aren’t you in love with him , a voice whispered at the back of my head. The past four months had been filled with so much good. Warm affection and easy laughs and excellent conversation. The lack of heat hadn’t registered because the decision was taken out of my hands. But why wasn’t I in love with him? Even thinking the question triggered an anxious tightening in my throat. It wasn’t that I was afraid to admit that Dean wasn’t The One. If I was honest with myself, I knew it even before Jax came home.

My fear was rooted somewhere else.

It was a list I didn’t really want to make because seeing it in black and white felt like a road map to my own doom.

Jax jogged up the steps of the front porch and nodded as he approached. “Anything good left?” he asked.

With a grimace, I peeked at the empty pie plate. “Umm…”

Ivy grabbed the cookies she’d brought and displayed them with a flourish of her hand. “I brought these,” she proclaimed. “Sheila’s recipe.”

Jax’s brow furrowed as he studied the dark brown blobs.

“Are they?” Greer whispered.

I rolled my lips together to stem a laugh. “Jax loves cookies,” I said. “He told me earlier.”

Underneath his breath, Jax made a small growling sound, and damn if I did not feel that all the way down to my little toes.

It was heat. Licking at my skin, skirting the lines of propriety with how lightning-quick that fuse was lit. I could practically hear the clicking of a stove, just waiting for the flames to take.

“Ahh, so this is what it’s like being Poppy’s friend,” he said casually. Then he leaned down to whisper by my ear. Helplessly, my eyes fluttered shut, and it felt like even my heart slowed as it registered his closeness, the slight scent of his skin. Come closer , I wanted to scream. Just a little. Jax spoke again, and I tore my thoughts from that very unhelpful place. “Complete and utter betrayal of my innermost secrets. Thanks, friend .”

Uncontrollable heat—from a tiny little growl and the scent of his skin near mine—so big that it almost hurt, and my eyes fluttered shut as I registered an instinctive pressing of my thighs .

Shit.

Shit.

Shit .

Brain. Scrambled.

Thankfully, it was the dark use of that word that had me laughing despite myself, and I smiled up at him.

Jax’s eyes darkened when I smiled, the muscle in his jaw working as he reached past me and took two cookies from the plate. He swallowed thickly, eyeing the cookies like they might explode, then took a tentative bite, chewing very, very slowly. “They’re … really interesting, Ivy.”

She beamed. “See? I don’t know why everyone’s afraid to try them.”

“Past history?” I ventured with a sweet smile.

Ivy’s eyes narrowed dangerously. Cameron calling her name from the yard saved me from any further retribution, but honestly, the woman was a complete menace in the kitchen.

Once the bite of cookie had disappeared, Jax picked up a bottle of water from the cooler next to the door and drained half of it in one long pull. While Ivy’s back was turned, he quickly tossed the second cookie into the trash next to the table, and when he wiped his hand off on his gym shorts, the firm line of his mouth edged up in a wry smile.

“You’re keeping that between us, right?” he asked.

Heart racing from that curve to his lips, I nodded.

His eyes tracked over my face before he left the porch, and I let out a surreptitious breath, staring down at my feet while he walked down the steps.

Friends.

Friends.

Friends .

I would be friends with this man if it was the last thing I did. I’d find a way to lock my feelings up, bury them seventy-four feet underground, and burn them to the ground because if I wasn’t careful, those feelings would be my downfall. Channeling every ounce of Wilder family stubbornness I knew ran through my veins, I lifted my head. Dean watched me carefully, his own brow wrinkled.

Friends , I thought.

I managed a smile, and Dean’s face smoothed out before he turned to throw the football again.

The moment his back was turned, my smile dropped, my shoulders slumping and my mom came up beside me, carefully extracting the plate from my hands. “Pie will solve a lot of problems, honey,” she said quietly. “But I don’t think it’ll solve this one for you.”

“How do you see everything?” I asked her.

“Years and years of practice,” she told me. Then she gently patted my bump. “Just wait. You’ll see.” She wrapped an arm around me. “I’ll make myself scarce after everyone leaves, just in case you need some privacy.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I gave her a grateful smile, even though my chest hurt a little bit.

As soon as she walked away, roping my brothers into cleaning up the kitchen, I grabbed the pie.