Mine To Have (Southern Wedding 1)

I turn toward the people in front of the bar and start serving them. It takes me a couple of minutes to see that the bottles are placed alphabetically, which Bennett doesn’t seem to get, and when I serve the tenth person, he’s still serving his fourth.

I look around to see that the room is almost filled up as the bridesmaids all stand by the door, looking for the bride. I walk up to Bennett. "Can I ask what is going on?" I turn to look at everyone mingling.

"Bride’s face swelled up," he shares, and I can’t help the way my mouth opens in shock, and my eyes are probably the size of saucers. "She was allergic to something."

"Oh my God," I say, and then I turn my head, and I see him. Everything in me stops: my heart, my mind, my breathing. It all stops. The only thing that moves are my eyes when I follow him. I forced myself to erase all of his pictures from my phone. I forced myself to block him on all social media sites. I forced myself to forget what he even looked like, but my heart still remembered. His hair is a touch longer, and his five o’clock shadow is coming in strong. My fingers move, thinking back to how it used to pinch me when I grabbed his face in my hands right before I kissed him.

He walks with his jacket in one hand, the collar of his shirt open, and his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His chest looks like he got bigger, and so do his arms. I see him search the room for someone, and he finds her and walks over to her. She looks like she is one of the bridesmaids. He walks over to her; she gets up from her chair when she sees him. He leans down and says something to her, and I can hear his voice in my head, the way he used to say my name. The woman looks at him, shocked, and then rushes out.

Travis watches her leave and then puts his head down. He’s even better looking than he was in my memories. He is even hotter than he was when he was younger. He’s a man now, and it shows. My mouth gets dry when I see him look up and then make his way to the bar. I’m about to tell Bennett that I’m going to leave when the inevitable happens.

His eyes meet mine, my whole body shivers from his look, and then he throws his head back and laughs. "Of course, you would be behind the bar."

Chapter 7

Travis

My eyes meet hers, and my heart fucking soars. Everything I was feeling on the way here is gone with one look at her. I can’t help but put my head back to laugh at the irony of what today is. My fucking wedding day, and she walks into the church. "Of course, you would be behind the bar." I sit on one of the stools by the bar and look over at Bennett, who just gives me a chin up. I’m sure he’s dying to ask me all the questions, but he’s giving me a chance to catch my bearings.

"I figured this is the only place where I could help." I can smell her from this side of the bar, and it takes me back to all those times we would go to the bar, and I would sit on a stool, and she would stand between my legs. My mind goes back to one of the last times it happened.

Sitting on a stool when she walked in, her eyes scanned the room before she found me. She smiled and then made her way through the crowd of people. I turned on the stool as she placed her bag in the middle of the feet of the stool. "Hi." I smiled at her, and she leaned in and kissed my lips.

My hands went straight to her hips, and she turned and looked at the bar. "What are we having?" she said and placed her back to my front, and that is where she stood all night long. One hand on my leg while she talked to people, with one of my hands on her hip. I would lean in and bury my face in her neck, and I felt at peace.

I hear whispers all around me, and I’m back to my wedding venue. I watch Harlow as she walks down the bar. Now grabbing a glass, she walks over and takes the bottle of scotch down, fills it two fingers in, and puts it in front of me.

I shake my head because she knows me, also because how fucking crazy is it that she’s here. I grab the glass and down it in one shot. The burning follows all the way to my stomach. "Another one?" she asks, and I nod my head, knowing that shit is going to hit the fan in a matter of minutes.