He made a face. “I’d say thank you if you weren’t my sister.”
“Ha, ha.” I nailed him in the bicep hard enough that he winced. Or at least pretended to.
“Here they come!” Cam called over her shoulder as the line began to form at the door.
“Seriously. It’s singles night, and I’m making Cam find you a lady,” I insisted.
Jett rolled his eyes so hard, I couldn’t see the irises for a second. “I don’t need help finding a lady, especially not from Cam. A match made by Cam is the kiss of death. It always turns out exactly opposite from what she intends—the last girl I let Cam hook me up with ended up engaged to her ex-boyfriend halfway through the night.”
“Ouch.”
He laid a hard look on me. “I mean it. Don’t.”
I put my hands up. “Okay, okay, fine. I’ll do it myself.”
With a laugh, I dodged him when he tried to grab me, spinning away.
Jett was the last of my brothers to pair off. The other three were well on their way—one engaged and one married with the third married and expecting. Worse than that, Jett and I were the oldest. Dusty, old spinsters, if our mother was to be believed. If Mrs. Bennet desired anything, it was seeing her children married and breeding. She’d take breeding alone if given the choice between that and the alternative.
Thankfully, Jett and I had escaped her designs by moving a hundred blocks away.
Either way, Jett had been unlucky in love. In his case, I didn’t quite understand why—the guy was smart, funny, and cut like granite. He was well over six feet tall, with a sharp jaw, Roman nose, and brilliant blue Bennet eyes. He was handsome by societal standards—even by admission of a sister who got a little urpy at the sight of his nipples—he was straight out of the oven. But he’d always had trouble picking the right girl. He’d been railroaded and run around, too kind and honorable for anything less than trust as a given. As such, he’d been through a string of girls that I’d happily gouge the eyeballs out of.
He deserved real love, and he deserved happiness. That he hadn’t already found it was tragic.
Tonight would be the perfect night to change that. Everyone was ridiculous in a Fabio wig, and any girl who would make a fool out of herself for the sake of a good time had an automatic foot in the door, in my book.
And if I knew my brother at all, in his book too.
Within an hour, Wasted Words was stuffed to the gills.
Cam and I stood on the stage, where a DJ played Tina Turner’s “The Best” as a nod to the theme of the night—’80s romance.
Before us stretched a sea of luscious Fabios with drinks in their hands. Enough of the men had stripped shirts for their free drinks that there was also a healthy amount of skin, and they wore it well. The line at the door looked more like a mob than a queue, and was three-quarters women, looking to take a turn with the beefy bartenders and their dark smiles. The party was already a success, as our singles nights usually were. Cam’s knack for bringing the comic book nerds and the romance lovers together was uncanny, and she’d done it for three wildly successful years. Long and well enough that I was sure there were at least a couple of toddlers out there named after her.
She elbowed me in the ribs and pointed at the door. “There he is—Darcy,” she yelled over Tina Turner. “See for yourself.”
I followed the line of her finger across the crowded room to the door, and I felt the entirety of the universe lean in the same direction.
Toward him.
He was a vast darkness, a vacuum of power, and every molecule in the room raced toward him as if they were all his, simply by means of his presence. Tall and square-shouldered, a face lined by a jaw of stone, a thick crop of dark hair to match burnished, authoritative brows. He was an anomaly. An impassive animal confined by a suit of depthless black, eyeing the wig in Ruby’s hand with such quiet disdain, you’d think he was politely refusing a plate of fried bugs.
The girl at his side—a small thing with a wide smile and hair the color of sunshine—laughed with a playful air, tugging on her wig before hooking her arm in his. They were night and day, the light and the dark. The cheer and the sobriety. A juxtaposition, but somehow a whole. When he laughed at something she’d said, it was there in the corners of his smiling lips, that thread that connected him.
His sister, I realized. Or hoped.
Jett nudged me, and I jolted in surprise. “What are you gawking at?”
“Nothing. What are you gawking at?” I asked.
“At you gawking.”
Cam laughed and grabbed my hand. “Come on—let me introduce you.”
As she pulled me away, I snagged Jett’s hand and towed him along. Because if I was going to face whatever beast waited for me, Jett was coming with me.
We wound our way through the crowd and to the outer edges where they stood, watching everyone—her with a bright, smiling face and him with narrowed, suspicious eyes. Both looked wildly out of place in their expensive business wear among the blond wigs and naked beer guts. I tried to imagine Darcy in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and couldn’t fathom it. The whole of him stood in my mind like a paper doll in its skivvies with nothing to wear but a suit or nothing at all.
When we came to a stop before them, their gazes turned to us. Well, hers skipped. His sort of slid.
“Laney, Jett,” Cam started, “I’d like you to meet Miss and Mr. Darcy.”
“Oh, please—call me Georgie,” she said with a smile, sticking out her hand enthusiastically for a shake.
I instantly liked her and wondered if Cam would be mad if I asked her to be my best friend too.
Smiling back, I took that hand and gave it a good shake, mentally complimenting her solid and honest grip. “Laney Bennet. Nice to finally meet you.”
“I was so disappointed not to get to meet you and your brother at the big staff dinner, but—” Georgie paused, her eyes shifting behind me and sticking there. Her face slackened, her eyes widening. “And who is this again?” She said it as if in a daze, and confused, I glanced over my shoulder to follow her gaze.
Which had locked on Jett.
I moved out of the way, a slow smile spreading across my face as I realized finding a lady for Jett might be easier than I’d thought. “This is my brother Jett.” Who wore an equal look of utter stupefaction on his face.
“Hello,” he said in a velvety voice I didn’t recognize. He offered a strong, square hand, and hers slipped into his palm, nearly disappearing when he closed his fingers.
“Jett,” she said, testing the word on her tongue. “Yes, of course. Cam just said that, didn’t she?”
His smile tilted. “She did. Nice wig.”
A nervous laugh tittered out of her, and she brought her small hand to her head as if she’d forgotten about it. “Quite a party you guys throw.”
“Any excuse to break out my loincloth.”
Another laugh, this one more relaxed, and with that, the two of them took a step closer to each other, then another, and with the last, we had been excluded from their conversation.
Suspicion wafted off Darcy as he watched our siblings, and the realization raised my hackles by an increment. But he didn’t intervene, just stood there with mistrustful eyes and his hands clasped behind his back.