Wedding Bet (Fixer Brothers Construction Co #8)

2. Landry

2

LANDRY

In my dream, I was the one at the altar.

It was the first time I’d dreamed about a wedding. It wasn’t in the Rocky Mountains, but instead at the beach, with the shimmering waves as a backdrop. Excitement clamored around in my chest like a caged bird.

My husband-to-be started down the aisle, stepping through the sand to make his way toward me.

With hair the same color as the sand. And slightly tanned skin, eyes as blue as the water, and a shy smile that sent me to the moon. He even had a few tiny, light freckles beneath each of his eyes. I didn’t know who he was, but he was refreshing. Different. I was strangely drawn to him, and in the dream, I didn’t care that he was new.

From there, the dream got ridiculous in the way that dreams often do. Instead of the wedding continuing, suddenly we were shifted into the ocean, then on the beach. The man pulled me in and kissed me deeply as the waves crashed over our feet.

I woke up slowly, like a cloud was dissipating in my mind. I opened my eyes to find myself in the plush white sheets at the ski resort, with a view of the sunrise over the slopes past the big, paned windows of my room.

Gorgeous, no doubt. But something inside me just wanted to return to the dream, about the cute stranger who I barely even knew.

Freakin’ weird dream.

I groaned, turning over in bed, my limbs still heavy with sleep.

For God’s sake. I wasn’t supposed to be dreaming about weddings.

If there was one thing that everyone knew about me, it was that I hated weddings. Sure, I went to weddings. Tons of them. I had attended an average of two weddings a year for the last five years, actually, and I showed up to each and every one of them dressed to the nines and ready to celebrate with a smile on my face.

But deep inside, each one I went to made me more of a wedding grinch than the last.

The loving platitudes. The gifts. The crowds of people, half of which were just jealous onlookers anyway.

And they had gotten much worse this year. Since Parker cheated on me, every glimpse of other people’s success in love was just a reminder that I’d failed at it, yet again. I had decided to swear off the idea of love and finding The One, and for the last year, I’d been successful at it.

I’d tried to be the perfect boyfriend—and hoped to be the perfect husband—for three different guys over the last decade, and each relationship had fizzled out in its own, sad way.

The worst part was that Parker was set to be attending the wedding here this week, too. I hadn’t seen him yet, but he had been Chase’s coworker on the camera crew.

I’d tried to be the bigger man.

I’d never even told Chase that Parker and I had dated, let alone that had cheated on me. My relationship with Parker had been a secret. None of the Fixer Brothers crew had known—not the TV crew or the construction crew. Parker had claimed it was because he was in the closet, and so I’d kept it under wraps for him. Then he’d been perfectly fine coming out of the closet for his new boyfriend. The same guy he’d cheated on me with.

It had been painful. Beyond painful.

But Chase had no idea that it was going to be uncomfortable for me this week, and I didn’t want Chase to know, either.

This was his wedding. His week. And my own little sad story wasn’t going to ruin that. My colleague Emmett and I had worked the marketing side of the Fixer Brothers Construction company dutifully for the past year, taking their TV show and home goods brand to the next level. We were excellent marketers. Excellent businessmen.

That was what mattered. And I was going to be here for my friend.

But I knew I was going to have to encounter my ex this week at some point, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

Now, all I wanted was no-strings-attached fun.

Hookups, flings, or casual things only.

Dream Landry might have wanted a wedding at the beach, but Real Life Landry knew better.

I was already up, showered, and hitting the slopes an hour after waking up at sunrise. Skiing was one of the most blissful ways to get my blood pumping, forget what was on my mind, and get lost in the snow. I skied alone for an hour before it was time for Chase, Adam, Emmett, and all of the other guests to arrive.

I stopped into the tiny cabin cafe near the top of the chairlift, grabbing a coffee for some energy and warmth. I spotted a silver-haired guy across the cafe at a table who looked up at me, giving me a smile and a wink.

This would have been a perfect opportunity to delve deep into Operation Casual. To go sweet-talk the handsome man, find out if he was interested, and have a little no-strings fun while I was in the mountains for a week.

So what was holding me back?

Just then I saw Chase, his husband-to-be, and their giant group of friends walking up in the snow. I made my way to the door, walking out into the snowy morning air.

“Landry,” Chase said, giving me a quick hug. “Good morning. I see you’ve already made some dents in the fresh snow this morning?”

“I got up here early to shake off the sleep.”

…and to shake off my weird wedding dream, too.

Chase and Adam introduced me to some of their friends who I hadn’t met yet, and I greeted the rest of the Fixer Brothers Construction crew.

