Holy shit.
Not only had Brody become much more of an asshole than I remembered… he was kind of scary when he was pissed off. Colder than he used to be; harder. Bigger, too. A lot more muscular; I could tell, even with the leather jacket.
“Unless you want me to arrange to get your ass on a plane out of here right now,” he went on, leaning his big, muscular, pissed-off self into my space, “and we pretend you never landed. Because if anyone finds out you showed your ass in town and then you turned tail and took off, sweetheart, I am not gonna be the one telling Jesse to back off and give you space. You hear me on this? I’m fucking done with covering for you and making excuses for you and waiting for you to get a clue. Your brother loves you and the least you can do is show your face at his motherfucking wedding.”
My gaze dropped away from the accusation in those cold eyes. I studied the muscle ticking in his jaw, the veins standing out on his neck, and realized I’d been wrong. He wasn’t pissed.
He was seething.
And no, this was definitely not going as badly as I feared it might. It was much, much worse.
I felt the burn at the back of my throat, the stinging behind my eyes, but I took a deep, shuddering breath, willing myself not to do this… not to fall apart. Not in front of him. But shit. I totally felt like a teenager.
Maybe because the last time I’d been this close to Brody, I was one.
His hand went to my hip and I heard the click as he released my seatbelt, felt the straps slide over me as he reached across me…. his nose almost bumping mine as he pulled the latch on my door, opening it.
“Get out,” he said.
I didn’t move. Instead, I bit my lip.
I didn’t realize I’d done it until his gaze dropped to my lips, then flicked back up to my eyes. His eyes darkened and a slow, aching minute passed between us.
If he was any other man, I might’ve thought he was turned on.
As it was… he looked kind of disgusted.
The rain pattered down on the truck, encasing us inside, and yeah; it was just like I was eighteen and he was twenty-three all over again, sitting in his truck in the rain—except that day, he wasn’t telling me to leave. He was asking—no, begging me to stay.
But back then, Brody didn’t hate me.
Now…?
I couldn’t blame him for being mad at me. I’d expected things to be difficult between us. I did not expect this.
I did not expect hate.
But it was definitely hatred I saw in his eyes. Pure, ice-cold loathing, with a hefty side of revulsion and resentment.
And Brody Mason hating me? No amount of preparation could’ve helped me with this. Even if I’d told him everything I thought I might tell him, my harrowing confession… I didn’t think he’d hate me. I thought he’d like me less, and that was bad enough—bad enough to keep me gone for six-and-a-half years. I couldn’t even imagine how hard it would be to come crashing down off the pedestal he’d put me on so many years ago… but I knew it wouldn’t feel good. I knew it would be painful.
But this? This was pure hell.
“Are you getting out,” he asked in that stone-cold voice, “or do I have to drag you out?”
Um… no.
That would not be necessary.
Mostly because the thought of him putting his hands on me right now, in any way, was making my clit throb, because apparently, pissed off Brody turned me on about as much as he scared me. Because I was screwed up like that.
Yeah; pure hell.
“I’m here,” I managed. “I’m here for the wedding, okay?”
“Believe it when I fucking see it.”
“So you’re just kidnapping me, is that it?”
“I’d call it damage control, but if that’s what you wanna call it,” he said, “go right the fuck ahead.”
Then he opened his door and stepped out into the rain.
“I’m sorry,” I said to his back. Because I couldn’t think of anything else he might want to hear from me right now.
He looked at me but he didn’t say a thing. He just slammed the door. I watched him stalk over to a big, dark-haired man who’d appeared on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.
Oh, Jesus. Jude.
This was serious.
My brother’s best friend and the head of Dirty’s security team, Jude was pretty much permanently glued to my brother’s side. If he was here to accompany us to Jesse’s wedding, they really were afraid I might bail.
There was no way I was getting out of this.
Never mind that I’d actually been looking forward to the ridiculously long drive across the island, the time on solid ground to acclimate to being home and to prepare myself for two days at a remote resort with Brody.
Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen.
I climbed out of the truck as Brody got my bags from the back, handing them off to the pilot.
“Picking up Amanda,” I heard him say to Jude. “We’ll see you up there.” Then he was off, without a glance in my direction, heading back through the rain to his truck.
We.
I tried to squeeze out a smile as Jude grabbed me up in a hug, all muscles and killer dimples, and planted a kiss on my forehead. At least someone was happy to see me. I hugged him back, grateful for his solid comfort. He asked how I was doing and how my flight was and I did my best to answer, but I wasn’t sure my words made any sense.
Brody wasn’t even coming on the plane with us.
He was going to get Amanda.
Amanda.
I felt every letter of her name stab my heart.
I had no idea who Amanda was. Unfortunately, as far as I could guess, bimbos were never named Amanda. Smart, beautiful girls were named Amanda.
Amanda, who was going to my brother’s wedding with Brody.
Fuck. He had a date.
A girlfriend?
Which meant… No. Fuck, no. I wasn’t going to tell him. I watched him peel out in his truck, and I made the decision, fast; I wasn’t going to tell him anything.
What good would that do? He was already pissed at me for what I’d done—for leaving the band, for leaving everyone behind six-and-a-half years ago. For leaving him. He wasn’t going to be any happier about the reason I did it.
He wasn’t going to hate me any less.
“Jessa! Fucking! Mayes! You beautiful AWOL bitch, get your ass over here!”
I turned to find Roni stepping out of the restaurant. She strut toward me through the rain, arms held wide.
“Roni!” I gave her a big hug and she laughed, jumping us both up and down with little-girl joy. Fair enough, since Roni and I had been friends since high school. And I really hadn’t seen her in a long time. Like most of my friends back home, I remembered her looking younger than she actually was, but time had been good to her, too.
Tall, dark and the sort of sexy that had been known to cause at least one major traffic accident, if anyone could take focus off my arrival at my brother’s wedding, it was this girl. A girl who could turn any situation into a party; whether it was booze, drugs, or an epic hook-up you were in the mood for, Roni was your girl… a girl who’d once hooked herself up with Zane Traynor, my brother’s lifelong friend-slash-nemesis and the insane—and insanely gorgeous—lead singer of Dirty.
When I’d asked her to be my date for the wedding, she was incredibly keen, and I wasn’t naive as to why.
“Zane is in the wedding party,” I reminded her as she hooked her arm through mine and we followed Jude down the walkway toward the float plan dock. “Can I trust you to behave somewhat? This is a wedding, not an orgy. I think my brother’s new wife will be a little perturbed if the two of you turn it into one.” I didn’t worry that she’d take offense at the warning; we both knew it needed to be said.
“My orgy days are long behind me,” Roni lied with a grin. “Anyway, been there, done Zane. You know I never go back for seconds.” Then she winked at Jude as she climbed onto the plane. I watche
d Jude’s gaze fall straight to Roni’s ass in her skin-tight jeans.
Yeah, with Roni in the room, no one was even going to notice me.
One could hope.
I followed her, taking one of the leather seats and shaking the rain from my hair. Jude climbed in behind me and the pilot welcomed us on-board, launching into the safety spiel. I really should’ve paid attention, since crashing into the Pacific Ocean in a tiny floatplane was probably one of those life events I’d want to be prepared for. But I just couldn’t do it.
Picking up Amanda.
Shit, this was going to be a long fucking weekend.
Luckily, Roni pulled out a flask before we’d even hit the air. I took a swig of her infamous home brew—blackberry vodka—then a couple more, and tried really hard not to care.
So Brody had a date for the wedding.
So he hated me.
What the hell did it matter? I was never going to see him again.
As soon as the wedding was over and my brother and his new bride headed off on their rock star honeymoon, I was getting the hell out of here. And nothing would really change.
Okay, so Brody would hate me instead of liking me. But for all I knew, he’d hated me for a while now; I just didn’t know it yet. So now I’d be aware that the only man I’d ever loved couldn’t stand me—couldn’t even stand for me to say his name.
