The Worst Wedding Date

Nothing like the distinct sound of tires crunching on packed snow over gravel to make a guy’s entire body go on high alert.

I’m out back, behind my place, splitting wood. Without a shirt. In fifteen-degree weather. Surrounded by snow.

And I’m hot.

I’m always fucking hot.

But I grab a damn flannel and throw it on anyway. Together with the lumberjack hat, the work boots, and the baggy orange overalls, it should be enough to detract any more picture-takers.

Signs aren’t working.

Gonna have to move.

Smash my phone.

Wish I had enough money to pay someone to take down the whole internet. Or that I’d listened to Emma when she told me I needed to incorporate my business and get a privacy shield.

Car stops out front.

For a split second, I hope it’s Laney.

I hope she’s coming to call me on my bullshit excuse to walk away from her.

But she already did that, didn’t she? You’re being an asshole because you’re scared, and I’m giving you a chance to meet me halfway.

And I was the idiot who kept on leaving.

Because I like her.

I like her too much.

She’s right.

I’m fucking terrified.

I found my reason for living in Hawaii. My purpose. What I want to do every day for the rest of my life.

I found her. And I watched her laugh. Squeal with utter joy. Try new things. Step outside of her comfort zone.

And all the while, I felt like she was finally seeing me.

Like she liked me back.

Fear isn’t usually my thing.

But I’m terrified who I am and what I do would hurt her so badly that I’d break her.

And no matter how much I justify that what I did was right and necessary, I still hate myself for doing it.

There’s a crunch of boots on old snow out front. I’m carrying so much tension in my back that I don’t even know who I am anymore.

“Nice signs. They work?” Sabrina calls from somewhere around my cabin, completely deflating me. Not Laney. Not anyone from town either. Lots of them have been checking up on me. Well-meaning, every last one.

But I’m getting tired.

“If they don’t, my giant axe usually does,” I tell her.

She ignores the subtle threat and strolls around back and into view. Where I look like a lumberjack who’s taken one too many hits to the head with the wrong side of his maul, she’s close to picture-perfect in black leggings, black snow boots, a black wool coat, black gloves, and a black beanie—all of which have a dusting of dog fur—over her massive black sunglasses.

Or maybe she’s just picture-perfect because she looks like a red-haired, pale-cheeked, dog-loving grim reaper and Death sounds like good company.

“Over yourself yet?” she asks me.

“Nothing to be over.”

“I noticed you haven’t posted anything new since we got back.”

“It’s been three fucking days. Thanks for subscribing. Always like taking my sister’s friend’s money.”

The sound of helicopter blades beating the air drum overhead.

I flinch.

She looks up. “Wow. They’re even coming from the sky to spy on you.”

I head for my cabin’s back door.

Not sitting out here waiting for more freaking reporters to get a picture of me, even dressed and looking like a loner mountain man.

Sabrina hustles behind me and slips into my cozy little kitchen as well before the door shuts behind her. Three of my kittens swarm immediately. Fred’s hovering behind my empty coffee cup next to the sink. Left it there just for him. He likes cover, even if he’s starting to like me a little more.

“Whoa. You really did take an entire litter of cats home from Hawaii.”

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

She makes a frustrated noise. “Laney thinks you still live in that single-wide at the edge of your dad’s property.”

I don’t take the bait to ask how Laney’s doing.

Not my business.

My business is not hearing gossip about anyone else in this town—ever—and chopping wood and stalking the internet for people who need a little cash thrown their way.

To pay for gas or groceries.

For medical expenses.

For someone to hire a naked polka band to interrupt their sister’s wedding since she’s marrying a douche canoe.

That one hit close to home.

And was my first random act of kindness when I decided my entire bank account needs to go, which is proving more difficult to accomplish than it should be.

“Hear from Emma?” Sabrina asks.

I shake my head and make myself look at her despite the hit of guilt that comes with the question.

I tried. Did my best to make sure she was getting what she wanted. And I still feel like I let her down.

Hard not to.

I snuck over to her bungalow to see her before I made all the arrangements for my cats and flew home, and she told me to go away. That she didn’t want to do this with me right now, and we’d talk when she got home.

