For Better or Worse

by Lauren Layne

Heather pursed her lips as she watched him amble into the kitchen, all broad shoulders and trim waist.

  “I don’t hear any denials,” he said.

  “I’m not going to feed your voracious ego,” she said climbing to her feet. “So don’t hold your breath.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d let me go to the gym before brunch?” he asked hopefully.

  “You watch your mouth,” she said as she headed toward the bathroom to shower. “I’m leaving in thirty minutes. You’ll have to decide what you want more, to bench-press or that French toast.”

  “What about sex?” he called after her. “Is that on the table?”

  “Seriously? We went at it, like, four times.” She tugged the tank top over her head, unsurprised to see him watching her.

  “How about five?” he said, his eyes locked on her bare breasts.

  “Seriously?”

  “Absolutely,” he said, giving her a crooked smile as he ambled toward her, hooking a hand behind her neck and forcing her to look up.

  His eyes dropped to her mouth. “You’re the best I’ve ever had, too, you know.”

  Heather’s heart flipped, and her lust-addled brain clung to the hope that it wasn’t a line. “I never confirmed you were the best,” she teased.

  Josh rubbed a thumb over her lip. “If you’re still unsure, I think I know a way I can convince you.”

  “How’s that?”

  Josh backed her into the bathroom. “Time to make good on my threat of shower sex.”

  “Okay, but I meant what I said about leaving in thirty minutes.”

  “Not a problem, 4C. I’ll only need five for what I’m about to do to you, but I’m happy to stretch it to ten if you find you want more time.”

  Turned out she wanted fifteen. And then some.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  DUDE, YOU DO THIS every time,” Trevor said as he flipped open the pizza box and started picking at the pie. “You know I hate olives.”

  “Sorry, forgot,” Josh lied. He knew perfectly well his friends hated them, but he loved them, and Trevor had turned the process of picking them off into an art form. It was Wednesday evening, and Heather had a rare weekday evening wedding to work, so he’d invited Trevor over to watch the Rangers game. It was his first Heather-free night in quite some time, and damn if he didn’t miss her despite having just seen her the evening before.

  He was really up shit creek with this one.

  Trevor shoved the olive-free piece in his mouth and shot Josh the finger as he took an enormous bite, then flopped back on the couch. “How you been, man?”

  Josh flipped the lids off two beers, setting them on the table before dropping onto the opposite side of the sectional. “Good.”

  Trevor smirked. “You’ve been better than good. You’ve been practically strutting. And you canceled band practice on Sunday night.”

  “Holiday weekend.”

  “Sex weekend, I’d wager,” Trevor countered. “A hot broad’s the only reason you’d ever cancel practice.”

  Guilt flickered, and Josh leaned forward for a slice of pizza so he had an excuse to break eye contact with his best friend. “Were the guys upset?”

  “Nah,” Trevor said, taking another big bite of pizza. “It’s just a hobby for them. Something to do. They don’t care about it like we do.”

  Josh glanced up in surprise. “Do you care about it that much?”

  “Of course,” Trevor said, his attention still locked on the TV.

  “Trev.”

  His friend looked at him in surprise. “What?”

  “Where do you see the band going?”

  Trevor stuffed the rest of the crust in his mouth and leaned forward for his beer. “I don’t know. I guess getting a few more gigs would be a start. We really haven’t done anything since the summer when we played at a couple of those random weddings.”

  “What about beyond then?”

  Trevor took a sip of beer and studied him. “How about you spit out whatever you’re thinking?”

  Josh took a bite of his own slice and shrugged. “I don’t know. Just been thinking lately.”

  “’Bout?”

  “The band.” Life. And what the hell I should be doing with mine.

  “And?”

  Josh rolled his shoulders and reached for another piece of pizza. “I don’t know. Never mind.”

  “You want to break up the band?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Josh said quickly.

  Trevor’s smile was fleeting. “But you didn’t not say it, either.”

  “I don’t know that I see us going big places,” he admitted.

  Trevor sighed and set his beer aside, pulling the box of pizza toward him as he started dismembering another slice. “I don’t know that I see it, either.”

  Josh’s chewing slowed for a second. “Yeah?”

  “We’re good. Maybe even really good. Your songs are awesome, man. But to make it in a way that would enable us all to quit our day-job things and really just go for it, we’ve got to be better than awesome, you know?”

  Josh nodded. He did know. And he didn’t take offense. He had a talent, he knew that. So did Trevor, and the other guys. But it took more than talent to make it in music. It took drive and sacrifice and a sort of soul-deep want, and he wasn’t sure they had that.

  He knew that he didn’t.

  “I’ll probably always sing,” Trevor said, flinging an olive onto a spare plate. “And you’ll always write and sing and play, being the triple-threat bastard that you are. That’s what I meant when I said we want it more than the other guys. I don’t know that they’d keep playing if it wasn’t easy and they didn’t have someone else supplying the space and the time and the motive. But is it lame to say that I like my day job?”

  “No, of course not, man.”

  Guilt flickered again, because Josh didn’t know exactly what Trevor did for a living. A project manager at some big web design firm, whatever that meant. But Trevor had always seemed to like it. He didn’t bitch about work the way most people did.

