Betting on Beaumont: A Brooklyn Novel #3 (The Brooklyn Series) (20 page)

Brooklyn’s laughter fills the space around us, and I feel my heart tighten in my chest. Every time I think about how lucky I am to have her, this feeling consumes me that is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.

There’s no doubt about it, Brooklyn owns my fuckin’ heart. I think it’s safe to say that everyone here tonight can see I’ve fallen really fuckin’ hard. No one believed this day would come, no one more so than myself. But here I am, married and with a beach full of beautiful women; my eyes see no one but her.

“Hey, there’s still time to kill him and feed him to the sharks, you know!” Brooklyn shouts at Kayden, causing everyone to burst out laughing.

Releasing my grasp on her hip, I step away from her and playfully push on her shoulder and flash her my best
‘thanks a lot’
look as I pretend to be offended by her comment. I swing my arm back and smack her on the ass, causing a loud squeal to fly from her ruby red lips.

“You’d be miserable without me!” I tell her matter-of-factly all while flashing her my best melt-your-panties-off-grin.

“Hey, I’m trying to do a toast here! “Back to my toast…Now what I was saying is Dixon has always been the playboy of Houston, even more so than me! I know…it’s hard to believe.” He laughs, and everyone around us does too. “I never thought the day would come that he would settle down and willingly commit to one woman for the rest of his life. Dixon and Brooklyn, no matter how crazy it sounds, are perfect together. So here’s to Dixon and Brooklyn! May you two live a long, happy life together, and if you end up killin’ him Brooklyn, I’ll gladly help dispose of the dipshit’s body, because I know he probably deserved it.”

With that being said, Kayden along with the rest of us drain the remainder of our drinks.

Cranking the music back up, we get back to partying.

“Okay, winner of this round plays Savannah and me!” Kayden yells at Jax, Rebecca, Brooklyn, and me as we all make our way back to the table set up for beer pong.

“And the winner of that round plays Braxton and Mya!” Savannah chimes.

“We’re definitely going to kick your asses. Savannah is one more drink away from spending the evening praying to the porcelain god,” I tease, flashing Savannah a wicked grin before bursting out laughing.

“Hey, mate! Who says you’ll be winning? Last I remember, Rebecca and I were whoopin’ your asses!” Jax shouts across the beer pong table, chucking a ball at my fucking head.

I’m drunk, but not that drunk…yet. With my fucking cat like reflexes, I catch that goddamn ping pong ball and whip it straight back at Jax’s head, knocking him in the temple, and sending everyone around the table into a fit of laughter.

We’re one crazy bunch of friends, but I wouldn’t want to be surrounded by anyone else. No matter what, we know we all have each other’s back. Always. That’s rare, and we fucking know it.

We never take for granted the friendship we share. I can only hope that as the years go by, and our lives change and evolve, that we never lose this bond we share.

If we’re lucky, we’ll find ourselves fifty years from now, still celebrating major milestones in our lives with our entire gang by our side; tippin’ em’ back and reminiscing about the good ol’ days when we drank too much and made memories to last us all ten life times.

14 months later

-Dixon

The last fourteen months have flown by in a blur it feels like. So much has happened. Brooklyn and I celebrated our one year wedding anniversary two months ago. Everyone thought we wouldn’t last a month, but look at us now; a year later and we’re stronger than ever.

We got to celebrate our wedding anniversary by officially moving into our house in Sugar Land. Nothing made me more proud than to design our dream house alongside Brooklyn, and then along with my friends and construction company, I built it with my own two hands.

Brooklyn fell in love with the colonial style houses after we took a trip to Salem, Massachusetts last year. So we mixed both of our ideas and built a breathtaking red brick Southern colonial style home. We’ve only lived in it two months so it’s still a work in progress, and with our schedules it feels like we’ll never get completely settled, but I know in time we’ll get there.

I had to go to Boston to go over plans for Kayden right after his wedding last August. He actually just broke ground there last month. He hopes to have the hotel open and running within the next eighteen months. It’s the first Knox Hotel in the New England area. It’ll have a nightclub in it, hopefully making it a popular attraction for the twenty-somethings looking for a place to party on the weekends. Being a popular college town, it’s crazy to not try and monopolize on that.

Brooklyn was able to get a few days off from filming and fly out with me, making it a nice getaway for us. When I had down time I asked her what she wanted to do, and she proceeded to go on and on about how Hocus Pocus is her favorite movie of all time—which I knew thanks to our honeymoon when we spent an entire afternoon learning each other’s favorite things.

She told me that she would love to go to Salem and sightsee. It was only a short drive from Boston, so we made a day of it. I promised her we’ll return again this year. I want to surprise her with a trip there during October when they have it all decorated for Halloween. I know she’ll get a kick out of that.