I know she’ll forgive me. It’s what she does.

And she won’t do anything to imply her forgiveness is out of obligation, but I’ll still feel like it is.

That’s on me.

One more thing to work on.

Sabrina’s body deflates. “When she gets home, can you—can you put in a good word for me?”

“Sure.”

“I’m off gossip.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I am. Forever. I’m done.”

I stare at her.

She crosses her arms and stares back while the kittens sniff around her boots.

Sabrina was born in the kitchen at the original Bean & Nugget here in Snaggletooth Creek, and her soul will forever be there. She’s been hearing gossip at that little café since before she was old enough to understand what it was, and she’s been using it effectively since high school, when she finally found her own line of what she should and shouldn’t cross.

Guess that line got blurry last week.

“I mean it,” she says while she squats to stroke Jellybean’s little head. “I’m done with the gossip. See? This is me not asking how many reporters you’ve seen up here and not telling you how many we’ve chased away down in town.”

I lift a brow.

She makes a face. “And this is me not telling you that my new asshole boss has been sending messages through his secretary that we’re to continue as normal until he arrives sometime next week if we want to stay employed. Which is not gossip. For the record. It’s my reality. Also not gossip, because I thought you should know—that phone call you overheard Chandler having? That was with my new boss. Chandler actually wanted the asshole to go to the wedding incognito and spy on all of us so he’d know how best to handle all of us when he showed up and announced his new position while Chandler was supposed to be on his honeymoon. Can you believe that?”

“Chandler can suck a bag of dicks.”

“Agreed. I don’t care how much he’s in the doghouse with everyone in town, it’s not enough.”

I stroll past her in the little kitchen to toss another log into the wood-burning stove. There’s more than a little guilt popping up over not helping Sabrina when she asked me to.

Telling myself it was probably already too late doesn’t help either.

Could’ve done it quietly. Not let myself get identified.

“And I’m not mad at you anymore,” Sabrina adds softly. “It wasn’t right of me to ask you to help. I apologize for putting you in that position.”

“Would’ve done the same in your shoes.”

Miss Doodles looks up at me from the rug in front of the stove, where she’s melted into the floor, her softly swishing tail the only other movement coming from her.

“Good kitty,” I tell her while I bend down to scratch her behind her ears.

She blinks at me, then heaves a loud, contented purr and melts even deeper into the floor.

“I’m going to buy him out,” Sabrina says, following me into the room with three kittens on her heels. “I want my café back. If you’re feeling like investing in something worthwhile in your own hometown in addition to throwing all of your money at interesting charities here and there, I’d be happy to negotiate very fair profit-sharing terms with you.”

I stare at her harder.

“I’m not gossiping. You’re just predictable. And I’m not asking you to help. I’m telling you that I’m gathering investors, and I’d be honored if you’d consider Bean & Nugget worthy of your time and money.”

I grunt and throw myself into my recliner, barely missing Snaggleclaw, who was hiding behind the quilt my mom made me when I was born. My recliner would be the only furniture I keep in the living room, except my dad stops by every now and then to visit. Uncle Owen too.

I’ll get more eventually.

But I haven’t lived here long—not easy to see a whole damn house and want it and know it’s okay to spend your money on it when you’ve never had money like this before—and it cracked me up the first time the Sullivan triplets stopped by and told me I needed more furniture.

Haven’t had a lot of other people out yet, but I want to.

And now that no one’s gonna ask how I could afford my dream cabin on fifteen acres in the mountains, it won’t be so awkward.

Might be when I invite some of my construction buddies. Got fired from my cover story job when the owner realized his wife had been watching my videos. First message I had when I landed in Denver the other day.

Sabrina doesn’t sit on a cat when she takes the extra recliner, but she does have those three kittens climb into her lap.

“I’ll think about it,” I grunt to her.

She grabs a knitted heart off the end table and teases the kittens with it. “I used a fraction of the ammunition I have against Chandler to get all of the books going back ten years. I know where they went wrong. I know how to fix it. I have a business plan. I know what I’m doing. I won’t fail. And I won’t ask again. You might have some of the deepest pockets in town, but I don’t care if I have five investors or a hundred. I’m getting the money together to buy this fucker out.”