  “What about you?” Trevor asked after a few minutes’ pause.

  “What about me?”

  “I know that you’ve got a shit-ton of money stashed away. I’m guessing enough to not have to work again if you don’t want to, considering you live like an eighteen-year-old kid.”

  Josh tipped back his beer and didn’t confirm what Trevor had said. He didn’t have to. Trevor was one of the few friends from before. One of the friends who’d been there before he was sick, after he was sick, and most important, while he was sick.

  “I also know you’re bored,” Trevor continued.

  Josh shrugged.

  “Your old bosses won’t take you back?”

  “They offered. I passed.”

  “I don’t blame you. That place nearly ate you alive. But, man, you’ve got to do something. You’re too smart to spend your days working out and writing music you don’t care about selling and flirting with the neighbor.”

  Josh stilled as he remembered the real reason he’d invited Trevor over tonight. “Ah, about said neighbor—”

  “You’re boning her. I know,” Trevor said distractedly as he glanced back at the TV.

  Josh scratched his forehead. “Not the word I’d use, but, yeah, we’ve crossed that line.”

  “The naked line.”

  Josh nodded, watching his friend’s profile for any trace of tension or resentment. Instead Trevor took another bite of his pizza, reaching across the couch with his other hand in a fist bump, all without glancing away from the hockey game.

  Josh returned the hand gesture and laughed. “You’re not pissed.”

  “Why would I be pissed?”

  “You seemed . . . interested.”

  Trevor turned and grinned. �
�I did, didn’t I?”

  “But then why . . .” Josh’s eyes narrowed, and this time when he offered Trevor his fist, it was with a punch to the shoulder. Hard. “You bastard.”

  “What? It was obvious you were hung up on her. Thought a little jealousy might get the ball rolling.”

  Josh didn’t want to admit to his friend just how well his asshole plan had worked. “I am not hung up on her. I just like her.”

  “Dude, that’s what being hung up means.”

  “What, you’re telling me you don’t have female friends that you like?”

  “Sure.”

  “And you don’t have women you sleep with that you also like?” Josh said.

  “Yup.”

  “Are you hung up on all of them?” Josh asked smugly.

  Trevor sighed and rested his head back against the cushion. “Man, you’re dumb.”

  “What?”

  Trevor turned his head and met Josh’s annoyed gaze. “Yes, I like my female friends. Yes, I like some of the women I sleep with. But, dude, it’s the overlap that’s the gotcha. She’s a female friend and you’re sleeping with her. That’s dangerous territory.”

  “It’s not,” Josh said automatically. “It’s just . . .”

  Trevor’s eyebrows lifted. “Yeah?”

  “Fuck,” Josh said, slumping on the couch. “Never mind, I don’t know. Shut up. I don’t know why I mentioned it.”

  “Sure you do. You needed to make sure that you weren’t falling for your buddy’s girl.”

  “Oh my God, can we stop with the womanly talk?” Josh muttered. “I’m not falling for anyone. Heather and I are just having fun.”

  “Fine,” Trevor said, holding up his hands in surrender. “Whatever. You want another beer?”

  Josh nodded, and for several blissful minutes, there was silence, just two dudes watching a game and drinking beer while polishing off an entire pizza.

  “Where is Heather tonight?” Trevor asked casually.

  “Wedding,” Josh said, not glancing up from his phone. No text from Heather yet. She must still be working.

  “Huh,” Trevor said with a smirk.

  Josh ignored him, setting his phone aside.

  He picked it up again two minutes later. Just to text her that he’d be up late if she wanted to come over later.

  This time his friend’s silent laughter was too much to ignore. Josh reached into the pizza box and threw an olive at him, but Trevor only brushed it off.

  “It’s cool, dude, it’s cool. But, hey, I’m just curious . . . do you think she’s going to plan your wedding for free, or will you have to pay the fee of her fancy wedding-planning company?”

  This time it was a handful of olives that hit Trevor’s smirking face.

  “We’re just having fun,” Josh repeated.

  Then he forced himself not to check his phone the rest of the time Trevor was there.

  But he wanted to.

  And damn if that didn’t freak him out, just a little.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  SHIT. SHIT.” HEATHER RAPIDLY pressed the delete button on her laptop, deleting the entire insipid paragraph she’d written on the benefits of serving eggs Benedict at a bridal brunch. She tried for a deep, cleansing breath as she refocused and began pecking at the keys again. A little after nine o’clock on Monday morning, and Heather was a bundle of nerves.

  On the one hand, she had finally gotten what she wanted:

  Danica Robinson was on her calendar for an in-person meeting.

  On the other hand . . .

  Danica Robinson was on her calendar for an in-person meeting.

  As in, the first one since their initial consultation, because their strange run-in at the bar absolutely didn’t count.

  Which meant that Heather had exactly thirty minutes—it was all Danica would commit to—to run through an entire wedding plan, from rehearsal dinner to bridal brunch.

  And she still needed to deliver the not-so-minor bomb that the Plaza was still very much not on the books. She had several other very viable options cued up to try to defuse this bombshell, but she had a very strong sense that Danica wouldn’t give a crap.

