The Worst Wedding Date

I’m so hot I’m roasting alive, but there’s nothing in the universe that will make me move right now.

Not when Laney’s bare ass is nestled against my morning wood, her arm trapping mine around her, her deep, even breaths pushing her back against my chest and then off again as light slowly filters into the bedroom.

Today, my sister marries a dick.

Tomorrow, I leave the island and head back home to normal.

And the day after—I don’t know what happens the day after.

If Laney still wants to see me, I have to tell her. But not yet. Not today.

Tomorrow.

Or the day after.

Her phone buzzes on the nightstand.

She jerks awake and flails into a sitting position, tossing off both me and the sheet covering her. “Custom cat claws,” she gasps.

I angle back a little more in case she’s not all the way awake yet. Stupid hand’s asleep again. Starting to tingle.

And I’m starving.

Absolutely freaking ravenous.

“You always dream about work?” I ask her.

She blinks over her bare shoulder at me. “I…don’t remember. Today, I mean. It definitely happens though. Once I even sent my parents a text in the middle of the night that we should offer custom-printed rocks. But I meant boulders. In my dream, they shrank to the size of—never mind. That’s dumb.”

I can’t smile large enough at that. “No, it’s adorable. I like how much you like your work. Not everyone does.”

Her phone buzzes again—yep, that kills the smile—and she dives for it with a little squeak like she suddenly remembered it’s probably important.

Most likely is.

Probably her parents.

Almost killed her dad last night. I can give her this one.

Especially since the reminder is very effectively killing my morning wood and I’d be pretty useless at making her smile anymore right now.

“Hey, Mom. Yeah. Yeah. How’s Dad?”

Yep.

Morning wood all gone.

I climb out of bed, wincing as more tingles light up my arm. Laney’s doing a lot of mm-hmms and uh-huhs while I leave the bedroom and head into the bathroom.

Miss Doodles is perched atop the broken hide-a-bed, watching me. We let her out last night since she was clearly tired of having the kittens all over her.

Funny cat.

Can’t blame her though. Seven kittens is a lot.

“Wanna see your babies?” I ask her.

She answers with a loud purr that I hear all the way across the room. And I take that as a yes.

“Yes, we’re all helping Emma get ready in a couple hours,” Laney says in the bedroom. “I’m glad he’s feeling fine today. You two get some rest. No, really, go get rest. We’ll do breakfast—and lunch—and dinner—when we’re all home again. Just rest. I’ll see you at the wedding.”

I pick up Miss Doodles, who crawls onto my shoulder, lays her head down, and purrs like a freaking machine. “Good kitty.”

She sighs happily and purrs more as I carry her into the room with her babies, who are all snuggled on top of each other in the bed.

Still sleepy time for them, apparently.

Miss Doodles leaps from my shoulder to join them on the bed like she missed them.

The kittens all rise and stretch and yawn and scramble for her with their big eyes and their oversize ears, making my heart melt into a puddle of utter love.

Speaking of fucking adorable.

And their little meows?

I could happily drown in those little meows.

The door opens behind me as I’m checking their food and litter, and Laney slips into the room wearing one of my T-shirts and nothing else. It covers her pussy, but just barely, as it touches her thighs.

Her hair’s a disaster.

My fault.

No regrets.

Her cheeks are rosy, and her smile outshines even the best tropical sunrise. “Aww, look at them loving all over their mama. Oh my gosh! Even Fred’s up there. Good boy, Fred. I won’t get close.” She turns that smile on me, and I swear it gets brighter. “Hand asleep?”

I’m flexing the troublesome one. “Warm-ups for when you’re pissed and I have to jerk myself off.”

She sputters out a laugh.

My stomach growls.

And she smiles even wider. “Wanna try some tropical smoothies for breakfast? I saw a place near that taco shop that looks like they’d have some pineapple mango something, with boba if we want to try it, and I’ll bet they’re even open.”

“Shower first?”

Her eyes go dark in an instant. “You know I hate going out in public when I’m dirty.”

And now I’m hard as a rock, remembering what she did in public yesterday.

I rush through finishing with the kittens, then toss Laney over my shoulder and haul her to the bathroom, where I teach her the fine art of the best kind of shower sex.

Means we have to rush through breakfast.

She doesn’t order me to eat.

I eat all on my own. I’m starving.

Over breakfast, we talk about everything and nothing. Not our jobs. Not our families. But which TV shows we’ve watched. If skiing or snowboarding is better. Why she’s only gone white water rafting once in her life and why it’s been three years since she hit the slopes. Where I get my tattoos. What she’d have inked and where if she’s brave enough.

