We’d been building our relationship for three years, and though I felt closer to him than I ever imagined I could be, I also learned something new every day.
What I loved learning most was about his family, my family, our ancestors and more. Because in addition to discovering him, I’d found that I had two aunts and five cousins who lived in Virginia, ones who I’d met last Thanksgiving when we joined them. I was finally able to explore all the pieces of what and who made me the man I was today.
At the table behind us, chatting with Mom, was Mary Scooter — my other mom.
Our relationship was a little more rocky.
We were trying, though it was stickier with us. She struggled with how she had left me with my adopted parents, though I’d assured her time and time again that it was the best thing she ever did for me. I loved my family, and I was blessed to have them — no matter the circumstances that landed me in their arms.
Still, Mary was in a dark place for a long time after Patrick was arrested. Everything fell into her lap then — the distillery, the Will, the flurry of court dates that had her testifying against the man she had loved and had children with. She was torn, there was no doubt about it, and we’d had little time to talk about us when so much of our focus had been on Patrick and Randy and everyone else involved in my father’s murder.
Slowly, things were getting better — especially since the case had finally been closed. Patrick, Randy, three firefighters, and four members of the distillery board were all serving prison sentences of varying lengths — Patrick for life, Randy for forty years which might as well have been life. And as much as it broke Mary’s heart that Patrick had been put away, I knew it brought her peace, too.
Mallory and Logan having little Tamara had sewed Mary even tighter into our family, and she and Mom worked well together as grandmothers. There was no way to say that little girl was anything less than spoiled by those two women. And the more time they spent together, the more we all saw their old friendship blooming again — one that had been tainted by a man no longer in our lives.
As for the distillery, Mary had been given charge of it, and after the history she’d had with the place, she wanted little to do with it in the end. She kept ten percent of the shares to live on and to remain on the board, but she signed the other ninety percent of the shares over to my family.
It’s what Robert would have wanted, she’d said.
Now, Mom sat on the board, too — along with Noah and Logan. Noah served as President, with Logan as Vice, Mom as Secretary, and Mary as Treasurer. Together, they named the other members of the board — those they could trust — and were steering Scooter Whiskey into a new direction, a new era, born of the Beckers.
“Mallory, are you ready for the big grand opening of your studio next week?” Ruby Grace asked as we all started to gather around the tables. Mom had lined them up into one long one that spread half the yard, and Paige and Sydney were delivering giant dishes of food from the kitchen. Mom and Mary had hopped up to help while the rest of us got settled.
“More than ready,” Logan answered for her, squeezing her knee with pride in his eyes. “She can’t shut up about it.”
Mallory pinched his side, leaning into his embrace next as they looked lovingly at each other. They’d morphed since becoming parents, and somehow dadhood had softened my brother. He wasn’t wound as tight as he used to be — probably because he realized no matter what he did, his daughter was going to get dirty and messy and probably mess up everything else in her wake, too.
As was the beauty of being a parent.
He and Mallory had just bought land on the west edge of town to build their first home together, and Mallory had also purchased the same spot on Main Street that her dad had once owned. It was where her first shop had been set up and then ripped away from her a month later, and it was where she would be re-opening again next week.
On her own, this time.
“He’s right,” Mallory admitted on a sigh. “I’m excited, to say the least. Although, it’s been a bit more challenging to get everything set up and ready to go with that little girl keeping me busy.” She nodded down the table to where Tamara sat on Kylie’s lap, Mikey playing peek-a-boo with her.
“Want me to come help this week?” Ruby Grace offered, then she rubbed her extremely swollen belly. “Honestly, anything to be moving and keep my mind off the fact that I’m about to pop is welcome.”
Mallory chuckled. “As long as you don’t pop on my new studio floor.”
“No promises. His due date is two weeks from now, but I have a high suspicion we won’t make it that long.”
Noah smirked, rubbing her belly, too, with a mixture of love and complete terror in his eyes. I knew he had to be shitting himself on the brink of being a father, but Logan squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, as if to say, you’re going to be great.
“I’ll help, too,” Sydney chimed in when she delivered the sweet potato casserole.
“I’d love that,” Mallory replied. They shared a smile, and my heart beamed at the relationship my sister and my girlfriend had formed over the last few years. I knew a big part of it was standing up and testifying against Randy together. It hadn’t been easy for either one of them, but it had brought them closer together.
Once everyone was seated and the food was on the table, Mom had us all gather hands, and she said grace. We all went around the table saying what we were thankful for, and after dinner, before the pie was brought out, we lit a candle in Betty’s honor.
The old woman who had become such an integral part of our family and our lives had passed away that summer, leaving peacefully in her sleep on the Fourth of July. Kylie had joked that she’d planned it, wanting to go out with a bang. The news had been especially hard on her and Ruby Grace, who were by far the closest with Betty, but Mom had suffered, too, as they had become close friends over the years.
Betty had lived a long and full life, which was one comfort we found in her passing. More than that, she had been a light in our lives, too — helping so many of us out of the dark when we couldn’t see even a ray of light that promised a way out.
