Forever Our Boys: A Beaumont Novella Read online

  “I’ll be fine. I’m in first class, drinking my way to the Bahamas, chatting with whoever is sitting next to me.”

  Liam groans. He’s already told me not to talk to any men—he doesn’t trust them.

  “You’re killing me, woman.”

  “You love me,” I remind him.

  He rests his head on my pillow and pushes my hair away from my face. “I love you more than words can express, Josie. You’re my life. You, Noah, and Betty Paige… I am nothing without you.”

  “Liam…” When he says things like this, my heart soars with so much love. For every day that we’ve been together, the days we weren’t still weigh heavily on my mind. They were more present when Paige was an infant. I could see it in his eyes when he’d talk to Noah. Liam missed everything. Thinking back, I wish I had just told him in the message that I was pregnant, but I wanted him to call me back. I wanted him to tell me why he left me. “I love you,” I say, kissing him. “You’re my life and the best damn father to our children.”

  “Mom? Dad?” Betty Paige’s voice at the door has us scrambling to cover up. We are long past the time when she used to crawl into bed with us and we were forced to sleep in clothes. There was a time when I would wear a nightgown to bed, only to have it on the floor within seconds. After a while, I gave up until Paige started coming into our bedroom in the middle of the night. Liam grumbled a lot back in those days.

  Liam sits up and puts a pillow over his crotch. I laugh and quickly slip my bathrobe on before crawling back into bed.

  “Come in, Paige,” Liam says, his voice is a bit gruff as if he wants her to believe we were sleeping. I stifle a laugh, which earns me the classic side eye.

  Betty Paige enters, dressed and ready for school. I glance at the clock and realize that it’s later than I had thought. “I was just wondering if you were coming downstairs this year or do I have to make my own breakfast?”

  “You’re old enough to make your own breakfast, Paige,” I say, slightly irritated.

  She shrugs. “But Daddy is home.”

  Yes, he is, and that means when he’s home, he treats her like a baby, waiting on her hand and foot. It bothers me, but there isn’t anything I can do about it. He thinks he must be like this because he missed chunks of time with her while he was on tour.

  I shake my head and get out of bed, heading straight for the shower. He can deal with her and the attitude that comes with her.

  Standing under the hot spray, I try to recall what Noah was like at this age. The gap between a pre-teen to teen was filled with sports and two fathers that never let him act like a brat. Even with Liam back, Nick was never far away, and was always present in Noah’s life. If he couldn’t talk to Liam about something, he went to Nick. I know that hurt Liam, but he never let Noah onto the fact.

  Still, Betty Paige pushes the envelope because Liam lets her. She’s not like this when he’s not home. She’s independent and eager to help around the house. But when her father is home… Lord help any man she decides to date, especially if it’s Mack Ashford, Nick and Aubrey’s son. I have a feeling if their shy flirting turns into something serious, Liam will have a heart attack.

  When I get out of the shower, music wafts through the speakers in our house and the smell of French toast fills the air. I use these last few minutes to finish packing. I won’t need much—bathing suits, cover-ups, and a few dresses. The girls and I don’t plan to do much except lie by the pool and relax.

  “Smells good,” I say as I enter the kitchen. Liam gives me a quick kiss and goes back to tending to the skillet.

  “Paige wanted French toast.”

  I nod, and keep my comments to myself. There is no use fighting with him about her, especially when I’m about to leave. The phone breaks me from my thoughts and I rush to answer it without looking at the caller ID.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Noah, hi.” I glance quickly at the time on the microwave and realize it’s very early in Portland, where he lives. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I have practice in a bit, but I wanted to call and tell you to have a good time. You deserve this vacation. You all do, actually.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry I’m going to miss your game, but Dad and Paige will be there.”

  “I don’t want to go,” Paige yells out. She hates football, or more so she hates that her brother’s games take up her weekends right now. Not that she has a social life or anything.

  “Don’t listen to her. She’s moody this morning.”

  “It’s fine. Are you all packed?”

  I laugh at his question. “Listen to you, acting like a parent. Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “Hell, no. No kids for me, Mom.”

  My heart breaks a little. Not that I want to rush him into anything, even though I’d love having a baby around the house again, but he needs to be with someone that deserves his love. His current girlfriend, while she’s beautiful, I’m not a big fan. I do my best to hide my feelings when she’s around.

  We talk for a few more minutes until it’s time for Paige to go to school. Liam hands me a paper bag with my name written on the front.

  “What’s this?”

  “Breakfast for your flight. If you’re ready to leave me for a week, we ought to get you to the airport. Unless you plan to stay?” he asks, waggling his eyebrows.

  “You wish!”

  He does wish and by the look on his face, he’s crushed that he’s not enough to keep me home. He is, but I don’t want to let the girls down.

  3

  Katelyn

  The sand is cold against my bare feet, and the cool breeze makes me shiver. I should’ve changed into something warmer before I decided to trek out in the wee hours of the morning to watch Harrison surf. It’s not often that I do this, but something woke me and told me that I needed to be out here. I’m thankful that I am.