And all too soon, we have to leave breakfast so she can help Emma get ready for her wedding.

Everything that felt so right at breakfast suddenly feels so wrong.

She grabs me by the cheeks before she slips out of the Jeep once we’re back in the parking lot. “Are you okay?”

I could lie. Brush it off. Say I’m fine. I was ten minutes ago when we were having what felt like a totally normal breakfast date.

But I’m not.

At the end of today, my sister will be tied to Chandler Sullivan theoretically for life. He’ll be at every holiday. I’ll go to his kids’ birthday parties. He’ll be there every time I drop by to see Emma, and even if he’s not, I’ll know it’s his house too now.

And tomorrow, we go back home and back to normal.

But normal is gone.

Bean & Nugget is in trouble and if Chandler’s solution to the problem doesn’t work, then I need to talk to Sabrina about how I can anonymously help her. Because I want to.

Laney might stick with me for a while but then get bored of me and move on after getting through her belated rebellion stage. If she takes it well when I tell her about my side hustle.

And I will never be the me that I was before this trip ever again.

“I don’t want Emma to marry him, but I can’t be the reason she doesn’t,” I confess to Laney after I’ve parked the Jeep when we get back to the resort. “And I’m—after the fire at the pool, and how he reacted to the gift the other night, and all of the other shit—she’s waited so long for this, and I keep waiting for him to leave her and find a way to make it my fault so he doesn’t have to deal with the consequences.”

She studies me in a way that says I’m not crazy or paranoid, that she sees it too, and even if she doesn’t, she understands why I do.

“It’s so hard to watch someone you love do something that you understand but don’t like,” she says. “And even harder when you’re afraid it’ll hurt them.”

Exactly. “That’s how she’s felt about me for all of our school years. That she loves me but I do shit she doesn’t like.”

She shakes her head. “The number of times I’ve heard her say I wish I was more like Theo… She admires you for living your life on your own terms.”

“Now.”

“No, then too. I remember because I didn’t understand then. But she did. She thought you were everything. I wish—”

“You could fix this,” I finish for her.

She smiles. “I don’t think I’ll ever fun my way out of wanting to fix things.”

“Fixing things is a superpower. Don’t apologize for it.” I nod past her. “Speaking of…looks like your getting-pretty bus is here.”

She turns, and then she laughs.

Don’t think it’s at the sight of Emma and Claire talking to the driver of the limousine hired to take them to get their toes and fingers and faces and hair all done at a spa before the wedding.

Pretty sure the double take is at the sight of Sabrina in statement-making sparkly sunglasses, a pink boa, and a neon flashing necklace. She’s carrying an oversize bag that appears to have more boas. Probably more sunglasses and necklaces too.

“I was just thinking, I wish I could be more like Sabrina,” Laney says, “and then I remembered what you did in the shower this morning, and I’ll bet Sabrina wants to be more like me without knowing why.”

Now I’m half-hard. “Go on.” I kiss her cheek, wanting to do more, but knowing the only place that will lead is to me tossing her into the back of the Jeep, where there’s not enough coverage to keep her from exposing herself to the whole world. “Before I do something you’ll regret later.”

“Maybe we can sneak away from the reception and hide out in the kitchen again. I’ll bring the ingredients. You be ready to take off your clothes.”

If there’s going to be a reception, I need to get the reception set up. She’s not the only one with tasks today. “Killing me, Laney. Killing me.”

“Save me a dance.” She kisses me hard, and then she’s off, dashing across the parking lot to catch up with my sister and her other two bridesmaids.

I sit in the Jeep a minute longer, just watching, and when I turn, I almost jump out of my skin.

“Nice one,” I say to Decker as I roll my window down. “Takes a lot to scare the shit out of me.”

He frowns. “You hear what happened to Mr. K last night?”

Yep. My favorite thing to think about. “Was there. Lucky did a good job.”

He looks across the parking lot to where the ladies are all hugging each other, frowning harder, which isn’t a normal expression. “No, I mean, you hear that he’s allergic to mac nuts?”

I wince. “Hard to miss.”

“Me and my brothers got each other those DNA test kits for Christmas two years ago. Wanted to make sure we were related.”

I open my mouth, and then I grin. “Can see where there’d be doubt.”

“Our dad isn’t our dad. We haven’t told him.”

Hello, left turn. “What?”

“And we’re all allergic to macadamia nuts.”

Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck fuck fuck. I could’ve killed my friends too. “You—you didn’t eat dinner last night. Right? Tell me you didn’t eat dinner last night.”

