My Choice, My Chance: Men Of Crooked Bend Book 2

by Taylor Rylan

  After we got our food, we found a table and joined the other buffet participants.

  “Shit!” I said after I sat down and realized I wasn’t sitting on my phone.

  “What?”

  “I forgot my phone in our room. I was going to text Rhett and let him know we were up and going to be out and about all day.”

  “I’ve got mine. I’ll send him a text.”

  “Thanks. I just want him to know where we are.”

  “Hey, it’s no big deal. I get it. There, text is sent. Now, let’s enjoy our brunch and walk around for a bit before we head to the spa.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  We didn’t realize that our message failed to send and Rhett never got the message. With my phone upstairs in yesterday’s pants, the battery dead, it wasn’t receiving any messages or calls. For whatever reason, Jasper’s phone chose that moment to spaz out and stop working so nobody knew where we were or how to reach us.

  Of course, we didn’t know that until hours later. We experienced a wonderfully relaxing day. After brunch, we walked around. We checked out the fountain in front of the hotel, and then headed to the spa for our massages, manicures, and pedicures. Afterward, we decided we wanted to check out the pool. We returned to our room only long enough to change into our trunks then spent an hour pool side until I had enough of Jasper growling at anyone who even looked our way.

  “Alright, Cupcake. Let’s go.” I grabbed Jasper’s hand and pulled him out of the pool area. He clearly needed to be reassured that he was it for me so that’s what I intended to do—right after we showered. We made it back to our room in record time and I was naked before I crossed the bathroom threshold. I got the shower going and was stepping in just as Jasper made his way into the bathroom.

  “Are you in a hurry or something?” Jasper asked as he entered the bathroom.

  “Yes, so get your ass in here so I can wash you and get my mouth around your cock.” His face lit up like a Christmas tree! He wasted no time in dropping his trunks where he stood, joining me in the shower. I had him washed and rinsed in no time, and was on my knees with his cock pressing against the back of my throat before he knew what was going on. It didn’t take long before he was shooting down my throat. He pulled me up, pressing his lips passionately against mine.

  “Not that I’m complaining, but what was that for?” Jasper asked, panting lightly.

  I figured a little white lie was appropriate. I didn’t want him thinking I didn’t like how jealous he got. “All the growling you did at the pool. It was sexy and turned me on. I felt I should do something about that.”

  “Well, now that you accomplished your goal, let me return the favor,” Jasper offered while reaching down for me. That was the moment that we heard a loud banging on our suite room door. The only reason we were able to hear it was because Jasper didn’t close the bathroom door when he came in.

  “You go find out who’s banging on our door before we get in trouble and I’ll hurry up and shower,” I said after giving Jasper another quick peck on the lips. He was out of the shower and did a quick wipe-down with a towel before walking out of the bathroom and closing the door behind him. I hurried through my shower. I wanted to see what was going on, but didn’t rush too much because technically, I shouldn’t be in Jasper’s room. I was incredibly thankful I thought to wrap a towel around my waist before exiting the bathroom, because I never expected absolutely everyone to be in the room with Jasper.

  I stuck around long enough to know that Sean was extremely upset, then became a coward and ran back into the bedroom to hide. Of course my mind was running scenario after scenario thinking that I was causing a problem between Jasper and Sean because he found out about us. Thankfully, Jasper came into the room a few minutes later and let me know not to worry and that no matter what, he still loved me and that he chose to be with me because he wanted to. We quickly got dressed and left the room.

  It wasn’t until after we left the bedroom of our suite that we discovered Jasper’s phone never sent the text to Rhett this morning and that everyone had been looking for us all day. I felt bad about that, and I knew Jasper did as well. We did our best to calm everyone and they finally relaxed a little once we showed them my dead cell phone and Jasper’s non-working one.

  It seemed to take Sean a moment to really put two and two together. Sean wanted to know if we were seeing each other. He was a little slow on the uptake, I thought. We did our best to explain that yes, we were seeing each other and that we had been for a while.

