Wedding Bet (Fixer Brothers Construction Co #8)

15. Jamie

15

JAMIE

I spent the rest of the night waiting for the other shoe to drop.

After eating the most delicious lemon-infused cake I’d ever had, Landry pulled me back out onto the dance floor. It was as if someone had flipped some switch in him, and all he wanted to do was dance—to fast songs, slow songs, and even wedding cha-chas. My feet were aching in the best way when the guests formed a conga line, snaking all around the dance floor.

I kept waiting for the moment when Landry would step back, like he had been doing all week. Waiting for when he’d get gun shy, or hesitate, or tell me I’d gone too far.

That moment never came. For the first time, I felt like I was seeing Landry’s whole self, not just the calm, controlled exterior he’d learned to project. He laughed harder. He smiled more. He touched me constantly, never looking around to see who would see us. I wouldn’t have thought it would be possible to like Landry more than I already did, but as the wedding went on, it was like he was finally free from some dreary curse he’d been under.

As long as Landry was willing to try —really try, with me—I was going to try, too.

I’d spent so long thinking I wouldn’t be ready to truly connect with anyone until… until I was stable enough. Rich enough. Established enough.

I’d never stopped to realize that someone could potentially like me just the way I was.

As the band played an instrumental version of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On,” Landry and I took turns crooning on the dance floor, singing a mishmash of the parts of the lyrics we each actually remembered. At one part, we both totally flubbed the lyrics, and ended up in a fit of tipsy laughter, leaning against each other in the middle of the dance floor.

Landry put his fingertips to the bottom of my chin afterward, lifting my face upward to kiss me. The lights sparkled all around us as we kissed, and I heard a hoot and holler from behind me.

“ Oh! Oooooh, what do I see here?”

I turned around to see Chase and Adam, on one of their many stops around the room. They’d been making a little circuit all night, trying to say hello to every one of the wedding guests, especially the ones who hadn’t been in the hotel all week.

They’d understandably been a little distracted all night, but they had definitely just seen me and Landry kissing.

“He… he just had something on his lip,” I joked, shrugging it off like it was nothing. “A little piece of frosting. Thought I’d help him get it off.”

“Looks like you’re certainly going to be helping him get off later,” Chase said, his eyes wide.

“Be right back,” Landry joked, “I think I need to smear a whole lot more frosting on my lips to get him to kiss me again.”

“Hey,” Chase said, pointing at Landry. “You know I love you, but you also know I’ll kill you if you break my brother’s heart, right?”

“And I’d deserve it,” Landry said. “That won’t be happening. If anything, he’s going to break mine.”

Emmett was nearby, too, his jaw dropped from seeing his best friend kissing me.

“This guy doesn’t do relationships,” Emmett warned me, though he had a glimmer in his eye. “He will have a fun night with you, but he’s a… what is it called, again?”

“Bachelor?” I said with a laugh.

“I think they call it a fuckboy these days,” Emmett said.

“Yes, I was a bachelor for quite a while, there,” Landry admitted. “But something tells me that Jamie’s not going to let me be one for long.”

My heart thudded like a firework had just gone off inside me.

No. Not yet. Don’t get your hopes up.

The idea of being with Landry, for real—of settling into a real relationship with him—was a fantasy I couldn’t even let myself touch yet. Sure, I would love it. I would want it more than anything I’d ever wanted.

But I was going to be patient. To take everything one step at a time. To make sure, day after day, that Landry wasn’t just in some emotional whirlwind from the wedding, and going to take it all back tomorrow or next week.

“Jamie is one of the sweetest guys I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing,” Chase told Landry. “He takes care of our mom, of me, hell, even his undeserving roommates, half the time. If you’re in his world at all, you’re lucky, you know.”

Landry’s expression softened. “I do know.”

“Good,” Chase said.

“Hey, this is your wedding, not mine,” I said, my cheeks heating at the compliment. “But thank you, Chase. Jeez.”

He laughed. “Fine. Then in a few years at your guys’ wedding, I’ll let loose way more compliments in a speech. How’s that?”

If I was blushing before, now my cheeks felt like they were on fire. “You are too much.”

Chase tilted his head back, laughing. “I’m sorry. It’s my wedding night. I’m walking on air. And on many, many cocktails.”

Another peppy song started up and an elderly couple came up, stealing away Chase and Adam’s attention.

By the time the final song played and the wedding came to an end, Landry and I were beat.

“I have never danced this much at a wedding before,” he told me as he held me close, swaying to the last slow song. “Actually, I think I’ve never danced to more than a few songs at any wedding.”

“You’re kidding,” I said. “You were a machine, tonight.”

“You bring out the best in me,” he said. “I’m not kidding when I say that.”

“This night has been incredible,” I murmured against his chest, tucking in close.

He hummed low near my ear. “It’s not even close to over yet.”

“Is that right?”

I felt his hand slide from my hip to the small of my back. He squeezed me tight there, drawing my body in even closer to his. “I told you what I want.”

A shiver rippled through me, every nerve of my body perking up in response to him. “And what’s that?”

“You. In my bed.”

I turned my head upward, looking him in the eyes. I closed the short distance between us and paused a moment near his lips, pulling in a breath. I leaned forward, catching his lower lip between my teeth and giving him a gentle bite. I could feel him groan against my body, the gentle vibration covering my whole body.

He captured my lips in a kiss and I was gone, just as quickly as I had been out on the balcony.

We were practically glued to each other as we made our way upstairs. The elevator bay was blissfully empty and we walked inside one, politely waiting until the door slid shut.

And then Landry’s body covered mine. In the same elevator we’d met, now he was claiming me, like he never wanted to let me go.

He was showing me in every touch, every word, every breath, that he meant what he said.

The elevator dinged and let us out on the top floor. Landry kept his hand tucked into my back pocket as we walked up to his door. The moment we were inside with the door latched shut behind us, Landry locked his arms around my waist, hoisting me up into the air.

I gasped, giving him a look of playful shock. “No one’s picked me up in years.”

“Fastest way to get you in bed,” he said, looking up at me as he carried me to the room.