HUC bonus | CON RILEY

Wedding Worries

REECE

The day we're due to marry, speedboats wake me early.

I'm pretty sure this noisy start wasn't part of Jack's neat and tidy vision for our wedding. Trust me, I've spent the last six months watching him twirl around his four pillars of party planning. First came location ideas where Kara-Enys won out over London. Then came guest lists he whittled down to close friends and family before he spun through spreadsheets full of menus and decor suggestions. Now that our big day is here, every important t is crossed on his to-do list, and almost every stray i is safely dotted.

Apart from one.

Something out of his control niggles at him. I could tell last night when his tongue peeked out over and over, although he said everything was fine. Fine isn't what I witnessed. I saw someone I love wrestling with a problem he couldn't solve, and even if speedboats didn’t choose this morning to roar into the harbour, I’d hear the sigh he can’t rein in, which suggests he still hasn't found a solution.

He grabs his phone and tiptoes out of our room next, as if not to wake me, which is pointless. If the arrival of those speedboats hadn’t disturbed me, Jack’s sigh would have pulled me from sleep the same way sirens do whenever sailors are in trouble.

Those alarm bells always get me running. Today, Jack’s my reason for rolling out of bed in a hurry, because yes, the man I plan to share my life with has based today on four rock-solid party-planning pillars, but that sigh?

It suggests he’s woken feeling shaky.

About us getting married?

I don’t think so. Not after the years we’ve spent building strong and sturdy columns all of our own. The first could be headed with the word family, so I follow him to the bathroom and wrap him in a hug from behind to ask a family-centric question.

“Are you worried that organising the wedding has been too much for Carole?”

His head shake doesn't surprise me—Jack isn't the only pocket-size powerhouse in his family, which he rinses away toothpaste to confirm.

“Nope. Not with Mum and Lynne on board. They’re a great team, so there won’t be any nasty surprises today.” He snorts, and work shouldn’t be on his mind now, but it must be for him to blurt this. “The only nasty surprise would be if Valentin’s dad thinks he’s on the guest list.”

It’s unfortunate timing that Juno senior can only meet with Rex this morning, which Jack just as quickly accepts.

“I mean, he is delivering a top-of-the-range speedboat to the foundation, which is a pretty decent wedding present, even if it’s only a sponsorship loan, but…” The mirror shows him wincing. “I just can’t make myself—”

“Invite him to stay for the wedding?”

Jack nods as I kiss his bare and sleep-warm shoulder. Then he leans back against me, and I love these moments when he lets go and trusts I've got him. He also trusts me with at least part of what else woke him early. His head tilts back on my shoulder, his breath minty. "I heard them arrive." His next head tilt aims for the open bathroom window. "Pretty hard not to hear how he spoke to Valentin before Rex came down to the harbour to meet them."

This is what might surprise Val, who once shared this harbourside home with me for filmmaking reasons: When it comes to unfairness, Jack can sound as fierce as Arthur, even about someone who made him look stupid where the whole world got to see it. “All his dad ever does is bark orders. No wonder Valentin is desperate for a career of his own.”

I kiss his shoulder again. The side of his neck. His earlobe, where I whisper, “They’re not the best communicators.”

Jack shivers and nods again, but he isn't done yet. I can tell by his tongue tip making an appearance while I brush my teeth, taking it slow to give him time to fill this silence, which he finally does when his phone pings with a daily word for him to match up.

Not from me.

Some days, Pat is the reason for Jack’s sleepy fumbling for his phone. Other mornings, it’s Seb who breaks rules by firing several words in bullet-fast succession all the way from London. Neither housemate is in the city today. Both are already here in castle guest rooms across the harbour from our cottage. The only Trelawney missing is my middle brother, who is an important part of a column Jack would label friendship. Now he reads out the word Calum has sent him.

“Happy.”

That’s what Jack makes me every single day, and it’s what I want most in the world for him too, so I can’t ignore the frown the mirror reflects next, or disregard that it’s followed by Jack’s second sigh of the morning.

Here it comes.

This is what he’s been holding in.

“I wish Calum could be here.”

This is the one and only problem Jack hasn't been able to solve and has held inside. Now it spills out, and I can't break the hockey contract tying Calum to the wrong side of the Atlantic but I can listen to someone missing their long-distance bestie.

That's what I do as Jack gets busy running the shower for us.

His voice echoes. "We planned the wedding to be in the off-season on purpose. Calum cleared it with his coaches and with his management. Changing their minds at the last minute to please brand sponsors is shitty. He's your best man. His club knows that."