  Sean seemed to finally catch up. “Wait! Liam was the one you’ve been seeing all these months?”

  “Yes, he is,” Jasper replied.

  Thankfully, Sean seemed to accept that as is and let it go. I knew if he hadn’t been so stressed and preoccupied by his wedding lately, he probably would've dug a little bit deeper about everything that had been going on with Jasper and me. As it was, I knew our days of keeping our marriage a secret were short. It was definitely not the time to spill that particular secret. The last thing I wanted to do was take anything away from Sean after the hell he went through trying to plan his wedding.

  33 — Jasper

  After the whole where the hell have you been moment, we decided to spend the rest of the evening in the casino at our hotel. It wasn’t like they didn’t go out and enjoy their day. They went to the aquarium for shit’s sake!

  Liam chatted with Rhett briefly. My brother assured him everything was okay between the two of them. Rhett did say they needed to talk about what happened after Logan took him back to the room after the strip club. I didn’t know if I wanted to know about that or not.

  We all lingered around the casino and did the normal touristy things like watch the fountain, play the slots, and just kill time before we needed to get up in the morning to catch our flight back home.

  It was a relief that Liam now had every reason to be at our house. I hated that we hadn’t let everyone know that Liam was the one that I was seeing. Now they knew, so we could move forward with our lives together. I only hoped they were as understanding once they found out that we eloped before Sean was able to walk down the aisle. I didn’t see that conversation going well.

  Liam and I enjoyed our second night in Vegas and turned in early. We needed to be up early and, honestly, we were still recovering from lack of sleep the night before. I made sure I made it up to Liam that he didn’t get to finish when we were interrupted that afternoon. He went to sleep with a smile on his face. That was how I always wanted him to fall asleep. Of course, in my arms. If I had those two things every night, I'd be the happiest man alive.

  All too soon, we were back in Crooked Bend and our daily grind. Liam spent his days at home with Hemingway, writing about whoever his current characters were. Collin and I went to either the office or whichever ranch or site we were scheduled for. Nothing was really different except that Liam was now legally my husband and everyone knew that we were dating, though, not that we were married.

  We called my dads and let them know who I’d been seeing. They weren’t overly surprised, they seemed to already know. Then again, they were my dads and they always seemed to know what was going on in our lives. I just really hoped they would be forgiving when we told them we eloped so they wouldn’t be getting a wedding out of us.

  Both Liam and I were no strangers to paperwork. When people got married, there was an almost endless supply of new paperwork to fill out. We talked about it and Liam really wanted to take my last name. I figured we would either hyphenate our names and both use both last names or we would both keep our respective last names. Liam didn’t want to keep his. I suppose I could understand. After all, his parents didn’t want him, so why should he want to be affiliated with them? I was happy to have him choose to take mine. Of course, that added more paperwork.

  I made it my mission to make Liam happy, but that was nothing new. For months I’d been doing whatever I could to make sure he knew I wanted him, that he was special, and that
he was happy. I wanted my husband to be happy. There was nothing wrong with that. He’d gone through so much negativity and unhappiness before I met him and I wanted to make it up to him as much as I possibly could.

  The secret was out at home when Collin saw our paperwork on the table. We didn’t necessarily want to tell him first, but we were left with no choice when he saw the last names on the forms.

  “Hey, I think you made a typo here, Liam. You put Liam Welsh instead of Campbell,” Collin pointed out on one of the many forms lying on the table. Liam and I looked at each other and when he just shrugged, I decided that we would just tell him. After all, someone should know, right? That was the whole point of getting married. I wanted everyone to know that Liam was mine.

  “No, it’s not a typo, Collin. Liam filed a change of name with the proper administrations after we got married.”

  Collin coughed, choking on my words. “What? You’re married? Since when? I thought you two were just dating.”

