Oh my.
Her panties were barely even a memory at this point.
Jackie swiped the flask from Thea and downed a long drink. “Oh my God,” she spluttered after the first swallow, “it’s Sprite. Who keeps soda in a flask? Oh. My. God. He’s such a weirdo. Come on, it’s time!”
The dress fitting.
Yeah.
That’s what Thea was here for, not meeting a hot guy way out of her league who looked like a sexy badass even in a dorky early-eighties tux and drank straight Sprite in a hip flask.
Chapter Three
Kade St. James didn’t believe in astrology, tarot cards, religion, or doing what he was told just because that’s the way things were done. He did, however, believe in his gut.
And what his instincts were telling him was that if even the bride’s friends were in total misery having to be here at the wedding from hell, then there was no hope that any of this was going to work out as planned.
So instead of giving in to the temptation to sweet talk that awkwardly sexy bridesmaid into ditching Colter’s Hell for a weekend in the mountains away from the TV cameras, the bridezilla, and the all-around ridiculousness of this wedding, he was going to talk sense into his brother. Kade would do just about anything for Dex—including wearing the ugliest fucking tuxedo in the entire world—but even brotherly love had its limits.
“You do realize this is the dumbest fucking shit you have ever pulled me into, right?” Kade said as he strode into the RV that production had declared the groom’s.
“Love you, too, bruh,” Dex said as he scrolled through social media on his phone, not bothering to look up.
Kade glared at his younger brother as he lay sprawled out on the couch in the RV the production team had outfitted with enough alcohol to make a frat house jealous. Never mind the fact that neither he nor his brother ever touched the stuff. There was something about growing up an alcoholic’s kid that changed your perspective on all things booze-related.
“Dex, be serious.” Kade grabbed a wad of cocktail napkins that said Jackie and Dex Forever, scrunched them into a ball, and flung them at his brother’s head, scoring a direct hit. “You cannot go through with this. That woman cannot be someone you want to spend the rest of your life with.”
His brother’s only response was to flip him off.
Yeah, they’d had this conversation already at least a million times, but too damn bad, because they were gonna have it again. This was Kade’s last opportunity to twist his baby brother’s head back on straight before he made the biggest mistake of his life.
Living in Hollywood had turned Dex smooth-brained if he thought marriage was a solution for anything. As they both knew from watching the disaster that was their parents’ relationship, marriage was toxic sludge for the soul. And that was before he even factored in the bride. Jackie had already ordered him to shave, to forego riding his motorcycle before the wedding, and to get a fucking haircut. He’d told her hell no. Obviously. There was no way that woman wasn’t marrying his brother for a publicity stunt, and Dex deserved way better.
“You cannot go through with this,” Kade said as he got a Sprite out of the mini-fridge and popped the can open. “Marriage is already a nightmare of epic proportions without shackling yourself to that woman.”
“Jackie is just stressed,” Dex said with a shrug. “We both have a lot riding on this wedding making big ratings numbers. And you know this is the best move for me. No one can pay for the kind of word-of-mouth publicity Hero X will get from all of this, and God knows the cast fucking needs it so it picks up a distributor with deep pockets.”
And that was reason six hundred and twenty-eight why Kade refused to let any of his true crime books be turned into movies. There was no way he’d commit to all of the bullshit Dex had to do just to get his own movie, Hero X, off the ground—not that the Hollywood machine would ever do things the right way anyway. It would be all flash and blood and jump scares about the crimes instead of delving into why people did what they did and the impact it had on the victims.
Kade rubbed his palm against the back of his neck as he shook his head. “And I thought I was a cynic about marriage.”
“You are, along with everything else.” Dex shot him a shit-eating grin. “Hell, if it wasn’t for that mutt you call a guard dog, I’d think you were the ultimate asshole.”
He opened his mouth to stick up for Patton’s skillset, but what in the hell could he say? The French bulldog–corgi mix was all bark and no bite—also barely any tail, but that was to be expected.
“I may be the ultimate asshole, but I’m an honest asshole at least,” Kade grumbled as he stared out the window at the mountains in the distance. “I don’t pretend that love is anything other than a temporary hormonal imbalance and that if you put blind faith in someone else the only outcome is bad shit.”
“And this is what happens when you spend your life writing true crime books,” Dex said, motioning toward him with his can of soda. “You think everyone is up to something shitty.”
“Only because they are—a fact of life that you seem to have spent almost three decades denying.”
It was true and had been for their entire lives. Every move they’d made growing up, going from embassy to embassy, Dex had been sure that this was the one where their mom would change. She’d wake up before one in the afternoon. She’d ask about what happened at school. She’d basically give a damn about anything beyond what was in her glass.
Meanwhile, Kade had figured out by move number six that it was never going to happen and had adjusted his expectations accordingly.
Oh, it may take time for the truth to out itself—not everyone was as upfront about only being in it for themselves as Jackie, which (truth be told) he kind of admired about her—but it always did eventually. That’s why he didn’t pretty things up, he didn’t bullshit, he didn’t pretend to save other people’s feelings.
And if that made him an asshole? So fucking be it.
Dex had never realized the truth about people, let alone their own mom—not even when she’d finally left. He’d always held out hope that she’d come back and everything would be perfect, while Kade had wondered why it had taken fourteen years for the inevitable to finally occur.
“I’ve been a realist since birth,” Kade said. “The question is why you of all people have finally seen the light.”
Dex shrugged and went back to staring at his phone. “Things change.”
Kade waited for his brother to say more. He always said more. The kid was born talking and had never stopped—well, minus the two weeks after their mom left.