And then, near the back of the group, I saw a certain adorable marshmallow trudging his way through the snow. He was carrying skis awkwardly, and his cheeks were a dusty pink in the cold air.

Christ. Somehow he looked even better in the daylight than he had in the snow. Beach bum tanned skin and sun-kissed hair.

“Jamie. You made it,” I said, walking over to him.

“I feel like I’m already going to regret doing this,” Jamie said, his eyes wide as he looked at the rolling mountains and ski lift.

“You’re going to love it,” I said.

“At least one of us is confident.”

He really did look every bit like a California boy. He could have been in a surfboard advertisement.

Operation Casual would be so fun with Jamie. Too bad that I’d gotten the definite vibe that he was not interested last night. No matter how much I liked someone, I was never going to force them to do things with me if they didn’t want to. After Parker refused my proposal—while I was on bended knee, in front of him, at the top of a mountain eight months ago—I hadn’t even cried.

It was as if a switch had flipped inside me. I was numb. Like the idea of falling in love again was an impossibility. I couldn’t force anyone to love me enough to marry me, so I never wanted to have expectations again. For so long, I’d wanted the whole shebang: monogamy, kids, a house on a hill to grow old together inside.

Now, all I let myself hope for was a fun night in bed with someone.

If Jamie didn’t want that, I could at least show him how fun skiing could be.

“Here,” I said, helping him slide his goggles on into their proper place. “You’ve got pretty sweet gear for someone who’s never skied before.”

“This is all Chase’s,” Jamie said. “We have always worn the same size in everything.”

“Your boots feel tight enough?”

“Definitely.”

“And you’re feeling refreshed and ready to learn?”

He glanced up at me, his lashes thick and pretty surrounding those baby blues. “I’ll admit, I’m a tad hungover. That cocktail you sent me was generous with the liquor and very delicious.”

“You liked it?” I asked, genuinely warmed by the idea.

“Loved it,” he said, his eyes glittering up at me.

“Wait until you try their espresso martinis,” I said. “Even better and even stronger.”

“Okay,” Chase called out to all of us, squinting into the morning sunlight shining off of all the white snow. “All of the beginners to the right for a lesson on the bunny slope and the experts to the left. Let’s rock and roll.”

Jamie headed off to the right with a few of the other beginners, and I followed after. He looked up at me, cocking his head to one side.

“I don’t know you that well, Landry, but I definitely know you’re not a beginner,” he said. “Why are you over here with me?”

“Well, a lot of these beginning ski lessons are utter crap,” I said to him. “I’m not going to let any of you get hurt from taking bad advice. I’m going to come help.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he said. “Go have fun with Chase and Adam.”

“I want to help,” I said. “And I definitely don’t want to see you get hurt.”

We headed over to the bunny slope and in another few minutes, I was watching Jamie teeter around on his skis like a four-year-old skiing for the first time. It was totally endearing and when he kept tucking his arms in close, I leaned over to guide him, showing him to keep his arms out and lifted. When the instructor started showing him how to make a wedge with his skis, I watched as he made each movement so slowly and carefully. It was as if he was afraid to move even one millimeter in the wrong direction, and we weren’t even on an incline yet.

“I can tell you right now, this is nothing like surfing,” he said, looking down. “At least you can float on the water.”

It was cute seeing how new this all was for him. He was completely out of his element here in the snow on a pair of skis, wobbling and wide-eyed.

“You got this,” I said. “Here, try getting into a wider stance.”

“Shit. No, no, no,” he said, tensing up and standing up straighter right away.

“Doing all right?” I asked, reaching out to take his arm.

He let out a long sigh, his brow knitting. “I watched my mom’s life change in an instant from an injury,” he said. “I’m a little shellshocked.”

I let him go slowly. “I had no idea.”

He nodded. “She was a dance and gymnastics instructor for years. Then one day she made one bad move and her hip shattered. She’s been on disability ever since, and Chase and I help her—oh God — ”

Jamie’s words cut off as one of his skis jutted out too far forward, and he almost fell into a bad looking middle-split. He reflexively reached out to grip my arm, and I caught his forearm, hoisting him back up before he dropped lower and potentially hurt his groin.

“Jamie, are you okay?” I asked, still keeping my firm grip on him as he caught his breath and stood up straight again. His cheeks flushed in the cold and he let out a sigh of relief.