Her schedule keeps her pretty busy, so finding time away from work to whisk her away on surprise trips is hard to do. But I couldn’t be more proud of her. She’s now a full-time character on
As the Days go By
. There’s a lot of buzz online in fan forums for the soap opera that she’ll win a Daytime Emmy. If she wins, I’ll probably embarrass the hell out of her by cheering obnoxiously from my seat while she goes on stage to accept her award, but I don’t give a flyin’ fuck what anyone thinks. She’s my fucking world, and seeing her being recognized for the passion she pours into her job every single time she steps onto that set makes me feel so damn proud to be her husband and her biggest supporter.

Things with Jax were a little awkward after Brooklyn and I first got married, but since then we’ve put that past behind us, and he’s even moved on. Surprisingly with Savannah’s best friend from Envy, Rebecca. She’s a really sweet girl; they’ve been seeing each other since Savannah and Kayden’s engagement party last spring. We all learned while in New York for Savannah’s bachelorette party—where Brooklyn convinced us all to go Magic Mike on the girls, that her and Jax had hooked up that night in Galveston. Then slowly it turned into something more serious. Now they are looking to be the next couple in our group to settle down and tie the knot. You know things are serious when your girlfriend flies a very long ass flight from LAX to Sydney, Australia to meet your parents.

Savannah and Kayden are now happily married and actually expecting twins. It’s pretty fucking crazy picturing Knox as a dad, but in a matter of a few weeks, that’s exactly what he’ll be. Since Savannah found out she was pregnant, Brooklyn’s had that baby fever kicking in, but with her job, starting a family right now isn’t possible. It’s too hard with her flying back and forth to L.A. every week from Houston. Hopefully down the road, she’ll have had her big break and feel established enough in her career that she’ll feel ready to take a step back and focus on starting a family with me. I never thought I wanted kids, but now the idea of starting a family with Brooklyn has me wanting things I never imagined I would.

I spent an entire afternoon bullshitting with Knox and the guys about how we all need to have boys close in age so we can have them dominate football like we did back in the day.

Right now I’m in New Orleans on a business trip. I was supposed to fly back to Houston this evening after I wrapped up my work here, but thanks to a tropical storm touching down earlier than expected, I’m stuck here until tomorrow.

My best friend Tank is here with me. He flew to New Orleans to help me do my walk through on the construction of the new building that will be the new spa and gym facility here at the New Orleans Knox Hotel.

It’s raining fucking cats and dogs outside, and the weather alert is calling for it to only intensify overnight. There’s tornado warnings for Texas, so I’ve been glued to the television hanging above the hotel bar. I hate that Brooklyn is in Texas and I’m stuck here. She flew in yesterday, and the plan was to spend the next few days off up at the cabin for a little getaway to destress. We’ve both been working so much lately it feels like we’re apart more than we are together. So, we’ve been trying to make the most out of the days we do have together.

It’s the price we pay to do what we’re passionate about. It takes hard work and sacrifice to achieve our goals and dreams we are striving to reach. Brooklyn’s landed a small role in a new movie and she’ll be stuck in Los Angeles for the next few weeks, so I’m hoping to take a week or two off and fly out to L.A. to be with her. Thankfully, I have Tank, Brantley and Greg as Foremen for my construction company, so I know that if I’m away for a week or two, my clients are in good hands. I can work with Kayden right from my computer with Skype meetings. But next month Kayden and I have to fly to Tokyo for a business trip and it of course falls on the same time Brooklyn will be on set filming.

It’s all she’s talked about for the last few weeks since her agent sent her the script. She’s playing the best friend to a woman who finds herself being hired as the wedding planner for her old college crush. I love seeing the excitement in her eyes when she starts rambling on and on endlessly about her part. She becomes so animated and bursting with excitement as we lay in bed snuggled together with our dog, Bailey.

Getting a dog was a huge step for us as a couple and quite challenging. But the way we looked at it is, if we could co-parent a dog together and not murder each other, then one day we could take that big leap and bring a child into the world.

Bailey’s still alive and the happiest and most spoiled dog in the world—well in my eyes she is, so the idea of having a baby down the road isn’t as scary as it once was.

I would be lying though if I said the thought of a child with half Brooklyn and half me in it terrifies me—even if only a little.

She’s got a wild streak a mile wide, and I sure as hell haven’t been a walk in the park for my parents. The thought of fatherhood scares the living shit out of me. But Savannah and Kayden have made it very clear that we’ll be tackling our fears of babies very soon. They asked us to be the God parents to the twins once they’re born, and since they’re having twins and it’ll be a lot to adjust to even with a nanny, Brooklyn has volunteered us to help babysit when she’s in town.

We’ve had a little bit of practice with my niece, but since my sister lives in Dallas we haven’t really had much of a chance to babysit. So with Savannah having the twins soon one things for sure, we’ll be getting plenty of practice until we decide to take that next step.

I’d be lying if I said seeing Brooklyn holding Sophia didn’t do crazy things to me. I found myself daydreaming about what our children will look like; if they’ll have my auburn hair and blue eyes, or her dark chestnut hair and whiskey colored eyes. When the thought of a little girl crosses my mind, I’m hit with a fear I’ve never felt in my entire life. I’ve witnessed firsthand just how big of a pig men are when it comes to women. The thought of bringing a daughter into this world makes me want to build a fucking castle with a big ass mote around it filled with big, mean as fuck crocodiles who wouldn’t think twice to tear a guy into a thousand pieces if he even dared try to come near her.

