Just as I finished transferring the dishes from the sink to the dishwasher, I was yanked from my thoughts by the doorbell ringing. Fuck, he’s here.
A not-so-small part of me had been hoping he’d find himself something else to do tonight and that he’d cancel our plans. I should’ve known I wouldn’t be so lucky.
As I glanced down at my leggings and sweatshirt, I wished I had time to change into something else, but this was as good as it was going to get now. The best I could do was to let my hair down out of the bun I’d pulled it into for tidying and smooth it out some.
April looked up at me when I passed our living room and quickly made a dash for the last two cushions that were still just lying around. I smiled at her and kept my tone reassuring. “Don’t worry, honey. We’ve done the best we can with the time we had. No one can expect anything more than that.”
When I opened our front door, Paxton was standing there with three ring binders and a bag from the dollar store. I tried not to focus on the way his T-shirt hugged his body or how much those jeans looked like the type he used to wear that I’d stripped him out of so many times.
He held up the bag with a sheepish grin, and I absolutely did not notice the way his eyes seemed to glow with happiness when he did. “I come bearing supplies and chocolate. Do you still like peanut butter cups?”
“I wish you would’ve forgotten that they’re my favorite chocolate.” I groaned but stepped aside to let him in.
While I turned my attention to the soft padding of April’s feet as she came to see who he was, I swore I heard him muttering under his breath. “I haven’t forgotten anything about you.”
If we’d been alone, I’d probably have ripped into him for that statement or for even daring to bring up the past when he’d said he was willing to table it if I was, but we weren’t alone. My little girl was right there, staring up at Paxton and the peanut butter cups like Christmas had come early.
“April, this is Paxton,” I said softly, keeping my focus on her. “Paxton is Tierra’s brother. He’s going to help us with Uncle Brett’s wedding plans. Paxton, meet April.”
“What? This can’t be April.” He faked a gasp before he fell to his knees in a very dramatic gesture and held his gaze on her. “April is supposed to be just a little baby. This young lady isn’t a little baby.”
She giggled and shook her head, but I practically saw her usual first-meeting shyness evaporate under the effect of his playful nature. “I’m not a little baby anymore. I’m a big girl now.”
“Practically geriatric,” he agreed, smiling as wide as I’d seen in a long, long time. “It’s a good thing I didn’t buy those rattles I was looking at for you, huh? How do you feel about dolls? I got you one that comes with a tea set. I thought you and I could get to know one another over a tea party a little later if that’s okay?”
To his credit, he actually looked up at me when he asked her that question, silently begging for my permission before turning his smile back at her when I nodded—reluctantly. But if he was going to be around for the next month or so, it would be easier to get all this stuff done if the two of them got along.
“I love tea parties,” she said, practically beaming at him. “I love dolls too.”
“It’s a good thing I have her right here, then.” He opened the bag and pulled out a package with a doll, four teacups, saucers, and some plastic macaroons in it. “I thought we could name her Abigail.”
“Like Mommy’s second name?” she asked immediately, gaze flickering up to mine. “Did you tell him your whole name?”
“I did, baby. Yes.” A long-ass time ago, but at some point, I had told him. “Do you want to tell him your whole name?”
She nodded, giving him the sweetest smile I’d seen aimed at anyone but myself and Brett. “I’m April Gabriela Wynne.”
I saw the moment it registered with him. The memory turned his eyes practically gray for a moment. Yeah, asshole. Gabriela.
The exact same name I’d put on the table for our daughter one day if we’d had one together. I’d always loved the name, though. He didn’t own it. Just because I hadn’t ended up having a daughter with him didn’t mean I’d been ready to let the name go just because we’d thrown it around in a hypothetical “one day” situation when we’d been tipsy.
He let it slide, but I knew it had come up at some point. Instead of calling me out in front of April, he held his hand out to her. “Paxton Alexander Gould. It’s very nice to meet you, April Gabriela Wynne.”
She shook his hand just like I’d taught her to, then trailed after us when we made our way to the kitchen. When I got to the fridge, I turned my head to look at him over my shoulder. “I’ve got juice, water, tea, and instant coffee. Nothing very exciting, but those are your options.”
I knew he never used to like tea, but I didn’t want him to know that I remembered. The less we even referred to our past or our knowledge of one another as a result of it, the better. He didn’t seem fooled by my act, his one brow lifted only slightly higher than the other.
“I’ll just have a water. Thanks,” he said. “April and I still need to have our tea party. I wouldn’t want to drink my fill of it before it’s that time of the day.”
“Fair enough,” I said, not pointing out that having a tea party with a toddler didn’t involve having actual tea.
After I’d gotten out and filled two glasses and a plastic cup for April, we made our way to the living room. There were still a few toys lying at the base of the containers, but I was impressed with how much she had gotten done in here.
“Should we sit on the floor?” Paxton half lifted the ring binders he was still carrying. “We can spread these out on the coffee table. It might make things easier.”
“Yeah, sure. Let’s do it.” The sooner we got started, the sooner he could leave. “I received a message from Brett earlier with the first few things they need us to have a look at.”