“You just saved me from going into a stretch I definitely couldn’t have made,” he said. He squeezed my arm, and then I released his. “I got caught up thinking about my mom, and I don’t usually talk about her much, and… God, thank you. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

“No problem. Watch yourself, daredevil.”

One corner of his mouth quirked up into a smile. “I’m the opposite of a daredevil. I’m actually annoyingly boring and predictable.”

“You haven’t bored me for one second,” I said. “Now, go as easy on the slopes as you want. Hell, even walking around in the skis is a form of practice.”

He looked from his skis to me then down again, taking a deep breath. “Glad you don’t think I’m a wuss.”

“Hell, no,” I said. “Slow is good sometimes. Right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Slow can be really good.”

There it was again, that glance from him that made my insides buzz. When he looked up at me from under his lashes, I wished I could take him back up to my room and have a day of fun with him.

Sure, I wasn’t a relationship kind of guy anymore. But that didn’t have to stop me from fantasizing about a no-strings-attached romp with an adorable beach bunny.

For the next couple of hours, as Jamie listened in and followed the instructor’s lessons, I helped anytime he needed assistance on his form. He took it slower than lots of the other beginners, for sure, but after a while he started to get more and more comfortable. And by the end of the lesson, Jamie was hitting the bunny slope like a pro, gliding and braking with ease.

Afterward, we met back up with everyone in the resort restaurant for a late lunch. A big group of us gathered around a long, cozy wooden table, with giant windows behind it that looked out at the mountains. I sat next to Jamie, and Chase and Adam sat at the center of the group.

When Chase mentioned that the bill for lunch would be on them today, I saw Jamie visibly relax.

“I fucking loved getting to see you out there rocking the powder, Jamie,” Chase said, giving him a squeeze on his shoulder. “Never in a million years did I think I’d see you in the snow, let alone on skis.”

“Landry was a huge help,” he said. “I owe him one. Although the only thing I’m any good at is cooking up a perfect breakfast, so I’m not sure I can repay the favor properly.”

“Well, you could teach me to cook, then,” I said.

“You can’t cook?”

I leaned back in my chair. “I can cook a frozen pizza, by removing it from a box and sticking it in an oven.”

Jamie was suppressing a smile, his boyish face lighting up at my joke. “I could certainly teach you how to cook more than that .”

“I’m a terrible cook. God awful.”

“I can attest to that,” Emmett said, jumping in on the conversation. “I’ve had Landry’s cooking before, and it was only a step above bad school cafeteria food.”

“Ignore my best friend,” I told Jamie. “Emmett spends too much time with me.”

“Lucky’s not just my best friend, he’s my business partner, too,” Emmett clarified. “Jamie, we met last year when you visited in fall, didn’t we?”

Jamie nodded. “You were so nice to me,” he said.

“I had no idea,” I told them.

So Jamie had been in town last year, and I hadn’t even met him.

“Anyway,” Emmett added. “Landry’s right. Don’t trust his cooking. What did you try to make, last year at the lodge?”

“It was supposed to be a beef stew,” I admitted. “But I got the wrong cut of beef, and it ended up so tough you could barely bite into it. I accidentally added so much table salt after the broth had reduced, and let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. I swear, you could give me two eggs to scramble and I’d find a way to burn them.”

“Oh, I will teach you how to cook a mean breakfast,” Jamie said. “Easy peasy.”

“Sometime I’ll have to drive down to Stellara Beach and learn,” I said.

He waved a hand through the air. “You don’t have to do that.”

It was the second time today that Jamie had said that to me. He seemed to think that I wouldn’t want to spend time with him, and I couldn’t quite figure out why.

“I’d like to, though,” I said simply. “Hey, I’m going to go grab my phone from up in my room. If the waiter comes, can you grab a beer for me? Whatever kind looks good to you.”

Jamie nodded. I went up to my room quickly, grabbing my phone and heading back down. A quick glance at it showed me that I had an email invitation to a fancy potluck party with investors in Los Angeles next week. Emmett and I had started up our own marketing firm, Waycott Marketing, last year, and I’d used my connections to score us a good number of clients in Los Angeles this year, as well as here in Colorado. I scrolled past another email from my financial advisor letting me know that one of my portfolios had gone up by ten percent in the past month.

Sheesh.

If only my love life could be as effortless as my financial life.

As I walked back over to the table, I overheard Jamie and Chase talking.

“--think he’s taking pity on me or something,” Jamie was telling Chase. “I feel bad.”

I stopped behind a waiter carrying a mountain of plates on a tray, inadvertently overhearing more before I reached the table.

