“Yes, babe. The rest are on their way so grab theirs too, alright? Except Logan. We’re planning his bachelor party, so he’s not coming. Oh, and could you grab us something to nibble on? I get the feeling we’ll be here a while.”
“Sure thing,” she chirps, sending Colt a smoldering look we all catch.
As soon as she saunters back toward the bar, the attention swings from me to my identical brother.
“Nico’s gonna be pissed when he finds out you’re fucking his staff, bro,” I say in a hushed tone.
“What else is new? He’s always pissed.”
“True,” Shawn chuckles. “But maybe tell your girl to keep it on the down-low if she doesn’t want to lose her job. Back to you though, Cody. I don’t like this Ana thing. She sounds obsessed, and from experience, I can tell you it never ends well.”
“I’ll be fine. She’s not been around since—” I push the air from my lungs, applying the brakes before I let it slip that Ana’s not been around since she caught me sneaking out of Blair’s condo last week. “Since I yelled at her.”
The questioning looks triggered by my tripping over my words dissipate in a flash. They know I break out in hives whenever a situation forces me to raise my voice at a woman.
The only girl I ever snapped at without remorse is Blair, but now things between us have escalated, the regret hits every time she’s such a good girl and lets me paint her tanned skin with my cum or slide my cock deep into her sweet mouth.
Conor and Theo arrive when the waitress sets our order on the table, but no sign of Nico. He’s never late, at least not this much, so we’re getting restless. Theo grabs his phone ten minutes later, putting it on loudspeaker.
Nico answers almost immediately. “Five minutes, Theo. Order me a beer, will you?”
“Already waiting.”
As promised, Nico shows up five minutes later, his cheekbone swollen like he’s been fighting. Not one of us would bat an eye a year ago, but since he found Mia, Nico stopped throwing his fists left and right, so this is interesting.
“What happened?” Jack asks, gesturing at his face. “Who pissed you off?”
“Better question would be who I pissed off.” He sits beside me, snatching his beer and draining a third. “Mia’s not happy with me.”
“Shehityou?” Theo’s eyes widen before he bursts out laughing. “And she actually did some damage with those tiny fists? Shit, bro. I knew I liked her the moment I saw her.”
“She didn’t hit me. Well, not in my face. She threw a few punches at my shoulder. I was teaching her to drive and she panicked when the green light came on. Instead of slowly accelerating, she fucking floored it. We were in the Merc, and that thing spins like nobody’s business, so the car shot forward, did a one-eighty, and my head slammed the side window.”
“Is she okay?” I ask, my fingers flexing in and out of fists. “Is she hurt?”
“She’s fine, relax.” He waves me off. “Not a scratch on her. She’s pissed off, though.”
“Stop forcing her to drive. She won’t learn because she doesn’t want to learn,” Shawn cuts in. “It’s not like she needs to drive, right? Rose can take her to college.”
“I don’t think she’ll let me teach her again.”
“Good. Leave her alone, and let’s get started,” Shawn says. “I remember Logan mentioning a tiger when we were planning my bachelor party. Are we doing that?”
“Can’t say I know where to rent a tiger, but we can paint Ares with orange stripes,” Theo, the best man, says with a grin. “He was all talk back then because he didn’t have a girl,” he adds. “Now he’s whipped, and I bet he won’t even want to leave Cassidy alone for the weekend.”
“Tough shit,” Colt says, waving the waitress over for another round. “He’s coming. Voluntarily or not.”
“Okay, so no tiger, what about the guest list?”
“I’ve got one penciled in. It’s a bit long. Almost eighty.” Theo pulls a piece of paper from his pocket, passing it to Nico.
“Eighty?”
He shrugs. “I only included people I know they’ll invite to the wedding, but I’m sure we can prune this a bit.” He crosses his hands, staring us all down. “What? It’s not my fault Logan’s friends with half of fucking Newport.”
Nico skims the list, pulls out a pen, and starts crossing off names. Before long, the list is shortened to fifty-two guys and we’re left with no choice but to ask Logan to join the next meeting and narrow it down further.
While Jack and Shawn argue about hotels and casinos, my phone vibrates in my pocket, and I head outside for a smoke to check the message, not dumb enough to do it at the table under my brothers’ scrutiny.