The truth was we all missed her dearly, but the impression she’d left on our hearts was one that could never be forgotten. And we all knew she was dancing with Mr. Collins in heaven now.
Kylie and Mikey told us over dessert about the trip they were planning to Asia for the following summer, but I could barely listen, because my heart was ticking up a notch faster with every passing moment, beating loud and hard in my ears as I rehearsed what I’d been practicing for months. Before the plates could be cleared, Paige found her way over to me, clamping her hands down hard on my shoulders.
“Let’s play catch, Coach,” she said.
I swallowed, standing on shaking legs as Sydney smiled up at us.
“Do you two ever get tired of football?” she asked, laughing.
“Never,” Paige answered, and she was already shoving me back toward the open yard where we’d been playing earlier.
When we were safely out of earshot, she put her hands on my shoulders again — which had her standing on her toes — leveling her eyes with me as best she could. “Alright, Coach,” she said, seriously. “This is the big game. Your big moment. The play of your lifetime. You gotta focus, alright? Don’t mess this up.”
My palms were sweating, but I managed a laugh. “Gee, thanks for reminding me that there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Always here for you,” she said, clapping her hands down on my shoulders once more before she pointed at me and started jogging backward toward the tables. “You’ve got this.”
She turned, taking off in a slow jog as I forced as steady of a breath as I could manage. Then, I looked down at the football in my hands, and I pulled a small, navy blue, velvet box out of my pocket, fastening it to the ball with the sports tape Paige and I had tested a hundred times.
When it was safely in place, I looked up, finding Paige waiting in her design
ated spot behind her mom. Everyone was in conversation, still, and oblivious to what we were doing.
At least, until I took a breath and launched the ball, and Paige cried out, “Heads up, Mom!”
Sydney looked up just in time to notice the ball spiraling toward her, and her hands went up instinctively, catching it before it hit her chest. She screamed, though, and then laughed, looking back at Paige before her eyes found me and she pointed. “That was on purpose, you jerk!” She laughed again. “You’re lucky I caught that!”
“What exactly did you catch?” Paige baited behind her, and Sydney looked back, confused, before her eyes fell to the ball in her hands.
And the little box strapped to the side of it.
I jogged over with my heart still pounding in my ears, and everyone fell silent, Sydney’s eyes widening as she fingered the box out of the tape hold and held it between two fingers. She looked at it, looked at me, looked at it again, looked at me.
I swallowed, rounding the table until I was next to her chair, and lowering down onto one, shaky knee.
“Sydney Clark,” I said, taking the box from her trembling fingers and holding it in my own.
Her eyes found mine, wide with surprise, her lips slightly parted as she waited for me to continue. From somewhere behind her I heard Ruby Grace whisper, “I can’t believe Betty is missing this.”
“All my life, I watched my dad and mom love each other, and I wondered if I’d ever find someone to share my life with the way they had,” I said, and I heard my mom sniff from where she watched us at her end of the table. But my focus was on Sydney, and I grabbed her hand in mine, squeezing gently. “I decided at a pretty young age that I wouldn’t, that it was rare and, in most ways, impossible. And I settled into a life alone, content to just be a brother, a son, and a football coach.”
“A damn good one, too,” Eli said, and a soft chuckle found the tables.
“And I was happy,” I said. “I was. I didn’t think anything was missing.” I leveled my gaze with hers. “Not until you walked into my life, and my heart realized long before my brain did that I could never go back to life without you — not once I knew what it was like with you in it.”
She smiled, her eyes glossing over with a sheen of tears.
“I know I’m not perfect,” I started. “I know we will have mountains to climb. But if I’ve learned anything from the ones we’ve already overcome together, it’s that there isn’t one high enough to defeat us — and that there’s no one I want to be standing with at the top more than you.”
I fumbled, clumsily opening the box in my hand until the modest ring I’d bought her caught the sunlight. She gasped at the sight, covering her mouth as her eyes flooded even more.
“Sydney, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to be a father to Paige, and a husband to you. I want to help you in the garden and watch you do yoga on the porch.”
“Gross,” Paige chimed in.
I laughed, and Sydney did, too, freeing two parallel tears down each cheek.
“I want to come home to you, every night, and I want to wake up to you every morning. I want to dream together, and accomplish together, and fight together, and love together. And I want to grow old with you, with the family we’ve built, with a love story only we could write.”
Sydney was already nodding when I pulled the ring from its place in the box, lining it up with her ring finger on her left hand.
“Will you take me as the scarred, damaged, football-crazed man that I am and trust me to love you, to protect you, and to care for you, until our days on this Earth are done and we pass into our next life?” I asked, and I slipped the ring onto her finger, because I already knew the answer. “Sydney, will you marry me?”
She nodded more vigorously, wrapping her arms around my neck and lowering to kiss me as our family erupted into a burst of cheers around us. They clapped and whistled and my heart swelled to the size of a hot air balloon in my chest, relief finding me in a wave that nearly knocked me off balance where I was still on one knee.