I nod. They do, but as Calum told me, contracts worth millions come with golden handcuffs he can't easily slip out of. I know he's trying—the group chat Jack and I share with our three best men is full of strategising that ranges from negotiation (Pat) to kidnapping (Seb). Knowing my middle brother, if there's a way to tear that contract into confetti, he'll find a way to do it.

For now, all I can do is hope that happy text is a clue he's been successful. Until I know for sure, I get busy taking Jack's mind off this sole remaining kink in his wedding planning. I do that with our first mouth-to-mouth kiss of the morning, which must help. His arms loop my neck and his next sigh is happier as soon as I push his sleep shorts down and mine joins them. His mouth opens, and my tongue slides in to meet his, and that’s a much happier start to the first morning of the rest of our lives together.

He pulls me nearer, hands roaming to find where I'm hard for him already because he's my version of perfect from the tip of his nose to how his arse fits my hands. I squeeze, which prompts a different kind of sound from him as we fit close together, and getting wet and soapy in the shower only makes that even better.

We kiss and wash and stroke each other off until his phone pings again. Not with a text alert this time, but with a challenge that won’t quit, and Jack does love those.

He darts out of the shower, wet and dripping to turn off an alarm, his cock bobbing and as rosy as his throat when he darts back to pick up from where he left off. “Twenty minutes until the ferry gets here with the padre.” He wraps his hand around my dick and issues a challenge all of his own. “Think that’s long enough to get off and get dressed in time to meet him for the wedding service run-through?"

I channel the only Trelawney who isn’t currently on this island. “You know what they say about all the shots you don’t take?”

Jack isn’t about to miss this one. He gets busy, his grip slick and soapy, his mouth fused with mine while water pounds my shoulders and all of my blood floods south. He knows exactly how tight I like his hold, how him rubbing right there under the head of my dick gets me close, and that’s what I am when I sink to my knees to let that pounding water reach and rinse him. Yes, we’re on a deadline, but I stave off my own happy ending by getting my mouth on Jack so all he has left to sigh about is me making him feel as good as he makes me feel so often.

I take him so deep he almost slips over.

I’ve got him.

I always will, and so what if his fingers dig into my shoulders? I don't care if he leaves bruises, just as long as he relaxes.

My head bobs, and who knows how much time passes. I'm lost in the steamy haze of wet blowjob noises and the small sounds I work hard to stop him from holding in for any longer. The head of his cock nudges even deeper, and I take it like he takes the slick finger I press inside him to find the place I hope will turn off all of his wedding worries.

He gasps more loudly, and that feels like one goal scored, then he groans, and I taste precome, which almost feels like winning, but the real prize is when he comes so hard I have to brace him.

Isn’t that what he did for me in London?

He held me up when I was out of my depth and sinking, so I’ll spend every day of the rest of our lives doing the same for him.

That’s marriage to me, our bedrock, and you better believe I can’t fucking wait to see him with my ring on his finger. That’s what I picture after he kneels with me to finish what we started in a hurry. I imagine a band of gold glinting on one of the fingers he wraps around me, and him saying, I do, I will, or whatever the fuck he wants to promise me at the altar in the Heligan’s chapel later today. I don’t care if that makes me a hopeless romantic. It means I can grit this out just before I climax, and mean it.

“Can’t wait to make you Jack Trelawney.”

Jack is still pink with pleasure when we make it out onto the harbour with only seconds to spare before the ferry gets here.

It arrives while a speedboat roars around the harbour, Valentin showing off a brand-new vessel that will help us save more souls and that has Trust Juno to Speed to the Rescue painted on it, but all I hear is what Jack told me in our steamy bathroom.

“Same.”

Now another voice registers, this booming shout familiar and oh, so welcome.

"I thought I told you I was saving Jack for my great big bi reveal?" Calum steps off the ferry, one arm slung across our officiant's shoulder who he pulls closer to stage-whisper so loudly we all hear him saying, "You know that part in the service where anyone can object? That's when I'm planning on—"

Valentin chooses that moment to roar past, so who knows what Calum plans on doing during our wedding service. Or how the fuck he got here without skating straight through all his contract clauses.

Right now, I can't even make myself care that he breaks off to stare after Valentin, and says, "Forget it. You missed your chance, Jack. I found another hottie."

Jack cackling is my reason for not caring. That wild laughter of his rings out louder than speedboat engines, louder than dogs barking or the chapel bell chiming that it's time for a wedding run-through.

Jack’s happy, and that sound?

It’s the best wedding present I could ask for.

The End...

(...until next year!)

I already can't wait for A Loser By Christmas!

You won't need to wait until next Christmas for another romance... the librarian Jack met has his own novel coming soon!

You may have already met Isaac in Second Shot. I'm excited to bring his own romance to you next spring in Second Story!

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