Page 1 of Wild Then Wed
Prologue
SAWYER
Four years ago
The whole house smelled like cinnamon.
Julia had a thing about seasons. She didn’t just decorate for them—she fully committed. October meant candles in every room and something constantly simmering on the stove that made the whole house smell like a bakery. She told me it was called potpourri or some shit. All I knew was it smelled like cinnamon, oranges, and whatever else she decided felt like fall.
It was excessive. It was kind of ridiculous. And it made the place feel exactly like her—warm, loud, and impossible to ignore.
She liked for everything to feel like amoment. Said people were always rushing toward the next thing. Said that’s how you miss your life.
So I was trying not to rush. Trying to live in the moment. Which happened to include being knee-deep in a crib manual written by Satan himself.
“I’m convinced this thing was designed to ruin me,” I muttered, cross-legged on the nursery floor with an Allen wrench and a deep sense of personal failure.
Julia was standing in the doorway, her arms crossed over the top of her belly like she already knew I was in too deep. Onehand rested on the curve of it, protective in a way that wasn’t performative. Just instinctual, like she’d always been built for this.
She wasn’t even trying, and she was glowing. Not in the cliché pregnancy glow bullshit way. Just…lit from the inside out.
Her hair was still damp from her shower, curling at the ends. That almost-black color that looked blue in certain light. Olive skin all golden and flushed. Brown eyes locked on me like she was keeping a running tally of every screw I managed to mess up.
She was wearing one of my old T-shirts—over-sized, soft, the sleeves halfway down her arms. She looked exhausted. And beautiful. And fully prepared to tell me I was doing everything wrong.
“I told you we could wait until Crew got back to do that,” she said, one brow arched.
“Absolutely not. This is my child’s crib. I’m bonding.”
“You’ve beenbondingwith the same screw for twenty minutes.”
“It’s a very complicated screw.”
She shook her head and walked in, barefoot, dodging half a mobile and a small pile of pink crib sheets on the floor. The room was already half-done—lavender paint on the walls, white dresser assembled, a stack of baby books she’s been reading, all about breastfeeding and hypno-birth. Whatever the fuck that was.
And there were butterflies. Everywhere.
Paper ones, painted ones, decals on the walls, tiny hand-stitched ones. She said it was because Violet would be delicate. Soft. Beautiful.“Violet has to have butterflies, Sawyer. How could she not?”
I said it was because Etsy had taken over her brain.
She bent to dig through the box I hadn’t even gotten to yet, muttering something under her breath. I caught the tail end of a grunt when she stood back up.
“Hey,” I said, dropping the screwdriver and narrowing my eyes at her. “You’re not supposed to be doing stuff like that.”
She rolled her eyes without looking at me. “I’m pregnant, Sawyer. Not dying.”
“Still.”
She arched a brow at me. “Are you going to talk to me like that when she gets here?”
“Damn right I am.”
Julia rolled her dark brown eyes and walked to the window, bracing one hand against the sill and the other over her belly like it was second nature by now.
“I still think the crib should go here,” she said, nodding at the corner where the sun would hit in the mornings. “More light. It’ll feel warmer.”
“It’ll feel like a greenhouse.”