“I guarantee Landry is not taking pity on you,” Chase was telling him. “That man doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do. I promise. He likes you, Jamie. And he probably wants to drag you to his bed, honestly.”

Jamie snorted a laugh, then took a sip of his drink. “A guy like him?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’s drop-dead gorgeous, rich as hell, athletic, and I don’t think he wants more than a one-night thing, if you catch my drift. I’d probably spontaneously combust if he touched me.”

“Landry’s been through his fair share of shit,” Emmett chimed in. “He’s sworn off relationships, but there’s more than meets the eye.”

I cleared my throat, walking up and making my presence known. I put one hand on Jamie’s shoulder. The two of them didn’t know I’d overheard their conversation, but Jamie still perked up as he saw me.

It stirred a particular, silent satisfaction in me. He definitely wasn’t spontaneously combusting from me touching him.

“Guess what?” I said.

“Hmm?” Jamie responded blushing a little in that way I was starting to get addicted to.

“I think I’m going to need your help with cooking after all,” I said. “I got invited to a potluck next week, and I think they’re sick of me bringing the same store-bought chocolate cake every time.”

“Chocolate cake is so easy,” Jamie said. “As long as you get the right kind of cocoa powder. Dutched cocoa is always a good option, but sometimes regular dark can be just as good.”

As I sat back down at the table, I kept Jamie talking about food, his family, and life by the beach. It turned out that similar to skiing, Jamie did best in conversation when we took things nice and slow.

And with him, maybe I could enjoy slow .

Even if he didn’t want a casual hookup, and I’d have killed for one night with him, I could still be his friend.

When lunch was over and everyone started filtering back up to their rooms, I hung back with Jamie.

“You look good after a morning of skiing,” I told him.

He looked at me with those wide, deerlike eyes again. “You seem to look good every moment of every day, as far as I’ve seen.”

I relished the compliment probably a little more than I should have. “Thank you.”

He bit the inside of his cheek. “Damn. I promised myself I’d be better at this today.”

“Better at what?”

Something simmered behind his eyes.

“Flirting with you,” Jamie said.

A thrill ran through my body. “Oh, you’re flirting with me, huh? Seemed to me like you weren’t interested in spending any time with me last night.”

“Are you kidding?” he said, his eyebrows shooting up. “You’re the hottest person I’ve ever seen in real life. Of course I’m interested.”

“Trying to make me blush now?”

Jamie shook his head. “Last night I just… thought I’d be more comfortable in the smaller bar. I don’t think I’d fit in at a fancy lounge that costs five hundred dollars just to be able to walk into.”

I reached out one hand, gently touching the side of his hip, giving him a little squeeze. “Well, meet me in the little pub tonight, then.”

There was a wild look in his eyes, and I wasn’t sure if it was because my hand was on his body or because of what I’d said.

“No obligations, of course,” I said softly, but as I stood there staring at his plush lips and comforting eyes, I sure as hell hoped he’d say yes.

“Okay,” he said finally, like he was snapping out of a trance. “I don’t know why you’d ask me when there are dozens of other—”

“Because I like you, Jamie,” I said simply. “I want to be your friend.”

There was that telltale blush again. “Even though we barely know each other?”

His words hit me harder than he ever could have known. Strangely, after I’d proposed to Parker on bended knee, he’d said something similar, eight months ago. We don’t even know each other that well .

I had known Parker very well, in my opinion, after bending over backward to make our secret relationship possible. But apparently, it hadn’t been enough for him. I wanted commitment, family, and kids, and he didn’t. He’d been screwing around with other guys behind my back.

I didn’t want to hope for too much, ever again.

Friendship was easier.

“All friends have to start somewhere,” I offered him, trying to shake off ugly memories from the past. “And sometimes, I just know I like someone from the moment I meet them. I feel that way with you.”

To my relief, Jamie nodded. “I agree. Okay.”

“To being friends,” I told him.

A smile started to play at the corner of Jamie’s lips. “To being friends. And I like you, too, even if I feel more out of place here than a lobster in a lion’s den,” he said, a sparkle of something playful behind his eyes.

He made me laugh, and all of the tension of thinking about my past melted away. “Lobster in a lion’s den? More like a hot surfer in a polar bear’s cave.”

He bit his lower lip as he smiled, agreeing with me.

God, I wanted to kiss that mouth.

Every fiber of my body wanted to lean in and press my lips to his.

To show him just how fun a one-night fling could be.

I gave him a quick squeeze on the shoulder, then started off back toward my room. “Meet me at eight. I’ll be at the front bar. And you won’t feel out of place, I promise.”