Bad Beginnings: A Redemption Beach Prequel

by Wood, Vivian

  Tonight is all for Asher. I just have to keep that in mind.

  For the first time in a long time, I wish I was at the beach, running out with a surf board under one arm. Actually, I am longing to be anywhere but here right now.

  But I’m not. I’m standing behind the bar, a bar towel slung over my shoulder, staring down the crowd of wedding guests with a not-quite-scowl. I consider whether I should put up glasses of water on the bar for the crowd or not. The party is definitely a success, meaning that almost everybody is a little drunk by now.

  Maia, a cute Asian girl who makes a hell of a Sazerac, drops her tray on the bar. She pulls her skintight black cocktail dress down a little.

  “Jameson! Pop one of the bottles of rosé bubbly, will you?” she says, her upperclass British accent making bubbly sound refined.

  I raise a questioning brow at her. “Why?”

  “The bride to be wants ‘something pink with bubbles’,” she says with a shrug. “I’m a server. She gives me an order, I come and ask for it. You pour the drinks. That’s usually how it works, anyway.”

  “Mmmph,” I respond grumpily. Sparkling rosé isn’t on the menu tonight, but I do as requested. It is for Asher, after all.

  “Do you mind getting some champagne flutes down for me while you’re at it, boss?” she asks, giving me a saccharine smile. “You’re a million miles taller than me.”

  “I’m six foot three,” I correct her. “You’re just really short.”

  She sticks her tongue out at me, and I chuckle. I fetch a case of the glasses she wants off the back wall, setting it down on the bar.

  I turn around to the towering neon-lit wall of different kinds of liquor. They’re all grouped by type: whiskeys and bourbons together, vodkas and gins and aquavits, rums and tequilas and mezcals, piscos and brandies, and a few dozen bottles of wine.

  We’re at Cure, the bar that I co-own with my best friend Asher and my two brothers, Gunnar and Forest. At the moment, Cure is closed to the public for Asher’s wedding party. Forty or so tipsy wedding guests, all gathered here on the night before the wedding.

  It makes sense, as far as gathering places go.

  After all, Cure was Asher’s idea in the first place. He’ll be the first one of the four of us to get married. I should be happy for him, but I’m not. I fucking hate his fiancee Jenna, and I think he can do way better than her.

  But I swallow my words. The time come and gone to get all my thoughts and opinions about Jenna and the wedding out. I said my piece. Asher called me a prick.

  And I am, without a doubt. A fuck up, a misanthrope, an anti-social brooder for whom opening this bar was a total shot in the dark. This bar, raising my little brothers, and keeping my friendship with Asher are really the only good things I’ve ever done.

  God knows, if there was a cosmic accounting of my whole life, there are plenty of bad things in my past that tip the scale in favor of my being a total piece of shit.

  I know this. I’m working on redemption, slowly.

  I dip below the bar, to the low-boy coolers where the bottles of white and sparkling are kept. I search for a second, then find the right bottle. The rest is all muscle memory, peeling the foil off and unwinding the metal cage. I pop the bottle with as little fuss as possible, eyeing my brother Gunnar as I pour the bubbly into champagne flutes that I have set up on the bar.

  Gunnar is next to me at the bar, pouring vodka and a little bit of cinnamon shrub together into a cocktail shaker. There are a whole line of pretty girls waiting for the shots that he’s making. I clear my throat and send him a look.

  Don’t keep feeding the girls vodka, the look says. Seriously.

  He grins and winks at me, then yells at the girls to bend backward over the marble-topped bar in order to receive their shots. Of course they do, giggling.

  I can’t roll my eyes hard enough. I put the champagne flutes onto the tray that Maia dropped. She scoops it up with a fake smile, carrying it off to the bride.

  She doesn’t like Jenna, either. Asher is the only one of the staff that Jenna is nice to. The rest of us are considered less than human.

  I look across the bar to the booth where Jenna is ensconced with her whole rich, snobby clique. I watch Maia deliver the sparkling wine to Jenna’s table, where beautiful ice queen Jenna is telling a story.

  I see Jenna push her empty glass toward Maia without a thought. The music in here is too loud to know what Jenna is saying, but one look at her ruddy cheeks and her exultant expression as she talks to the people clustered around her…

  Yeah, she is drunk. Not just drunk, but demanding. She downs the sparkling wine in two swallows, then holds the glass out to Maia to refill.

  Again, she’s not making eye contact. Jenna’s too busy loudly telling her story. Everyone at her table laughs at once, and she looks right at home, basking in their adulation.

  Maia takes the champagne flute, and heads towards another table to check that they don’t need anything.

  I grit my teeth. You would think that Maia really was just an unknown face, a server at some restaurant… but really, Asher and Jenna have been together since this place opened. Maia was our second employee.

  Simply put, they know each other.

  We should’ve hired catering staff to work this party, I think. That way everyone could mingle. And the staff could avoid Jenna’s table…

  I turn away and bite my tongue. When Maia comes back, I’ll tell her she doesn’t have to wait on Jenna anymore. I’ll do it.

  Things have been more than a little uneasy between Asher and me for the last few weeks, ever since I told him how I feel. Even though we’ve been best friends for almost twenty years, shit got awkward as fuck the second the words were out of my mouth.

  Now we’re here. Asher is schmoozing Jenna’s parents over by the door to the patio, looking as golden as I am dark. In his checked shirt and khakis, he is exactly the guy you would want your princess-daughter to marry.

  I swear to god, I can see his teeth sparkle from across the fucking room every time he laughs. Asher’s almost a goddamned Disney prince, my diametric opposite.

