Let the countdown begin.
* * *
Jason leaned his hands on the cool tile of the shower wall as steam rose up around him. He inhaled deeply through his nose as he let the pounding heat of the water hit his tense shoulders and back. Adrenaline raced through his veins like the white waters of raging rapids, and intense nerves whirled through him like the Tasmanian Devil on speed. Rolling his neck from side to side, he tried his best to just relax.
Never before in his life had he felt this amped up and anxious. Jason was an easygoing, laid-back guy. Always had been. Until today.
This was it. The day that Jason had been waiting for, for over a decade, was finally here.
Katie Lawson was coming home.
Dipping his head once more under the heated shower stream, Jason reached down and turned the silver knob to the left, shutting off the water. He shook out the excess water in his hair as he pushed open the glass door and grabbed the towel he’d hung on the wall. As he quickly dried off, he heard his phone buzz for probably the tenth time in the last five minutes.
Grabbing his briefs and jeans, he pulled them on and swiped the screen on his iPhone. He had twelve missed calls. Three voicemail messages and two texts. Pressing his thumb on the icon to pull up the first text, he saw it was from his oldest brother Seth. It read:
Is the kid really going to go through with this?
Jason sighed. None of his other brothers, or his dad, or any of the crew at work believed that Bobby was doing the right thing. Jason did. He saw the look in Bobby’s eyes when he talked about, looked at, or was even thinking about Sophie Hunter. Jason recognized that look. He knew it well, from personal experience. It was the look of a guy that was in love with his soul mate.
Jason’s thumbs flew across the screen as he typed back:
Yes. He is.
Bobby was twenty-four years old; a grown man. Yes, he may be the youngest of the Sloan boys, but he was still a man. Jason was sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, his baby brother knew what he was doing.
A loud buzz once again sounded as Jason’s phone vibrated in his hand. He looked down to see that it was another text from Seth.
You can’t talk him out of it?
Jason inhaled slowly through his nose as he typed back:
No. And I wouldn’t even if I could.
A part of Jason knew that Seth and his other brothers, Riley and Alex, thought they had Bobby’s best interest at heart. But Seth and Riley left for the Marines just days after their high school graduation and had been gone since Bobby was just a kid in elementary school. Alex returned home just a few months ago after being in the Navy for the past six years. His brothers had been absent for years and didn’t know Bobby as the man he was today.
Jason was tired of having this conversation with people. Just this morning, a few guys on the construction crew had called to run the idea of kidnapping Bobby at his bachelor party tonight to “Stop him from making the biggest mistake of his life.” Jason had quickly squashed those genius’s abduction plan.
Scrolling through his missed calls he saw that a majority were from Laura, a girl that he’d been seeing off and on for the last year—until three months ago when Sophie and Bobby announced their engagement. Since then, Jason’s social life had come to a screeching halt. No way was he going to return her call. He wasn’t trying to be a dick, but she’d been calling a lot the past couple of weeks hinting—not so subtly—that she wanted to be his date for Bobby’s wedding.
Yeah, that was not going to happen.
She hadn’t been the only one who called, though. One voicemail was from his foreman on the Slater Street site and the other was from Sophie.
Lifting the phone to his ear, Jason pressed play on the message from his soon to be sister-in-law while he reminded himself that as much of a milestone, a game changer, an event that Katie Lawson’s return was in his world, this weekend was not about him. It was about Bobby and Sophie. Bobby had chosen him to be his best man and Jason didn’t take that responsibility and honor lightly.
Sophie’s bubbly voice sounded through the speaker, “Hey Jas, just wanted to see if you can get to mom and dad’s a little early. Bobby and I are still out running errands and Aunt Wendy is dealing with last minute wedding details. I just talked to Katie and she’ll probably get there in about half an hour, before I can make it back. I wanted someone to be there when she gets home. You know, like a welcome party, even if it’s just a party of one. Can you believe it? Katie’s actually coming home!” He barely registered Sophie’s high pitch squeal of excitement followed by her quick, “Thanks, Jas. You’re the bestest!”
Jason’s mind replayed Sophie’s words, “Katie’s actually coming home!”
Yes, he was his brother’s best man and he planned on being the best damn best man there ever was. But that didn’t change the fact that Jason was finally going to get the opportunity to see Katie again. To apologize for that night. To tell her all the things he never said. To set the record straight. He wouldn’t be on best man duty every minute, of every hour, over the next three days.
Jason looked at the time Sophie had left the message. Thirty minutes ago. It must’ve been when he was out for his morning run.
He finished getting dressed, grabbed his keys, and was out the door in record time.
He had no idea what was going to happen when he and Katie saw each other again. What it would be like. What they would say to each other. But, there was one thing he knew for sure; he’d waited a decade to find out, and now, finally, the wait was over.
Available Here
Whisper of Love
Whisper Lake Book One
CHAPTER 1
“Are you looking at porn!?”
“What?!” KJ’s brow furrowed as his eyes remained glued to the device he was clutching in his hands. “No!”
The grunts and groans Allison Walsh had heard from the hall that had sent her to where no man dared to go—a teenage boy’s bedroom—were silenced now. Thanks to the homemade blackout curtains her nephew had put up a few months ago, the room was dark even though it was four in the afternoon. The only thing she could see through the small crack in the door was her nephew’s face illuminated by the screen of his iPad.
“Give it to me.” Ali did her best to sound authoritative as she shouldered the door pushing it open slowly. The task was made difficult due to an enormous pile of laundry halting its path. After putting her back into it, she managed to budge the blockade enough for her to finally squeeze inside.
The first thing to hit her was the overwhelming, pungent smell—a combination of dirty socks, rotten food, and the distinctive funk of teen-boy aroma—that was so thick she was choking on it. Lifting her hand to cover her mouth, she instantly regretted that she’d let the room checks slip over the last few months.
That’s not the only thing you’ve let slip, her inner—somewhat judgmental—voice chimed in.
She shook off that truth and forged ahead into the funk cloud, expertly navigating the minefield of dirty laundry, pizza boxes and general debris that covered his floor. When she reached the bed, she snatched her nephew’s iPad out of his hands.
“Hey! What are you doing!?” he shouted angrily.
Making sure you’re not watching porn. Her eyes quickly glanced at the screen and relief swept her when she saw there were no naked bodies. “You’ll get it back when your room is clean and the yard is mowed.”