“If you call him now, I’ll make it worth your while.” His words pique my interest and I look at him, intrigued, my expression straight-faced. “How?”
“I’ll split the winnings. Fifty-fifty.”
“Seventy-thirty and you have to buy me something pretty,” I say with a whisper of a smile ghosting along my face.
“Damn baby, you drive a hard bargain, but what do I get?”
“You get me.”
His smile spreads and he pulls me flush against his chest. “Deal. So damn worth it,” he drawls before pressing a single kiss against my lips, leaving them tingling when he pulls away.
“Now call him, woman.” I laugh at his alpha demand as I reach into my purse for my cell. Pressing Sebastian’s number, I wait for the call to connect.
“Just be glad I’m so irrational that I can’t wait another minute to check on my daughter, and that I don’t mind taking Caleb’s money, otherwise this would be forty shades of wrong.” He smiles as he gets out his own phone, no doubt texting Caleb demanding that he coughs up his cash.
Once I’ve spoken to Sebastian and I’ve been rest assured Lily is fine and I’ve heard her sweet little voice on the phone, I finally disconnect the call.
“Is everything okay?” Ashton asks as we make our way inside, his fingers clasped in mine.
“Yeah, she’s fine. They’re just on their way to Magic Kingdom.”
He looks down at me with a purposed stare. “Now that you know she’s okay, can we enjoy our weekend?” He presses his lips to my mouth and whispers, “Where I plan on getting you drunk and naked.”
My eyes burn with a heat-filled lust, and in response to his words my fingers tighten in his.
“Come on …” he says with a laugh, pulling me inside. He leads me towards the living room where a little boy—who looks like a miniature version of both Ashton and Tyler—greets us.
“Uncle Ashton!” Ashton lets go of my hand and lifts his nephew up in his arms, his face almost splitting in half with pure happiness. “Hey, Junior. How’s my favorite bud doing?”
Junior is Christopher’s son. Junior’s real name is Christopher but Christopher nicknamed him Junior to avoid confusion when he was born. Well, that’s not accurate. Ashton told me it took Christopher and his girlfriend, Jo, six weeks to figure out a name for him. It’s quite amusing, that after six weeks they went with the most obvious name. It sure does beat Stir Mix-a-Lot though, which was the nickname he was given for the first six weeks of his life.
“Where have you been? We’ve been waiting all day for you.” I giggle at Junior’s over exaggeration of the word all.
“I’m sorry we kept you waiting little man, but we had to get in from Seattle on a plane.”
“Where’s Seattle?” Junior asks with innocent confusion.
“How about you get the globe from my old room and I’ll show you where it is?”
“Okay!” Junior jumps from his arms with a look of determination on his little face, but he doesn’t get very far when Ashton pulls his eager body back towards him.
“Hold on, where are your manners?” Ashton pivots his head in my direction. “Junior, this is Ava, my fiancée. Ava this is Junior.” He returns his eyes back to Ashton. “Do you remember speaking to her on FaceTime on your birthday?” He turned six last month and I remember wishing him a happy birthday while Ashton was on FaceTime with him.
His eyes grow wide with familiarity but he’s silent, overcome with shyness as he clutches hold of Ashton by the thigh. I crouch down to his level and hold my hand out.
“Hi, Junior. It’s finally nice to meet you.” He looks at my hand warily and Ashton has to coax him to take it. I smile when the little hand of Junior’s shakes mine. Then he looks up at Ashton and asks, “Can I go and get that globe now?”
With a nod of the head, Ashton says, “Yeah.”
Junior runs through the house and up the stairs like a man on a mission, and I can’t keep the laughter from bubbling from my lips at his eagerness.
“Sorry, he can be a little shy.” I turn to the sound of the female voice from behind, and smile when I see a pretty brunette woman approach with luscious wavy hair and glimmering blue eyes.
“You must be Ava.” She embraces me with a warm hug, and I already love how welcoming the Bailey family is. “I’m Jo. I’m Junior’s mom,” she says once she steps back. “It’s amazing to meet you at last. Ashton has told me so much about you.”
“You too.”
I watch as her eyes fall onto Ashton beside me and they briefly hug for a moment. “Hey, Jo. How you doing?”
“I’m really good, Ashton. How about you? How’s life treating you?” Ashton wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me into him. I can’t resist circling my arms around his waist, my fingers clutching hold of his toned stomach. He presses a loving kiss on the top of my head. “Life’s fantastic.” I grin, wondering how I got so lucky to find someone as incredible as Ashton. Jo smiles at us affectionately, but suddenly I see her eyes glisten with sadness, and my heart lurches at seeing the darkness cloud over. It lasts for only a split second before she blinks the discreet tears away and throws on her megawatt smile.
But I saw it. The pain. She isn’t as happy as she makes out.
She still loves Christopher and misses him as if it was only yesterday that he was taken from her. At that thought I feel myself clutch tighter against Ashton’s side, not wanting to let him go, because the thought of a world where he doesn’t exist is too unbearable. A world without you is a world not worth living in. Ashton once said this to me, and the magnitude of his words is exactly how I would feel if I didn’t have him standing next to me, living and breathing beside me, feeling the thump of his heartbeat racing against my ear. And I’m grateful that I haven’t been in Jo’s shoes and felt the immense loss of losing the love of my life. I’ve lost my sister, and that nearly broke me … but losing Ashton? I don’t think that’s a loss I would ever recover from.
Hell, it isn’t even worth thinking about. He’s here and we’re happy. That’s all that matters. Unfortunately, Jo doesn’t have that, and I feel incredibly sad for her. But being a mother gives me an insight, an understanding that her son, the son she conceived with the love of her life, is her saving grace. He’s the reason she keeps on breathing and has the strength within her to smile.
“So who knew your brother had it in him? Getting hitched an’ all,” Jo asks Ashton, suddenly looking unaffected, almost as if I imagined the look of heartbreak on her face.
That has Ashton chuckling in disbelief. “Yeah, it came as a shock to me, too. My player of a brother finally settling down. I never thought I’d see the day.”
“What are you saying about me, asshat?” Tyler says, walking through, what I assume is the kitchen.
Then all at once, the masses that are the Baileys follow behind Tyler and make a beeline for me and Ashton, surrounding us both in hugs and wet kisses, squeezing the living hell out of us. The hugs blur into one another and even after the daze-filled introductions, I’m still unable to put a name to a face.
When I’m finally able to catch my breath, quite frankly a little flustered from the family ambush of a welcome, I feel Ashton’s protective arm sling over my shoulder. He is looking down at me with a sexy, adorning glint in his eyes.
“Now you’ve all got your hands off my woman, let me formally introduce ya’ll.” He laughs before continuing, his Texan twang stronger than ever. “As you’ve all established, this is my fiancée, Ava.” He points to an older version of himself. “Ava, this old guy is my daddy, Samuel. The beautiful woman standing next to him is my momma, Alana, who you’ve already met. Then, this is Mia, who somehow tamed my little bro.” I look towards the dark-haired woman who’s in the arms of Tyler, her head resting comfortably against his chest, and give her a warm smile. Everyone laughs, which causes Tyler to scowl at us all. I get the distinct feeling he was a serial player and Mia was his game changer. Ashton wasn’t a player, or at least he told me he wasn’t, but I like to think I was his game changer, that I was the one who changed his life in an instant.