“This calls for champagne!” Mary announced, and already she was up out of her chair and heading toward the house, Mom calling out to her where she could find some.
And when Sydney finally pulled back from our kiss, we were both swarmed, my brothers and family congratulating me while my mother and Mallory and Kylie and Ruby Grace surrounded Sydney, hugging her and begging to see the ring.
Paige high-fived me, pretending to be tough when she didn’t know I’d seen the tears in her eyes, too.
“Nailed it, Coach,” she said, proudly.
“Thanks for your help,” I said back, then I opened my arms, and her eyes welled with tears again as she leaned in and let me wrap her in a hug.
“I’m so glad you found us,” she whispered.
I nodded, holding her tight with a pang of something I only felt for that little girl tightening my chest. It was a longing to protect her, to fight for her, and to be a good man in her life — even if I wasn’t her real dad.
Champagne was poured and toasts were made, and when the sun began to set, we made a fire in the pit and gathered around to listen to Mikey play guitar while we all sang the words to our favorite songs.
Surrounded by my family — all of my family — I held my fiancée’s hand in mine and kissed her knuckles from time to time, both of us smiling at each other like a couple of love-sick loons. And for the first time in a long time, everything felt good and right and true.
From across the fire, I locked eyes with Noah, and we shared a nod, both of us smiling. We looked to Logan, then, who nodded to both of us, too — bouncing Tamara in his lap. Then, we all looked at Mikey, and he smiled at each of us, still keeping time on his guitar as he sang along to one of Betty’s favorite country songs.
We made it, we all seemed to say.
And in my heart, I knew there was nothing the Becker brothers couldn’t face together.
Slowly, Mikey changed the way he was strumming, slowly shifting until a soft, familiar melody met all of us. Mom’s smile dropped, but only for a moment, and then she smiled, tears in her eyes as Mikey began singing the first words of “Wonderful Tonight.”
I kissed Sydney’s knuckles again before releasing them, and then I stood, walking over to where Mom sat and extending my hand down for hers. She took it with a knowing grin, and then she was in my arms, and we swayed like we had so many nights in the living room of that old house.
It wasn’t long before Noah tapped my shoulder to cut in, and I danced with Sydney, instead — watching as one by one, each of my brothers took a turn with Mom on the makeshift dance floor.
“I think I’m marrying into the best family there is,” Sydney whispered as we watched Mikey attempting to dance with Mom while still playing the guitar. They were laughing, even though Mom was crying, too — and the love and joy surrounding that fire was strong enough to be seen and felt, like a warm blanket or a perfect summer day.
“You’ll make it even better,” I whispered back, and Sydney smiled, her brown eyes shining in the firelight.
Then, I kissed my bride-to-be, whispering that she looked wonderful tonight as I pulled her closer, and knowing I’d be singing those words for years to come.
For an entire lifetime, if I was lucky.
And I swore I’d never blink, so as to never miss a single moment of it.
The End
Can’t get enough of Jordan and Sydney? Read a steamy deleted scene from a hot afternoon at work here!
If you loved The Becker Brothers series, you’ll love my sexy, angsty, hilarious sports romance — The Wrong Game. Check out the prologue and first chapter right after the note from the author.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you so much for reading Old Fashioned. Whether this was your first book in The Becker Brothers Series or you devoured them all, I am so thankful you went on this journey with me.
Writing diversity is important to me. I believe we live in a beautiful
and diverse world and that any chance I get to represent a culture different than my own is a privilege.
That being said, even more so than writing diversity myself, I believe it’s incredibly important to support diversity in writing and publishing.
That’s why I’m leaving you with six author/book recommendations from women of color in the romance community. These women are phenomenal writers, and their stories will capture your heart time and time again. I could recommend their entire backlist, but for now, I leave you with my top recommendations for each author to get you started.
I hope you’ll grab one of the books that stands out to you (or all of them!) and support these amazingly talented women.
LONG SHOT
by Kennedy Ryan
A Top 30 Amazon Bestseller & RITA® Winner
A FORBIDDEN LOVE SET IN THE EXPLOSIVE WORLD OF THE NBA…
CHEEKY ROYAL
by Nana Malone
FREE!
“...royal-worthy chemistry in a snappy, page-turning package!” — Max Monroe, New York Times & USA Today Bestselling Author
BEHIND THE BARS
by Brittainy C. Cherry
“I have never been so emotionally moved by a book in my life. I didn’t just fall in love with these characters, I walked 300 pages in their shoes, I BECAME them, and am forever changed. Behind the Bars is true Brittainy C. Cherry magic. 5 achingly beautiful stars.” — Author Kandi Steiner
RELEASE
By Dylan Allen
What starts as a strike of lightning on a moonlit beach ignites a fire between us that will span continents.
WANTING MR. CANE
by Shanora Williams
When we first met, she was just a kid - my best friend’s daughter. A sweet, young girl with a big heart. But now, she’s a young woman who knows what she wants, and all she wants is me.
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