So all I can hope for is we have a son so I don’t end up in prison for snapping some punk’s neck when she turns sixteen and wants to go out on a fucking date. But if we ever do have a son, I’m going to make sure he isn’t a little prick like I was. I regret a lot of the shit I did when I was younger. My parents’, along with a lot of my friend’s parents’, were too busy working to pay attention and care about what kind of trouble we were getting into. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother and father; they’ve given me an amazing childhood and a privileged life, but I want to do better than that. It’s one reason why Brooklyn and I agreed that for now we’ll focus on our careers so that later on when we want to take a step back and settle down with kids we can and not have any regrets.

“Want another?” the bartender asks, pulling me from my thoughts and from the weather reporter talking on the flat screen above the bar.

Pushing my glass across the polished bar, I nod and reply, “sure,” before grabbing my phone and checking my notifications. Brooklyn said she would text me every so often to keep me updated on how the weather is there. I’m just grateful she’s at Kayden’s so I know she isn’t sitting at our house alone riding out this nasty storm.

“You’re so fuckin’ whipped,” Tank teases, elbowing me before taking another pull from his glass of beer.

Setting my phone down, I grip my glass and rub my thumb across it wiping away a few beads of water as they zig zag down my glass of beer. Leaning back in the bar stool, I take a long chug of my beer. There’s nothing else to do since it’s storming like a mother fucker outside. Right now I should be on my damn jet flying back home to see my wife. Instead, I get to sit in a boring ass hotel bar with Tank, who’s relaxing beside me as he belches out loud ass beer burps and continues to hit on a girl at the other end of the bar by sending hr
1
wildly inappropriate drinks like sex on the beach. The most recent was a screaming orgasm. But on the other hand, our bartender is finding it quite comical.

“Call me whipped all you want, asshole. But I’m the one who gets to fuck the hottest woman in Daytime.” I still can’t get over that one. They did this
Hottest in Daytime
poll with some big Soap Opera blog and Brooklyn was voted ‘Sexiest Actress in Daytime’. Thank fuck I put a ring on that finger when I did because now she has all kinds of guys writing her Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook proclaiming their love to her. It makes me want to commit first degree murder, but she simply laughs it off. We attended a fan meet and greet last month in Los Angeles, and I got to meet in person some of these ‘fans’ along with the male actors that she works with and let me tell you, I’m glad that I know that I keep my woman satisfied in the bedroom, because if I wasn’t as confident in my marriage and with my fucking dick, I’d go all Caveman on her ass and dragging her off of that set.

I thought it was hard watching her kiss a dude for her job…but believe me nothing is harder than having to watch your wife during a fucking sex scene that the entire world gets to see on their televisions at two in the afternoon. She always laughs it off and says it’s no big deal and that there’s crew all over, but I know Brooklyn, if I was lying in that bed with some hot chick who’s in nothing but her panties and bra and making out with me while pretending to be riding my dick—she’d be tryin’ to cut a bitch.

On those days, I always ask her why couldn’t she be a fricking kindergarten teacher or something. Then I think about all the single dads that’d be strolling into the school every afternoon and I decide no matter what job she ever had, I’d still find a reason to make fucking heads roll.

Plus, when I watch scenes where she pours her soul into the moment and makes me feel emotions that no man likes to admit he feels, I know without a doubt she’s doing exactly what she’s supposed to be doing. I may not like certain aspects of her career, but there’s no doubt in my mind that she was born to act. I couldn’t be more proud of her. I know right now it is only the beginning.

“Holy shit, bro. Look at the news,” Tank barks out with his deep timbre booming throughout the small bar. A few people sitting at a table near us look our way, before turning their attention to the breaking news report that’s scrolling across the screen. As I watch the words roll across the television, and see a news anchor appear on screen, my phone begins going off.

I feel as if I just swan dived out of an airplane without a fucking parachute on. My stomach feels as if it’s shot up into my throat, and my heart begins slamming like a solid fist repeatedly against my ribcage.

Kayden:

Hey, man. I’m not sure if you’ve seen the news…but Zak somehow managed to escape from Prison. Jax and I are arming up now in case this fucker tries to come here. Don’t worry. I’ll kill him before I allow him to get anywhere near my mother, Savannah, or Brooklyn.

My fingers are shaking as I text back with rapid speed. I fuck up a few times— making me flustered, but finally, I get the text written and hit send. As I’m sending the text to Kayden, an alert pops-up at the top of my phone saying I got a new text from Brooklyn, too.

“You don’t think he’d be stupid enough…?” Tank asks, shifting in his seat to face me, all the while shifting his eyes between me, my fingers that are texting so fast I’m surprised fucking smoke isn’t rolling off of my phone, and the news.