  Listening to Liam laugh beside me while looking at Collin’s face had me quickly joining Liam before I could reply. “We eloped in Vegas. You’re the only one that knows so please don’t tell Sean.”

  “Why doesn’t Sean know? Why would you keep this from him?”

  “It’s not malicious, Collin. We just don’t want to steal any of the attention away from him and Simon. We’ve already agreed to tell everyone as soon as the newly married couple is away on their honeymoon or just as soon as they get back.”

  “Speaking of honeymoons, if you two are married, when are you going on yours?”

  “We had a wonderful wedding night, and, for now, that’ll work. I’ll take Liam away after Sean gets back from his and things calm down.”

  “Wow, I can’t believe you two got hitched.” Collin winked at us. “Well, congratulations. I’m really happy for you two. You’ve seemed really happy and perfect together so I really mean it.”

  We both thanked him before he walked off and we went back to filling out paperwork. The end of the stack was in sight and I was ready for it to be over. Who knew that getting married required so much additional paperwork after you said I do? I never would've.

  Collin wasn’t gone long; he quickly came back in and picked right back up where he’d left off. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I’ll finally get to move in on the fifteenth. I know it’s two weeks later than I originally told you but the owner of the condo I was going to take decided he wanted more rent. That stuck me with finding somewhere else to stay with almost no notice. I’m really sorry, you two. I promise I’ll be out of here just as soon as I can.”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it. Unless you’re uncomfortable here, we’ve got no problem with you staying here with us. We wanted to ask you if you would check in on Hemingway while we’re at the wedding, anyway. I know you’re going up for the wedding, but we have to be there the entire three days and I just don’t want to leave him here by himself that long. He should be fine overnight but not for three days,” Liam said, reassuring Collin.

  “Hey, it’s no problem. Your cat is pretty cool. I don’t mind staying here with him as long as you two don’t mind.”

  “Didn’t I just say we didn’t mind you being here?” Liam said while busting out his finger.

  I couldn’t help it, I again laughed. It was so wonderful to have that man as mine. Life was never going to be dull or boring with him around.

  “Yes, you did, but I still feel bad about crashing here. Especially since I know you two are newlyweds!”

  “Seriously, it’s okay. You aren’t bothering us and as long as we don’t bother you, it’s all good. Hey, have you given any more thought to giving Rhett a call? After everything that happened in Vegas, I think he’s probably not going to be talking to Logan anytime in the near future,” Liam said with what I knew was his I’m up to something smile on his face.

  I looked between the two of them, confusion written in flashing neon across my face. “What about Collin calling Rhett? Why would Collin call Rhett? What happened with Logan?”

  “Calm down, Jasper. I promise, I’m not going to call your brother. I already told Liam that I thought it was a bad idea for me to get involved with him. He’s your brother. Dating my boss’ brother is never a good idea.”

  I felt a little better after Collin’s reassurance. “Alright, so you’re not interested in Rhett, got it. Now, what happened with Logan and Rhett? I specifically told Logan to either grow a pair or leave him alone. Didn’t he listen?”

  I couldn’t believe it but Liam started laughing. Not just a little chuckle either, a full-on belly laugh.

  “Calm down. I was just giving Collin a hard time is all. From what I got from Rhett, Logan seems to have decided to ‘grow a pair’ as you put it. I’m really happy for him. Although, I have a feeling that Logan’s going to move at a snail’s pace and it’s going to drive Rhett insane. Otherwise, I think they're heading in the right direction.”

  “I should've known you were up to something when I saw the look on your face. Now, explain this conversation about getting Collin to give Rhett a call?”

  “Nothing. I just thought that Collin might be a good fit for Rhett is all. He said no and made some very valid points so it’s all good.”

  “Yeah, the biggest two being that one: he’s my boss’ brother, and two: he’s hung up on Logan. I’m not looking to be anybody’s rebound guy. Been there, done that, no thanks, not again.”