But so what? I’d be gone.
And this time, I was never coming back.
CHAPTER TWO
Brody
The floatplane landed in the calm waters of Cathedral Cove just as the sun was setting at our backs, the light fading over the seemingly-boundless waters of the Pacific Ocean. The cove, a tiny inlet lined with towering spruce, hemlock and western cedar trees, was tucked up along the coastline of Vancouver Island, accessible only by water and air.
Even I could admit it was an epic location for a wedding.
The main lodge building, where the ceremony would take place, appeared through the trees on a rocky promontory, overlooking the water with its towering front walls of glass and what I could only assume were heart-stopping views of the cove and the Pacific beyond; it wasn’t called Cathedral Cove Resort for nothing. I could already see why Katie chose it.
And why her best friend, Devi, had sent flowers and steak dinners to my house for a week after I called a guy I knew, who knew the owners of the resort, and twisted a few rubber arms.
Really wasn’t all that difficult to convince them to book out the entire place for Jesse Mayes’ rock star wedding on semi-short notice. Turned out, they were fans. But I enjoyed the steak anyway.
As the plane growled up to the docks, it occurred to me that I really hadn’t been out of the city, into nature, in far too fucking long. This wedding would be a great excuse to—mostly—forget about work for a couple of days, unplug, and breathe some clean, green air.
I should really be happy right now.
Or at the very least, looking forward to spending the next couple of days with my best friends, my friends who’d become, over the years, my family, at what was sure to be one of the best parties of the year, probably the best party of Jesse’s life—because we were celebrating his marriage to Katie Bloom, a woman who made him ridiculously happy.
But I wasn’t happy.
I was far from happy.
Fortunately, the loud drone of the plane and the distractingly stunning view made convenient cover for the fact that I couldn’t manage conversation with Amanda, much less look her in the eye. But as the plane settled and we climbed out, the crisp, cold wind off the water smacking me in the face, I knew I had to get my head together. I couldn’t exactly mope around like some adolescent asshole for the next two days.
If you don’t know me now, you never did.
Jesus, that girl knew what to say to piss me the fuck off.
No; not girl. Woman.
No mistake, she was a woman now, and didn’t that just drop-kick me right in the guts. Because I’d missed it. All of it.
Everything Jessa Mayes would become… she’d gone and become it without me.
And now, with one shitty little comment, she thought she could just wipe away the years I had known her? All the time we’d spent together as kids, and then, as we got older… She could just take that all away from me?
Well, fuck her.
Maybe it meant nothing to her, but she didn’t get to decide what it meant to me. She didn’t get to tell me what I knew or didn’t know, and she sure as shit didn’t get to tell me how I felt about it.
You’re angry with me.
Yeah. No shit.
I was also more than a little pissed at myself for losing my cool. But I just couldn’t fucking handle it. Being that close to her… every caveman urge I’d ever had rearing up in violent protest that I had her, that close, again, and she was gonna slip through my fingers, again.
Consider me dead to you.
Jesus. What a fucking asshole.
Amanda turned to me and smiled, her short blonde hair dancing in the breeze. She looked like a Canadian beer commercial with her white teeth, tight jeans and short bomber jacket, her plaid shirt tied above her navel.
I smiled back.
Our bags were whisked away as a guide from the resort gave us a quick tour of the grounds, which pretty much consisted of a maze-like cedar-planked boardwalk winding through the ancient trees. It was suspended over the rocky, uneven ground, and far below, a stream that meandered through the rainforest, feeding the hot springs on the rim of the cove. We were already late, so once we’d stopped off at our cabin and changed into our dinner clothes, we headed straight up to the lodge. The tiny amber lights that had been strung along the boardwalk had begun to sparkle in the dusk; I had no idea if the lights were always there or if they’d been hung for the wedding, but it was beautiful.