“Asking Laney?” Dammit. Wasn’t going to ask. Was not going to ask.

She shrugs. “Doesn’t matter to me that the rest of my family’s being dicks and holding grudges because they think her dad’s the triplets’ biological father. Which isn’t gossip, again. I heard you heard. It’s only gossip if you don’t already know it.”

“Look, Sabrina, I like you, but not right now. It’s a me problem. Can you please go away?”

“I haven’t answered your question yet.”

“I take it back. I don’t want to know.”

“You want to know or you wouldn’t have asked.”

“Habit. I was being polite. You’re friends. I felt guilty for not helping you when you asked in the first place.”

“You’re never polite for the sake of being polite, and you only feel guilty because it’s residual guilt on top of the guilt you feel about how Emma’s wedding ended, the fact that Chandler secretly sold the café and blindsided all of us, and then what you did to Laney. Even though only what you did to Laney is your fault.”

She’s got me there. “Go away. Time to make more videos. I’m stripping and jerking off in three minutes whether you’re still here or not.”

“You don’t jerk off on your videos and I know you know I know it.” She rolls her eyes like she also knows I have permanently killed my boner factory. It’s on strike.

Pissed at me.

Maybe I’m pissed at myself.

But this thing with Laney couldn’t have happened any other way.

If I hadn’t heard you could make a little side cash waving your willy on GrippaPeen.com, I wouldn’t have tried it. If I hadn’t unexpectedly shot to the top of the charts—who knew knitting and dicks would be such a hit?—I wouldn’t have had the cash to pay for Emma’s wedding, Chandler wouldn’t have asked me to cover it, none of us would’ve gone to Hawaii, and the last week with Laney wouldn’t have happened.

Ergo, if I wasn’t an internet porn sensation, I would not have had an opportunity to fall so hard for Laney.

And Laney dating an internet porn sensation isn’t happening.

It’s just not. This is too far for her.

And now I’m being an extra-big dick to Sabrina because I can’t deal.

She’s right. I don’t jerk off on camera.

“I’ll ask her to invest,” Sabrina says, “but not yet. She has enough going on right now.”

Fuck me. When does it end? When does everyone else quit piling on the guilt too? Does she really think I don’t feel anything about what I did on Saturday? “You want to say something, just say it and go away.”

This time, I’m treated to a classic Sabrina Sullivan you are an asshole look. “When I say enough going on, I don’t mean she’s crying into her pillow over how you were a total dick. Please. Laney has enough self-respect to know when she deserves better than a guy who’ll break her heart because he’s terrified of having feelings for someone so awesome. I mean, you give someone a little bit of time to recover when they break their leg skiing. Self-centered much, Theo?”

I’m out of my chair like a firecracker went off in my butt, scaring all of the kittens and Miss Doodles too. They go flying back toward my bedroom. “She what?”

“She has enough self-respect—”

“The broken leg part,” I force out through a clenched jaw.

“Oh, you didn’t know?” She crosses one leg over the other and leans back in her seat. “Sorry. I’m off gossip. If you didn’t know, it’s gossip. My lips are sealed.”

“Sabrina.”

“If you were family, that would be one thing, but you’re just the guy without the balls to trust she’d listen to you explain why you like to make money baring the goods on the internet. You don’t get the story about how she decided to skip work and go skiing and have fun and put her life ahead of her job, since you have to do the things to earn the inside story about people you want in your life instead of just saying you’re going to do the things.”

Jesus. The café’s new owner doesn’t stand a chance if this is even a fraction of what she’s about to throw his way. “Is Laney okay?”

“I mean, as okay as a person with a broken leg can be.”

“Did she really break her leg, or are you fucking with me?”

“For your sake, I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that.”

“Where is she?”

Sabrina makes the I’m zipping my lips and throwing away the key motion.

Emma will—fuck.

Fuck.

Emma’s not answering her phone while she’s on her solo honeymoon. Hurting. And I can’t fix it.

Just like—fuck.

Like I’m hurting. Like Laney was hurting Saturday.

