I hadn’t known Jenna well before our engagement party, but she easily became another sister to me. After treatment, she’d stayed with us for a few weeks while Remi had done her best pouty face to try to convince her to move to Atlanta. But Jenna hadn’t been interested. She’d said Savannah was the only place she hadn’t felt afraid. And God did I understand the desire to hold on to that.
She was doing well though. She’d gone back to school, gotten her degree in graphic design, and started a small company freelancing from home. She still visited for holidays, summers, and really any time Remi could convince her to come hang out, but her visits had become slightly more spread out. I assumed this Trevor guy had something to do with it. I also assumed Remi and I would be planning a trip to Savannah sooner rather than later to sniff him out.
“Is he the guy with the too-big dick?” Remi asked, slapping me in the face with a thundering verbal cue to leave.
Shaking my head, I carried Eden outside just in time to see Sugar dive into the pool. He was still a maniac. I’d always hoped he’d outgrow the puppy phase, but he was pushing eight and still wild as ever. Clyde’s days of swimming were long over, but he was hanging in there, sleeping twenty-three hours a day.
“Heads up!” I shouted at the boys wrestling in the deep end before turning my attention to Tyson and Jared’s four-year-old daughter sitting on the steps, splashing under my mom’s watchful eye. “Hey, Lyla,” I called.
Her wet red ringlets bounced when she popped her head up. “Yeah, Bobo.”
Yes. She called me Bobo. My brother was an asshole and thought it was hilarious, but the joke was on him because it was fucking adorable.
“Watch out for Sugar. Don’t let him scratch you when he climbs out.”
“Okay!” She scooted over as Sugar hauled ass up the steps, ready to race around the pool for another dive.
It was opening day for the Braves and Remi had decided to host everyone for the opening day of our pool too. I’d begged her to plan something simple, but simple was not a word my wife was familiar with.
Making Remi my wife had been substantially less time consuming than making her my fiancée—twice. But it was not without issue. Out of respect for Tyson and Jared, we’d waited until their wedding and honeymoon were over to even begin discussions of what kind of ceremony we wanted. I hadn’t cared if we said I do in the parking lot at The Wave—something I’d suggested on more than one occasion. Something she’d also shut down and threatened to start feeding Sugar my left shoes if I mentioned it again.
For a woman who once had had a panic attack at the mere mention of marriage, her desire for a full-blown formal affair had shocked the shit out of me. It had also really gotten in the way of my whole ASAP thing. But if it was what she wanted, then that was what I was going to give her. At the end of the day, all that mattered was she fell asleep in my arms every night and woke up beside me every morning.
However, even after I’d acquiesced to a grand affair, I’d still worried that planning an event like that would take an eternity. I should have known better when it came to Remi joining forces with the Michaels women. The team of them had been hell-bent on going overboard—and as stubborn as I was, I’d had to pretend that it drove me nuts. They’d had every detail decided, booked, paid for, and marked off a shared checklist in two weeks flat.
It hadn’t been easy to hide how much they’d impressed me, but that was what I got for underestimating the women in my life. Besides, they were efficient psychopaths who only wanted to see me happy.
Six months after we’d gotten engaged, Remi and I had finally tied the knot in a gorgeous wedding at the botanical gardens. The venue hadn’t hurt, but for me, the beauty of that day was when every hope I’d ever dared to dream had finally come to fruition as I saw her standing at the other end of the aisle.
Rubbing his hands together like he was ready for a feast, Jack rose from his pool chair and headed my way. “It’s about time for you to start the grill. Why don’t you let me hold her?”
“Nah, I got her.”
He frowned. “You can’t man the grill and hold the baby.”
“Then you do it. Or better yet, Aaron can man the grill.”
“Don’t drag me into this,” Aaron said, tipping a beer to his lips.
Emily was laid out beside him, wearing a huge floppy sun hat she’d borrowed from Remi. They’d gotten married almost a year to the day after we had. I’d fired her immediately, stating that she was family now and could no longer be objective at work. The truth was she’d been looking for a way to quit. She hadn’t needed to work anymore once Aaron had stepped into the picture. He loved nothing more than to care for her every want and need.