Along with the scents of cool, damp cedar, fresh spruce needles and moss, the bird calls and chirps among the trees, the water crashing on the rocks below… the whole scene was pretty breathtaking. So breathtaking, I was pretty sure Amanda hadn’t yet noticed that I hadn’t said a word to her since the plane hit air.
Or maybe that was wishful thinking.
The scents of cooking—lemon, dill, something buttery and something else kind of sweet, like fresh baking—wafted out from the back of the lodge, and the scent of a wood-burning fire, smoky and inviting, clung in the slightly misty air off the water. I took a few slow, deep breaths, just trying to soak it all in, collect my thoughts the way I might before a particularly unsavory business meeting.
But this unease had nothing to do with business.
As we approached the lodge, I could make out the thump of bass and the unmistakable, bittersweet rhythm of The Black Keys’ “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Which was really fucking unfortunate, since a Black Keys song had once imprinted on me in a way that I’d never be able to separate hearing this band from the memory of dancing with Jessa Mayes on a shitty summer night in the dark.
But really… was there anything left on Earth that didn’t somehow remind me of her?
Amanda caught my hand and leaned in, resting her head on my shoulder. I could hardly blame her. It was the perfect setting for romance, never mind that it was a wedding. Katie and her girls had done well planning this thing, and if my goal was to get my date in the mood to spend the next couple of days screwing in front of a fire, mission accomplished.
Except that I was suddenly wondering why the fuck I’d brought Amanda to this thing at all.
Maybe because it would’ve seemed weird if I didn’t bring her? Maybe because, when she heard that Jesse Mayes—lead guitarist of Dirty, the band I’d managed since they and I were little more than kids, and one of my best friends—was getting married, she just assumed she’d be coming with me.
Or maybe because, when she’d assumed she was coming, I let her go ahead and assume, because deep down I’d wanted to send a big fat Fuck you to Jesse’s sister by showing up with the pretty blonde at my side.
Yeah, that sounded about right.
Not that I was proud of it.
As we stepped from the boardwalk onto the wraparound deck of the lodge, I took another fortifying breath. One of the catering staff opened a door for us, and as we stepped inside, I saw them.
Jesse and Katie.
In the middle of the room, dancing slow and kind of making out, laughing as they pawed at each other like no one else in the lodge, or the universe, existed. Pretty much their usual mode.
Everything was as it should be, then.
A few other people were dancing; most were talking, drinking and snacking on hors d’oeuvres. Besides the lodge staff, the catering team bustling in and out, and Jude’s security guys, there were about forty or so guests, all VIPs—close family, members of the wedding party and their dates—here for the rehearsal in preparation for the wedding tomorrow, which would be attended by another sixty or so guests. All of whom I knew.
But as we started across the room, despite all the familiar faces, I had eyes for only one person; one person who clearly wasn’t here.
I didn’t see her. Anywhere. And Jessa Mayes was pretty fucking hard to miss.
I didn’t see Jude either, so I couldn’t even ask him where the fuck she was. Saw Roni in the corner, flirting with one of his security guys, though, so at least their plane had landed.
“You wanna dance?” Amanda asked, just as the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses” started playing.
Christ. What was with all the soul-sucking love songs?
Right. Wedding.
“After I introduce you around,” I told her, steering her past the dance floor. The more people she knew, I figured, the more likely she might have a good time—despite the fact that she was here with me.
I took her over to greet the other members of Dirty—also pretty hard to miss. Zane, our lead singer, with his white-blond mohawk, demonic beard twisted into a braid, eyebrow piercings and ice-sharp blue eyes with just that little bit of crazy in them—wearing jeans and a black leather vest, because that was semiformal wear for Zane. And Dylan, our drummer, his six-and-a-half-foot frame making him the tallest dude in the room; add to that his unruly, flaming auburn hair and athletic build, poured into leather pants and a cashmere sweater, and even if I hadn’t seen them, all I’d have to do was follow the batting eyelashes.
A Dirty Wedding Night: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 2.5) Page 22