  Harrison glides over the waves, holding his balance until he’s safely back on shore, only to paddle back out and wait for the next crest to form. Moving to California has been a good thing for us. At first, I balked. I didn’t want to leave Beaumont, leave Mason. The thought of not visiting Mason’s grave whenever I wanted, gutted me, but I had to do what was right for Harrison because he had done so much for me. When Quinn chose to move here for school, I knew Harrison wanted to be near his son. Not to mention his mom and sister live here. But it wasn’t until Elle said she was going to enroll at UCLA did I finally agree. The only problem with that is it left Peyton all alone. Even with her choice to attend school in Chicago, I haven’t fully accepted that my girls aren’t together. The twins are twenty now and vastly different than what I expected them to be.

  It’s funny. When they were born, Mason and I used to lie on our bed with them between us and discuss what we thought they’d be when they grew up. I had these grand ideas of the girls being doctors or lawyers while Mason said that Peyton would be the first female coach in the NFL because he was going to teach her everything he knew. He would’ve, if given the chance, and she would be on her way, but that’s not her path. His little football player strives to be on the sidelines with live reporting or broadcasting for big sports channels.

  Peyton and Mason had a bond that I could never compete with. From the time she was a newborn, until he died, she was his shadow. When I couldn’t calm her down, he could. When she was hurt, she only wanted her dad. After Mason died, I thought she would crumble, but Liam was there to hold her up, and with Liam came Harrison. He has a bond not only with Peyton, but Elle as well, that will never be broken. People who don’t know us, would never suspect he isn’t their father.

  With Elle, I thought she’d be the one to go to school and become a cheerleader or study fashion merchandising. She was always my little fashionista. Elle was the one who always butted heads with her sister about her sports attire and how it didn’t match her stylish clothes. So, it shocked us when she announced that she was going to school to learn business
management with a minor in music so she can become an agent or manager.

  Harrison and I were surprised, but it made sense. Quinn, of course, followed in his father’s footsteps and after everything the band has gone through, we figured that Elle doesn’t want the same thing to happen to her brother.

  Very slowly, the sun begins to rise, casting a beautiful glow over the Pacific Ocean and Harrison. He’s my sunshine, the bright light that kept me from the dark tunnel I was heading for after Mason died. Harrison was the last person I wanted to let into my life, and I did everything to prove that he wasn’t the man he claimed to be. I was wrong each time. Each day I have been incredibly thankful that I was. I don’t know where I’d be, mentally, if it weren’t for him. He saved me and I know I did the same for him.

  Quinn is my son, in every sense of the word. I am the mom that he never had and he’s the son I always dreamed of having. To say he’s a mama’s boy, even though we came into each other’s life when he was eight, is an understatement. He comes to me with his questions, concerns, and problems. I know all about his girlfriends and the older women that continue to throw themselves at him when he has a gig. Quinn shares everything with me, even a few things I don’t want to know about and need a few minutes to process, but I’ll always be there for him.

  The relationship between Quinn and the twins is as one would suspect. They argue like siblings. He protects them as big brothers do, and all three support each other one hundred percent.

  Later this morning, Harrison will take me to the airport where I’ll meet Jenna and board a private flight to the Bahamas to meet Josie for a week of rest and relaxation. I miss Josie and haven’t seen her in a few months. That was another downfall of moving to California, leaving my best friend. Josie and I have been friends for as long as I can remember. I was there when Liam left her and she was there when Mason died. We’ve been through everything together, from broken hearts, the birth of our children, and the return of Liam into our lives. There wasn’t a day I didn’t see her until we moved.

  When we first arrived here, I was okay. It felt like a vacation, but as the weeks passed, my heart started breaking. I missed Josie dearly. Phone calls weren’t cutting it and I quickly found myself traveling back to Beaumont or begging her to come out here. Josie traveling out here was much easier. Despite their rocky start, she has a good relationship with her mother-in-law, Bianca, who is living in her old childhood home.

  Harrison catches another wave and weaves in and out of it until it drops him back at the shore. Then, he looks up and sees me sitting in the sand. I’m too far away to see his expression, but I imagine his bright smile matches mine. I never thought I’d fall in love again, but then he walked into my life with a bouquet of flowers, only knowing it was my first Christmas without my husband, and cemented himself in my life. I only looked back once and that was a mistake. From that point forward, I have vowed to love him with everything I am.

  He stands in the surf and removes the top of his wet suit before he picks up his board and comes toward me. The water dripping down from his hair glistens on his tanned and toned chest. Harrison slams his board into the sand next to me, then shakes his hair over me, causing me to scream. He uses this to his advantage and falls to his knees, pushing me back in the sand, and hovers over me.

  Our eyes are pinned on each other, both of us smiling.

  “I love you,” he tells me. This isn’t out of the blue or some random act of love. He tells me every day as soon as he sees me. It’s not “good morning” or “here’s your coffee.” The first words he speaks are about love, and each morning, I fall more in love with him.

  “I love you too,” I say as I pull him down on top of me and kiss him. I don’t care that his suit is wet and that it’s cold out; being this close to him is something I can never get enough of.