  Liam waved his hands up and down to stop Collin’s unnecessary explanation. “Okay, okay. Still, we need to find you a guy or something. This place is full of sexy cowboys. That’s what you need! We need to find you a sexy cowboy!”

  Collin looked more than a little annoyed at Liam’s insistence that he needed help getting a date. “No, you don’t. You really don’t. I told you, Liam. I’m perfectly happy with being single right now. Seriously. No, I don’t need a cowboy.”

  Liam didn’t seem to want to take a hint, or even a direct point. “Why the hell not? It worked for Sean and its most likely going to work for Rhett. Don’t you want someone, Collin?”

  Collin tried to keep his voice even and calm. He sighed and tried again. “That’s not it, Liam. I do want someone. Eventually. I just moved here and am waiting to get my own place. I really want to get settled before I jump into a relationship. Really, I’m okay.”

  Liam finally seemed to realize he might have been over enthusiastic. He probably just wanted Collin to be as happy as he was. “Yeah, I get that. I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted to do was make you feel uncomfortable.”

  “You didn’t. I promise. I’m trying to get settled and everything. I’ve spent the last few years in a location in Alabama where, if you were gay, you automatically went into the closet. So, being in such an open environment is an adjustment. I really appreciate the thought, Liam.”

  “Yeah, no problem.” Liam seemed like he was a little ashamed of himself.

  “Anyway, I’ll let you two get back to your paperwork. Have fun with all of it. I’m glad it’s you and not me. I think I’d go crazy if I had to do it.” Collin grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge before he walked off.

  Liam’s face brightened up again for a moment. “Hey, what about introducing Collin to Tyler? They would be hot together.”

  I groaned before I answered. “Leave it alone, Liam. Just let him get settled before you start throwing men at him, alright?”

  My man’s posture sunk a little. He was dejected once again. “Yeah, I can do that I guess.” He shrugged before continuing. “Think about it, Jasper. You have to admit, Collin and Tyler would be so sexy together.”

  “If I do, will you finish this paperwork?” Liam nodded, his grin bright and his blond hair flopping down over his eyes. I mentally sighed and then spoke again. “Yes, they would be hot together. Collin’s not looking and I honestly don’t think Tyler is either. Now, paperwork. Please. I have plans and we need to finish this first.” Looking down at the pile of papers in front of us, I reminded Li
am that we were so close to being finished and that I had plans for the two of us that included us, our bed, and a bottle of lube and nothing else.

  Imagine that, he quickly got to work on finishing the papers that needed to be filled out before we could move on to more enjoyable pastimes. Sometimes all you really needed was a good incentive to look forward to in order to motivate yourself to do a mundane task.

  34 — Liam

  I was still getting used to being a married man. I was happy to have been living with Jasper for a while now and that was more than enough for me. If we just remained committed to each other as boyfriends, I'd have been content with that. The man had to do something awesome and propose. There was no way I wasn’t going to say yes. I never felt so much love and passion for anyone before and I knew I never would again. That’s why I had no reservations about marrying him even in the spur of the moment.

  What was even better was that everyone now knew that we have been a couple. I could hold his hand if I wanted to. I could be seen at our house and nobody would think anything of it. It was quite freeing. I hadn’t realized just how much added stress I was under because we felt that we needed to keep our relationship from Jasper’s family. He had so many reservations because of what happened to him in college. Because of one horrible man, he was afraid to take a chance again and that had an impact on his relationship with his brothers and fathers. Hopefully, now that he was in a steady relationship, he'd be more open toward the rest of his family.

  We finally finished our paperwork and it was official. I was going to become Liam Welsh. Actually, I already was. It was definitely different. Luckily for me, I wrote under a pen name and I wouldn’t have to change anything with regards to that other than the paperwork with my publisher. Being Liam Welsh was something I would have to work on getting used to. I spent the last twenty-five years as Liam Campbell. I guess I had learned how women felt when they got married and all of a sudden they had a new name.