“I got the same thing from Tierra,” he said, sinking down and sitting cross-legged at the table. He spread out the binders, set his phone down on top of one, and put the peanut butter cups in front of me. “Let’s get to it.”
“Abigail and I will sit with you,” April declared, then surprised me by hanging over Paxton’s back. “Is that okay?”
He grinned at her, leaning forward so she had to loop her arms around his neck as he lifted her right off her feet. “That’s fine by me, but you might need to be prepared to hold on.”
She giggled until there were tears in her eyes as he kept leaning forward and back, shaking from side to side, and laughing while she shrieked. I’d never seen her take to anyone this way before and kept having to blink to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.
“Wow, little one,” he said eventually when his laughter had subsided to chuckles. “You could become a rodeo queen if you’d like to.”
“And on that note,” I intervened, smiling because I didn’t want to spoil her fun, “let’s get started on what you came here for, shall we? Before you convince my daughter to become a cowgirl.”
He rolled his eyes at me, his face still lit up with this lazy contentedness that seemed out of place. Surely, a sort of famous bachelor of a male model couldn’t actually enjoy playing with a three-year-old that didn’t even belong to him. But it sure as heck looked like he was loving it.
“I would never convince her to become a cowgirl,” he said jokingly. “What I believe I said was that she could become a rodeo queen. Not just a cowgirl, but a queen.”
“You have to be a princess to become a queen,” April said, reaching over to steal one of his chocolates before plopping down in his lap the way she only ever did with Brett. “I’m not a princess.”
“You’re my princess,” I said, noticing Paxton’s mouth opening before he closed it without saying anything.
A frown tugged his brows together, but it only lasted a moment before he smoothed his expression out again. April, meanwhile, stared fixatedly at the collar of his shirt before r
eaching in to extract his dog tags.
“What are these?” she asked, her gaze darting to mine before going back to Paxton’s. “I’ve never seen a necklace like this before. Don’t girls usually wear necklaces?”
Right before my very eyes, something in him shifted. He sat up a little straighter, the laughter and near-constant beginnings of a grin around his mouth disappeared, and it was like the light in his eyes flickered from existence.
“They’re just necklace pendants,” he said, gently extracting the tags from her hand and tucking them back into his shirt as he blew off the question.
She accepted the answer with a shrug. “Okay. Can I play with Abigail here with you?”
He nodded at the repeat of her earlier question, his expression surprisingly soft as he looked at her. “If it’s okay with your mom, it’s okay with me.”
She rolled off his lap when I nodded but stayed next to him as she started playing with her new doll and tea set. A wistful smile spread on his lips as he watched my little girl play for a minute, but when he caught me looking, it turned into that hateful, cocksure smirk.
“We need to dig in our heels and get some work done tonight,” he said before waggling his brows at me and lowering his voice. “Unless you’d rather just keep staring. I’m okay with that too.”
Chapter 11
PAXTON
April was a heart-stealer. That’s for sure.
With her mother’s soft brown eyes, golden hair, and beautiful smile, she’d had me at hello. I couldn’t help but be distracted by her. She was exactly what I’d envisioned, dreamed about even, our own daughter looking like when we used to fantasize about starting a family all those years ago.
If I closed my eyes and ignored the hostility in the way her mother kept looking at me, it was almost too easy to imagine that they were both mine. That I’d never made those stupid, childish mistakes and she’d waited for me after all.
It was a total mindfuck to be looking at the mini version of Colette I’d wanted to give her once and to know I’d had nothing to do with her creation. No point dreaming, man. Get it together.
“So.” I pointed at the printed stack of documents I’d slipped into one of the binders after I’d bought them. “After we got that list, I took the liberty of researching local vendors. I’ve organized the pages according to category, but I haven’t had time to punch them yet.”
She got up and came back with a paper punch, then frowned when I pulled several booklets of colorful Post-it notes out of the bag. “You really did come prepared.”
“Yep. I told you I was ready to work, and I meant it.” After passing one of each color of the Post-it notes to her, I pulled out two notebooks and a new sleeve of colored pens. “I got you your own notebook, but we’re going to have to share the pens.”
“Okay,” she said slowly, seemingly having trouble coming to terms with being impressed with something I’d done for once. “You punch the holes and pass me the sheets of paper by category. I’ll mark them, because your handwriting probably still sucks, and file them.”
Ha. So she does remember some things about me. I gave her a knowing smile, but she rolled her eyes at me when she saw it.
“Let’s just get to work,” she said.
As we organized and reviewed the binders, we fell into an easy rhythm shared by people who had worked together before. It might’ve been years since we’d last had an assignment or a project to do together, but despite what she’d been pretending earlier, she seemed to recall how we used to divvy things up quite clearly.
She and I—sometimes with Brett too—used to choose each other as partners back in high school in every class we shared. There was a familiarity to doing what we were even though this was wedding stuff and not schoolwork.