  Harrison tries to move to the side, to not put all his weight on me, but I refuse to let him move. I’m not going to see him for a week, and one might think it’s not a big deal, especially because he tours with the band. For me, it’s an eternity. When he would tour, I had the kids to occupy my time even though I was a wreck, waiting to hear from him every second of the day. I tried not to be a needy partner, but that notion went out the door very quickly.

  Now that the kids are grown, I can tour with him even though it’s slightly awkward being the only wife on the road with the guys. Still, I don’t pass up the opportunity. Being away from him is my least favorite thing in life.

  My hand slips between his torso and into his tight shorts. The wet suit makes it almost impossible for me to grip his shaft. His eyes roll back briefly until his senses catch up with him. He pulls my shorts aside and presses his thumb over my bud as his mouth crashes down onto mine. Our tongues tangle as our hands bring us pleasure. With my free hand, I work the zipper on his suit, pulling it down far enough so I can get my hand in there to pull down his shorts. Last night, he made love to me until neither of us could move, but knowing that I’m leaving him for a week, I need him again.

  Harrison sits back on his knees and pushes his shorts down enough to escape the tight confines. He leans forward, hovering over me and kissing me deeply while his fingers pull my shorts aside so he can enter me. I open my mouth to cry out, but his mouth swallows my cries, preventing the houses around us from hearing me.

  My nails dig into his back, clutching him to my chest as he tries to be discreet about what we’re doing. He looks at me and pulls his lower lip between his teeth. It’s his tell that he’s close. My back arches when his thumb presses on my swelling bud.

  “Give it to me one more time,” he whispers into my ear, paying homage to the hours and hours we spent last night and into the morning making love. He wanted to make sure I didn’t forget him in the week I’d be gone. “God, baby, I can feel you.”

  Harrison changes angles and thrusts faster until my orgasm peaks. He follows quickly, grunting through his release and collapsing on top of me, panting.

  “Are you getting old on me?” I ask, poking fun at our slight age difference.

  Harrison chuckles and bites my neck. “Never.” He rolls us onto our sides and discreetly pulls his shorts up. I glance around and see if anyone else is on the beach. There’s another surfer down the way, but too far away to see what we’ve been doing. This isn’t the first time we’ve had sex outside. In fact, after the first time on his motorcycle so many years ago, it’s been sort of our thing.

  We both rest on our elbows and stare into each other’s eyes. Every day is like we’re falling love all over again. He pushes my hair behind my ear and gives me a quick kiss. “I’m going to miss you.”

  “One week.”

  He rolls his eyes. “One week of men looking at you, thinking they stand a chance.”

  I shake my head and place my lips on his chest where he has our names tattooed over his heart. “Never. You own me,” I tell him. “Heart and soul.”

  “We should probably get inside and shower. We are going to hit traffic on the way to the airfield. Unless you want to stay home with me?”

  “And miss all those half-naked men on the prowl for a week-long hook-up? No way,” I say as I stand up in a rush and run toward our house. Harrison is hot on my tail and catches me as I reach our patio. He grabs me and I squeal.

  “I think I need to fuck those thoughts out of you,” he says, carrying me into the house.

  “Yes, please!”

  4

  Jenna

  “Should we check in or wait… for Josie?” My words trail off as I step into The Cove and onto the marble floor. I can feel my mouth drop open as I take in the magnitude of this hotel.

  “The guys weren’t kidding,” Katelyn says.

  “No, they weren’t.”

  The guys, being our husbands, insisted that we turn our girls’ week away into seven days of pampering. Despite our best attempts at finding a nice hotel with a nice beach, the guys became adamant that we treat ourselves, as a gift from them. As a thank you for taki
ng care of them, their families, and lives while they’re on tour.

  For a month or longer, the guys bickered about where we should stay, what we should do, and even as to where we would go. It came down to Betty Paige and Eden suggesting that everyone’s recommendations for a hotel be put into a hat. Whatever name was drawn would be the place that we would stay.

  Of course, arguing ensued about who would draw a name because in all honesty, Jimmy, Liam, and Harrison are children in adult-sized bodies and they can’t agree on a single thing most of the time.

  In the end, Paige drew the name because she was the youngest in the room, and all Eden wanted to do was go surfing; our indecisiveness was taking up valuable wave time.

  And that is how we ended up standing in this grandiose lobby, with our mouths hanging open, acting like we’ve never seen anything like this before.

  “I should’ve come here on my honeymoon,” Katelyn says, causing me to laugh.

  “Did you and Harrison recently tie the knot and not tell us?” I ask.

  Katelyn looks over and smiles at me. My heart beats fast, thinking that one of my best friends would take the plunge without having our family there to witness the act.

  “No,” she says with a devilish grin. “Harrison and I are extremely happy with the way things are now.” Katelyn steps forward, dragging her suitcase behind her as the sound of her flip-flops echoes throughout the lobby. It’s a sound I hate, but have grown to tolerate it with Eden wearing them every day.

  I follow her quickly toward the registration desk, curious of what has been booked for us.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. James, Mrs. Davis,” the clerk says before either of us can give our names.

  I glance quickly at Katelyn who rolls her eyes. “I’m sorry, but how do you know who we are?” she asks. “Surely, our reservations are under a different name?”