  I remember that I’m supposed to be throwing this party for him, and keep my thoughts about Jenna to myself.

  “Hey,” a voice says. I turn away from Asher to find his little sister Emma sliding into a seat at the bar. Emma is twenty four, with her raven-colored hair done in a fancy updo, and she’s wearing a pale pink body con dress like it’s her job.

  I’ve been careful not to notice her for the last six years. She’s the rich princess that wants for nothing. I may be a lot of things, but I’m definitely not the prince that she deserves. There are plenty of reasons why a guy like me shouldn’t even glance at someone like her.

  Emma’s way younger than me. She’s what you could describe as perky. As the loner who stands behind the bar and broods, I’m definitely not that. She’s going to law school, whereas I dropped out of high school.

  Plus, if Asher ever found out that I’d had so much as an impure thought about his little sister, he would have a fucking stroke.

  I glower at her. “Aren’t you supposed to be socializing? You know, representing your snooty-ass family, seeing as they can’t be bothered to show their faces?”

  Emma grins at me, her green eyes twinkling with delight.

  “My parents are absolutely horrified that Asher has found himself a girlfriend that isn’t a social outcast. They’re positively fuming! So I’m not representing them, no.” She leans closer to me, biting her lower lip suggestively. “What have you got back there that’s not wine?”

  Don’t look down at her tits. Don’t look down at her tits, I tell myself. Then I look down at the her tits anyway, small but perfect, pushed up by her dress.

  I jerk my eyes away as soon as I realize that I’m doing it. Fucking hell. The last thing I need is for Emma to think that I’m a fucking pervert.

  I make eye contact with her, and hesitate. There are plenty of pickup lines that float
to the surface, but I ignore them.

  “What kind of liquor do you want?” I ask, turning and picking up a metal cocktail shaker.

  “Mmm…” she says, twisting a loop of her dark hair around a finger. “Vodka? I want something that doesn’t taste like alcohol.”

  I make a noise of displeasure. Emma cocks her head at me.

  “You asked what I wanted!” she says. “I want something sweet.”

  I shake my head and grab the vodka, pouring it in the cocktail shaker. “You like lemonade?”

  “Who doesn’t?” she asks.

  I mix freshly squeezed lemon juice and a little homemade simple syrup into the tin, add a handful of ice cubes, then shake it. I pour it all into a highball glass, then top it off with a drizzle of fresh raspberry puree. I stick a straw in it, pulling a little of the concoction into the straw, and then pull the straw out for a taste.

  Lemon and sugar hit my palate long before the vodka does. I wrinkle my nose at the sweetness. Perfect for her, though. When I serve it to her with a new straw, her eyes light up.

  “Ooooh,” she says. “It’s pretty.”

  “Yup,” I say, setting about washing my shaker out.

  Emma sips the cocktail, her elbows on the bar. “This is amazing! What do you call it?”

  I eye her. “The schoolgirl special,” I reply dryly.

  She blushes, her cheeks turning a shade darker than her pink dress. “You’re the actual worst.”

  That makes me grin. “You’d do best to remember that.”

  I wink at her, and she rolls her eyes. “Thanks for the drink.”

  She picks up her cocktail and walks away, hips swaying. I watch her walk away for a few seconds, my mouth a little dry.

  “Seriously?” my brother Forest says, coming up beside me behind the bar. Forest is the middle brother. He’s as dressed up as I am dressed down, wearing dark slacks and a white button up. His dark hair is clipped close to his scalp, not almost-too-long and messy like mine is.

  I yank my gaze away from her, glancing down at my red hoodie and black jeans instead. Forest isn’t done, though. “There are so many hot girls here, and you’re staring at Emma? What is wrong with you?”

  He’s not wrong. At thirty three, I should definitely not be looking at someone almost a decade younger than me. I clear my throat and shake my head.

  “Because I’m a dairy old man. Speaking of people who are too young for us, where’s Addison tonight?” I ask, changing the subject.

  He frowns and turns a little, pointing out his fiancee to me. A very thin redhead in a red silk dress, she’s in a little group of women standing by the front door.

  “Right there. And she’s not too young for me. She’s very mature for her age.” He reaches into the lowboy coolers under the bar and gets a beer, popping the cap off.

  “Uh huh,” I say. I lean back against the bar. “I seem to remember being invited to her twenty first birthday party last month.”

  “Fuck off,” Forest says, pulling a face. He takes a sip of his beer. “You’re just jealous.”

  “Of Addison? She’s so controlling, dude. That’s your thing, not mine.”

  About Vivian Wood

  Vivian likes to write about troubled, deeply flawed alpha males and the fiery, kick-ass women who bring them to their knees.

  Vivian's lasting motto in romance is a quote from a favorite song: "Soulmates never die."

  Be sure to follow Vivian through her Vivian's Vixens mailing list (http://eepurl.com/buorZn) or Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/VivianKWood/) to keep up with all the awesome giveaways, author videos, ARC opportunities, and more!

  Vivian’s Works

  Bad Beginnings

  Bad Behavior

  Bad Reputation

  Pretend I’m Yours

  The Baby Mission

  His Brother’s Fiancée

  Dr. Hottie

  Smolder

  Hot As Hell

  Wild Hearts

  Bad Boy Prince

  Addiction

  Obsession

  His Virgin

  His Best Friend’s Little Sister

  Claiming Her Innocence

  His To Keep

  Promise Me

  Knocking Boots

  SEAL’s Bride

  SEAL’s Kiss

  SEAL’s Touch

  First Touch

  For more information….

  vivian-wood.com

  info@vivian-wood.com