  Heather had left her office door open, as they were all likely to do except when on the phone, and she was completely unsurprised when her boss appeared in her doorway. She’d certainly been making enough noise.

  “You good?” Alexis asked, getting straight to the point.

  “Yeah,” Heather said, her eyes remaining fixated on her iPad. “Or no. I don’t know. This whole thing is just not what I dreamed of with my first celebrity wedding, you know? I wasn’t expecting to be Danica’s BFF or anything, but somehow I thought it would be more . . . fun. Hard work, sure. But fun.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, you’re not overreacting,” Alexis said, coming into Heather’s small office and sitting in the small side chair beside Heather’s desk. “I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you, and I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

  “Well, hopefully my little come-to-Jesus talk won’t lose us a client,” Heather said with a sigh.

  Alexis shrugged. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it did.”

  Heather looked up, her mouth dropping open. “I’m sorry. Have you seen Alexis Morgan anywhere? There seems to be a very chill, whatever type of woman lurking inside Alexis’s type A body.”

  “Everybody has limits, and Danica is very close to breaching mine,” Alexis said. “I expect my planners to work hard, even put up with some pretty outrageous behavior, but something’s not right here. Danica doesn’t get to be hands-off and demand the Plaza. It’s one or the other. Either all in or all out.”

  “Great,” Heather said with a toothy smile. “Let me know how it goes when you tell her that in”—she glanced at her watch—“twenty minutes.”

  Alexis gave a slight smile. “You’ve got this. Just keep your voice calm and tell her you want to continue working with her, but you need to better understand what she’s looking for if she wants to get her money’s worth.”

  “She’s a gazillionaire,” Heather said. “What if money doesn’t work with her?”

  “Then appeal to her ego. The whole ‘help me help you look good,’ and all that. Maybe imply that the dress you’ve picked out that she hasn’t bothered to see might make her look hippy.”

  Heather laughed around a sip of her latte. “Yeah. That should go over great.”

  Alexis stood. “You’ve got this. Let me know how it goes.”

  Heather nodded distractedly, turning attention back to her iPad.

  Her boss hovered at the doorway. “Heather.”

  “Yeah?” She looked up.

  “Sex looks good on you.”

  Heather’s mouth fell open. “Um—”

  Alexis held up a hand. “No need to explain. You just look happy. Even with the Danica stress. You’ll have to thank Josh for me.”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure the last thing he needs is me thanking him for sexing me on someone else’s behalf. You’ve met him, right? His ego barely fits into our apartment building as it is.”

  “Well, judging from your downright dewy complexion, I’d say maybe that ego is earned?”

  You have no idea.

  She and Josh had spent most of the past week and a half, well . . . doing it. Mostly just the evenings, but the nights had gone on and on and on, and for the first time since she met the guy, she didn’t mind quite so much that he was keeping her up at night.

  “I thought so,” Alexis said smugly. “Good for you.”

  It was on the tip of Heather’s tongue to suggest that maybe Alexis find a little sexing for herself. Maybe with a certain sexy British accountant. But Alexis was already gone, leaving Heather to count the minutes until her showdown with Danica.

  Heather was fully e
xpecting her client to be late, but to her surprise, Danica showed up five minutes early, and even more pleasantly, without her mother.

  “Hi, thanks for coming,” Heather said with a polite smile as she gestured for Danica to enter the consultation room. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?”

  Danica smiled. “Last time you offered me champagne.”

  “Which you didn’t like,” Heather pointed out, before she could think better of it.

  The other woman gave a startled laugh.

  “But yes, of course, if you’d like some champagne,” Heather quickly added.

  “No, I’m fine,” Danica said.

  They both sat down, in the same spots they’d sat last time Danica had come. As with before, Heather felt the other woman studying her, but this time, Heather studied Danica right back.

  The woman was gorgeous as ever. Her hair was in a long, flowing blowout today, one that Heather bet serious money came from a salon. Her nails were a deep, trendy black without a hint of a chip anywhere. Her outfit, completely on point.

  But Heather was feeling pretty darn good about her own appearance today. Her hair was doing the sexy wave thing instead of the frizzy ringlet routine, thanks to a bout of dry, crisp winter weather. She wore a simple white camisole with a black blazer that made her feel sort of badass. She’d even rediscovered a pair of gray slacks in the back of her closet that she was pretty sure made her butt look just a tad perkier than it actually was.

  Josh, at least, had been a fan as he’d handed her a to-go mug on her way out the door and swatted her butt with a lingering caress.

  And speaking of Josh, it was strange to think of him dating the creature before her. Danica seemed so cold and calculating, and Josh was anything but.

  “So. You asked to see me?” Danica said with a passive smile.

  “Right. Yes, I’ve got some things I’d like to run by you,” Heather said, setting her fingers on the iPad. “But first there’s something I’d like to discuss.”

  Danica’s perfect eyebrows lifted. “Yes?”

  Here goes nothing.

  “I respect your hands-off approach to this wedding, but I’m becoming increasingly concerned that without a bit more guidance from you, this wedding might not be at all what you’re expecting.”