“Oh, no way. We got our fish naked. Been asking about macadamias everywhere we’ve been this week. But…like…you’re getting tight with Laney. We were wondering if you could ask her to, you know, take a test too. So we can see if we’re right.”

“That you’re related?”

“Yeah.”

“Decker. You’re identical triplets.”

“Not to each other. To Laney.”

I blink at him.

Swipe a hand over my mouth.

Rewind the conversation and see where it veered after that left turn and where I lost track of what was going on, and why Laney needs to take a test to see if the triplets are related.

“You think…because you’re allergic to macadamia nuts…and Charles Kingston is too…and a DNA test told you that your dad isn’t your dad…that Charles is your dad,” I say slowly.

“Three tests said our dad isn’t our dad. Only reason Dad doesn’t know is he hates computers and won’t sign in to the account where you look to see if you have secret relatives. And I think Jack looks a little like Mr. K.”

“You’re identical,” I repeat again.

He makes a face. “Only genetically. Otherwise, we look nothing alike. But genetically, we’re all allergic to macadamia nuts. And my grandma never said a nice thing about the Kingstons, and she liked everyone.”

I swipe a hand over my face.

And then something that’s been quietly bothering me in a part of my brain I tend to ignore simmers to the surface.

Why didn’t you ask Laney’s family for money?

What did Sabrina say to that?

Why can’t I remember?

Just remember the face she made. It said because hell no.

Not my business. Not my fucking business.

But it is if I want Laney to be my business. Can’t keep secrets from her. Doesn’t work like that.

And you’re not keeping the biggest secret of all from her? that irritating worry center in my brain pokes and prods me.

But something else is suddenly bothering me too. “Allergies like that always get passed down?” I ask.

Is Laney allergic?

He shakes his head. “Not always. Guess Laney’s lucky. Oh, shit. Unless Mr. K isn’t her dad.”

I squeeze my eyes shut.

Laney has too much of her father in her for that to be true.

“You’ll ask her though? To take a test? And then hook up with us online so we can see if we’re related?”

Wait.

Wait again.

“You’ve been fucking flirting with her.”

He grins, but it’s awkward. “Yeah, we didn’t really suspect Mr. K was maybe our sperm donor until last night, and I kept it up last night so no one would suspect. No offense to Laney, but we made a lot of faces I won’t repeat in front of you. Disappointing, really. Laney was hot in a bikini. But then, if we have the same genes, and we’re all awesome, it makes sense.”

“You—you—you’re ridiculous.”

“Yeah. Life’s more fun that way. Until it’s not. You know that. So you’ll ask her? And like, if we flirt with her at the reception, just know we’re all throwing up in our mouths for only genetic reasons and cover reasons while we do it.”

“Yeah,” I lie. “Yeah. I’ll ask her.”

“That’d be sick. Thanks.” He looks over at the limo again as it pulls out of the parking lot.

“Sabrina know this?” I ask.

He grunts. “It’s Sabrina.” His frown gets deeper. “But I don’t know if she knows just how much trouble the café’s in. Chandler’s kept that pretty close to the vest.”

“She knows.”

“You sure she knows?”

“Yep.”

He eyes me. Then the spot where the limo used to be.

“Dunno, man. Seems like she’d be a lot more pissed if she knew. You know Sabrina doesn’t get pissed without everyone knowing it.”

I get the worst feeling in the pit of my gut.

The triplets’ parents sold their share of the coffee shop to Chandler’s family too, but Jack, Lucky, and Decker still had the option, just like Sabrina, to work at Bean & Nugget whenever they wanted to. None of them were interested though. They found their own path. Did their own thing.

But they’re still in the family.

Still Chandler’s cousins.

Sabrina’s too.

Soon to be Emma’s cousins-in-law.

I grab my friend by the collar and pull him down to face level with me. “Is this gonna hurt Emma?”

I expect him to brush it off. To tell me she knows, because they don’t keep secrets.

But the grim set of his mouth is doing some talking for him. “She loves him, dude. She’s been his wife in her heart for a long time. Today? This is just a formality. Bean & Nugget having some struggles won’t change that.”

Not the reassurance I was looking for.

“Hope it works out with you and Laney.” He steps back from my door. “Wouldn’t mind being related to both of you. Later.”

I drop my head to the steering wheel while he walks away.

I have a wedding to set up. Final calls to make. Things to check on.

So that my sister can have all of her dreams come true.

But all I want is Laney. I want her to tell me this is the right thing to do.

She makes me feel okay. Valued for who I am. Understood. Accepted.

On a day when nothing feels right, I could go for a little reassurance.

But she has her own job today.

Time to get busy doing mine.