But it’s the only one that matters.
I probably shouldn’t have told Duke that I let my BFF sleep with a guy who murdered kittens.
But it was preferable to the truth.
You know that video rapidly going viral on social media of that hot mess of a wedding this afternoon where the bride stopped everything right before the vows to confront the groom about letting her adult entertainment star brother go to jail for something the groom did a decade ago? I was the maid of honor. Might’ve seen me in that video too. And I could’ve prevented the very worst moment of Emma’s life if I’d told her about the jail thing years ago, but I didn’t, because I forgot the first rule of gossip, which is that sometimes, there’s no right answer to sharing a secret, only the less-wrong answer.
He'll figure it out eventually. Pretty sure you can’t log on to the internet right now without seeing Emma’s wedding video.
Duke will likely think Chandler murders kittens.
That, I don’t care about.
What I do care about?
Emma will probably never talk to me again.
And I don’t blame her.
There’s no amount ofshe knew who Chandler was and she chose to love him and wanted to marry him anywaythat can make me feel better.
I should’ve told her.
He might be my cousin, and until yesterday when he unexpectedly sold it, he was technically my boss at our family’s café—which isone more thingI need to process emotionally and deal with when I get home—but Emma is my sister in my heart, and I shouldn’t have assumed she knew what he did to her brother, especially when I was nearly certain she also didn’t know he was having money problems.
We don’t have secrets, she always told us.
She didn’t keep secrets.
But he did.
And I knew it.
Oh, good. There’s my bra. Still can’t find my panties, but at least I have my bra. I shove it in my pocket and crawl closer to the bed, feeling for both my underwear and my second boot.
Ithasto be here.
Unless Duke hid it and is planning on keeping it because he has some kind of Cinderella fetish.
Or unless he’s holding it for ransom to make sure I don’t spill any ofhissecrets.
Not that he seems to have any beyond the fact that he has a Latin phrase scrolled along his broad ribs, had a bad day yesterday for reasons he didn’t disclose, and didn’t want to give me his real name.
And if I wasn’t suspicious Duke wasn’t his real name, the fact that I called him that and he looked around like he was expecting to see someone else instead of answering me after we left the bar, and then the way his cheeks went pink when he caught himself and stumbled through replying was all the proof I needed.
Definitely not a secret though?
He’s hot. His dark hair is thick and unexpectedly soft. When he grins, his blue eyes crinkle at the edges, there’s the barest hint of a dimple that pops out in his left cheek, and the whole world stops spinning. When he watches you, you feel like he wants to know everything there is to know about you. He’s effortlessly charming with an irresistible sense of humor.
And most important of all for someone like me who has zero interest,ever, in pursuing long-term relationships but loves to enjoy a short-term fling here and there, the woman at the bar was right.
He has very long thumbs.
And everything you’d assume that goes with long thumbs.
Bonus?
He doesn’t take his equipment for granted, and he doesn’t let its size do all the work.