I fist my hair and stifle a groan. “I don’t want people judging her and treating her like shit for what I do, and they would. They would. I’m a fucking porn star, Sabrina. And she’s Laney fucking Kingston. She deserves better than everyone thinking about her sex life every time they look at her, and you fucking know they will.”

“You’re not a porn star. You’re a naked inspirational speaker. But if you want to call yourself a porn star, fine. Put yourself in a box. Limit your possibilities with labels and assumptions. Have all the doubts in the world about one of my very, very best friends on this whole entire planet, who would happily love you with everything she has to give if you’d pull your head out of your ass because she’s not her fucking parents and she deserves some fucking credit.” She rises. “And now you’ve made me mad. I take it back. I have no interest in letting you have any part of my hostile takeover bid to get Bean & Nugget back.”

“You can’t do a hostile takeover on a private company.”

“Aww, look at Mr. Smartypants. And I thought all that time you spent playing on Reddit and tripling your money on that stock squeeze gamble was just for fun.”

Is she serious? Is she serious right now? I didn’t even tell Emma I was playing along in a little screw the hedge fund managers thing last year, and she hasn’t gotten hold of my bank records to do my taxes for me yet this year.

And that’s another thing I’ll be in trouble for.

Lack of correct estimated taxes.

I hate the real world sometimes, even if I love a lot of people in it. “How the fuck—”

She waves a hand and flashes me a smile. “Oh, sorry. Forgot. I’m done gossiping. And now I’m mad that you tricked it out of me.”

“Where’s Laney?”

“Not tricking that out of me. That one, you have to earn.” She dusts her hands. “Cute cats. I like them. Let me know if you’re selling any. I feel like Bean & Nugget could use a feline upgrade. I mean, if my dog doesn’t eat them. Which he probably won’t. Probably.”

“I’m not selling my fucking cats. They’re my cats. Finders keepers, and I will fucking destroy anyone who hurts them or comes between us.”

“Oof. Someone’s in a mood. Better leave you alone.”

“Where the fuck is Laney?”

“That’s too many fucks, Theo. I don’t like being fuck-ed at. You’re on your own. Bye, kitties. Don’t let him fuck at you too, okay?”

She strolls back through my kitchen, and a moment later, the back door clicks shut.

I lunge for my phone and pull up my Hey Neigh neighborhood app, which is the second-best source of information on Snaggletooth Creek gossip behind Sabrina.

Been avoiding it because—yep.

Theo Monroe is a porn star.

Here’s Theo’s GrippaPeen profile.

Is he really that big?

This isn’t appropriate for us to discuss. There are CHILDREN on here.

Whoa, he’s making like, OVER A MILLION DOLLARS A MONTH. You think he needs someone to run his appearances? Like an agent? I can learn to be an agent.

Saw three more reporters in town at Bean & Nugget this morning. Hoping for a Theo sighting. We have a CELEBRITY in our town! This is so exciting.

Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT give the reporters information about Theo. HE DIDN’T SHOW HIS FACE FOR A REASON. And he’s one of ours. Protect him at all costs.

Yeah, protect him. He’s OUR porn star. They don’t get any part of him.

I put on blinders, pretend Theo Monroe and GrippaPeen are about someone else, and I search for Laney’s name.

And there it is.

Sending hugs to Delaney Kingston. Poor thing. Did you all see her cast? I put together a meal train sign-up for anyone who wants to help her out.

She broke her leg.

She took a day off work, went skiing, and broke her leg.

Then told someone, who posted it for all of us to see, that if she’d known she was going to break a leg, she would’ve gone ahead and started on a double black diamond run so she’d have a better story than getting tangled up with a newbie on a warm-up run.

She was serious.

She wants to live. Have fun. Take chances.

And the first time she did it, she broke her leg.

Shit.

Shit.

She’s probably sitting home telling herself she’s not supposed to have fun. Not supposed to be adventurous. That this is a sign, and she needs to put herself back into the frumpity-dumpity fucking box labeled Perfect Little Princess Plainy-Laney.

I have to do something.

I have to.

Even if she doesn’t want me, I need to make sure she still wants to live.