Time passed in a blur, and at around eight thirty, I noticed April had fallen asleep on the plush carpet on the living room floor. We hadn’t even gotten around to our tea party yet.
We’d eaten lasagna that Colette had pulled out of her freezer for dinner, and a salad that she’d thrown together with no problem at all. We’d worked throughout dinner and taken our plates to her dishwasher, then had gotten stuck right back in.
She smiled when she saw April had fallen asleep, uncurling her long legs from underneath her and pushing up.
“I’ll be right back. I just want to get her a blanket,” she said.
I caught her wrist, gazing up at her before withdrawing my hand just a touch too slowly. “I can help you get her to bed.”
“Nah, it’s okay.” She lifted her arm and wrapped her fingers around the wrist I’d just touched almost absently. “I’ll let her sleep out here while we’re still busy. She’ll sleep better if she can hear our voices.”
“Okay. Just tell me if you need help moving her.”
The look she gave me was cutting. “I’ve been moving her to her bed by myself for her whole life. I’m sure I can manage without a big strong man around to do it.”
I raised my hands in surrender. “I know you can. I didn’t mean to imply that you needed my help. It was just an offer.”
She left the room without responding, coming back with a soft-looking blanket and covering her daughter gently with it. Without giving me an explanation for where she was going this time, she left again. I heard the faint sounds of the fridge opening and liquid being poured, then understood when she came back with a glass of white wine for each of us.
“Thanks,” I said when she passed one to me. “I thought you didn’t have anything more interesting.”
“I don’t while April is awake,” she said. “I didn’t even remember I had it until I wished a little earlier that I had alcohol to get through this.”
“You need alcohol to get through a night with me?” That had to mean something. I just didn’t know what.
She pursed her lips, ignoring my question and flicking a glance at the binder in front of her instead. “You never used to be so type A. What’s the deal? I don’t remember you being this organized.”
“My time in the army whipped me into shape.” I shrugged, but even I knew my posture had gone stiffer than it usually was.
Joking about it with people who hadn’t known me before was one thing. To them, I was just another guy who had a military background. Colette knew better. She knew me better.
“I approach everything differently than I used to when I was a boy,” I said. “That’s all I used to be when we were together, you know. A boy.”
She gave me a long look but then rolled her eyes and blew the comment off. Clearly, my youth wasn’t a good enough excuse for my mistakes.
Now that April was asleep, we got more serious about what needed to be done. Colette kept picking up her phone, queuing more things to print, and then going to her printer to fetch them.
“It would’ve made a lot more sense to just share a folder with all this stuff online,” she said. “We’re going to wreck a rainforest at this rate.”
“I’ve made an online folder with everything I’ve printed as well. I’ll share it with you, but I prefer having things I can touch. It helps me keep things in order.”
“I’m the same,” she said, so fast that I didn’t think she’d actually meant to admit we still had something in common. “I just always get a bad case of earth guilt when I see so many pages printed. So we’ll create a shared folder and also link it to Brett and Tierra.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “Tierra’s given me an idea of what they want in their vendors, as well as budget.”
“I know what their budget is.” She glared at me. “Obviously, we can’t help them narrow things down if we don’t know how much they can pay for it.”
The tension in the room ratcheted up a notch. She hated me so much that I could practically feel her radiating the need to get me out of her house all of a sudden. We didn’t speak much for a while after that.
“We need to create a to-do list,” she said finally, barely glancing at me as she opened the notebook I’d given
her. “I think we need to concentrate on finding a good DJ first. They tend to get booked up months in advance, so we’ll need to get on that as soon as possible.”
“I might know someone,” I said, thinking back to the DJ who had been at the party where I’d walked out on Madelyn. “He gets people to the dance floor and keeps them there. I can check his availability.”
She scribbled something in the notebook and nodded. “Of course you’d know a DJ. Okay, find out about availability and let me know. What’s next?”
I grinned. “An epic bachelor and bachelorette party.”
“There are more important things in life than parties, Paxton,” she said, taking another sip of her wine. “But fine. We do need to have one for them, I suppose. We’ll need to get invitations out very soon, though.”
“I’ll design something online. I’m decent at it. We just need to decide on a date, and we can communicate details once we have them.”
“Good idea,” she said, although she definitely sounded like she’d admitted it begrudgingly. “Would you be able to get that out tomorrow?”
“Consider it done.” I had another shoot first thing in the morning, but I’d work around that. Colette was right about it being important to let people know as soon as possible what the date was going to be, but more than that, I also wanted to prove to her that she could rely on me when I said I’d get something done. “Have you had any ideas for the bachelor party? Theoretically, I guess you need to arrange that while I should organize the bachelorette, but we’ll also both have to attend the other party.”
“We’ll work it out,” she said. “We can work together to make the arrangements and then maybe just pop into the other party on the night? I’ll run point for you as a stand-in at the bachelorette if you do the same for me with the bachelors.”
“Done.” I finished my wine, and then she got up to fetch us more. She ended up bringing the bottle back, and we kept topping up our glasses while we worked. “They also want us to find a photographer.”
Showing off the Goods Page 7