The music starts in nice and cheesy, a porno preview if I’ve ever heard one, and true to Cassidy’s word, a girl who looks just like her struts out in heels a foot high. Cade mentioned Cassidy had a twin who worked here, and up until this moment I forgot that tidbit. The fact Caila Jace is identical to Cassidy makes me squirm a little in my seat.
Scarlett leans in. “Yes, they’re identical. You’re practically going to see your best bud’s girlfriend naked. I bet that’s not what you thought you were signing up for.” A satisfied smirk takes over as she blinks into me.
“Nope.” I give a wistful smile. “Didn’t plan on seeing your red lace panties either, but that sort of happened, too.” It’s true. I caught a glimpse as I dove for the lunatic trying to take her down.
“Oh my shit!” She slaps me over the chest, and I catch her hand.
For whatever reason, the music, the screaming crowd, the glowing cocktails that dot the vicinity like candles all seem to melt into one big warble of white noise, and it’s just Scarlett and I, her hand in mine, her arms lying over my chest even if it is in an effort to beat the shit out of me. But something in me warms at the thought of her here with me, our skin touching, those violent four leaf clover eyes bearing hard into mine.
“Oh my shit,” I parrot in a whisper. Jet and Owen are right. I’m falling hard for Scarlett Kent, and I didn’t see it coming.
The girls on stage do their thing, and soon enough, Cassidy’s lookalike is taking it off, shaking the girls for all to see. Cade would be blind with rage if he could hear half of the guys in here. The girls at our table cheer as Daisy hops and skips to the music in the background, thankfully with her top on or I’d have a hard time facing her at school. But I’m not too entranced with what’s happening up on stage. I’m too busy feeling the heat sizzle from Scarlett’s leg to mine, her shoulder still hotly glued over my chest. I’m too busy stealing glances at the porcelain goddess that has me entranced.
I’ve fallen hard for Scarlett Kent.
And if our parents tie the knot, come August, she’ll be my stepsister.
Untying the Knot
Scarlett
The overlook adjacent to the Witch’s Cauldron is beautifully adorned with a latticed arch interwoven with wisteria and an entire Garden of Eden’s worth of flowers gracing it on either side. Both Piper and Baya are standing up for Annie, and Marley will have her sister, Jemma, stand up for her. I’ve witnessed Jemma lose her shit about ten times in the last half hour—needing to smoke a “damn cigarette.” The ceremony is due to begin any moment. The seats are brimming with friends and family. Technically, I’m neither, but Piper begged both Cassidy and me to come. She asked Daisy, too, but she’s stuck at the club all day. She mentioned that the other night when we were all there for the bachelorette event gone awry that someone slipped a waitress a two-hundred-dollar tip to give her. To add to the mystery, the waitress said it came from someone at our table. And for as much as I accused Piper of doling out the big bucks, she denied it. Besides, the waitress mentioned that it was gifted by a very handsome guy—real good-looking. A part of me wonders if that very handsome guy might have been Rex. Everyone knows the Tobermans are loaded. Rex logged time at a ritzy boarding school that specializes in pumping out heads of state and Nobel Prize winners. Everyone also knows that scholastically fencing your kids in full-time from the ages of five to eighteen doesn’t come cheap. And good-looking? Ha! Rex has those other boys beat by a handsome mile. It must have been Rex.
My heart sinks at the idea.
I’m not sure why, but I can’t stop thinking about him. It’s like he’s haunting me both day and night. My mind races at the prospect of touching him, for show, of course, at the prospect of kissing him—a sport I’m not looking forward to. Okay, so maybe I’m looking forward to it just a little, but only because I’m curious on some level if his tongue really is forked as I suspect.
He’s here today at the wedding of all places. Of course, he is. Rex Toberman is like a bad rash I can’t get rid of. Yesterday, I had a cross campus delivery for Roxy, and sure enough, there he was sweating in the sun in the name of Whitney Briggs University’s football team. I was practically forced to watch as I crossed the periphery of the field on my way to the athletics department. Rex was sporting shoulder pads that made him wide as a car, and those dark smudges of grease under each eye made him look animalistic as he charged head-on into the blocking sled. I may have paid extra attention as his muscles redefined themselves as they flexed, their dark contours looked as if an artist outlined him in charcoal. Rex is built for speed. I’ll give him that. And, thankfully for Whitney Briggs, he knows how to use it. Nevertheless, he’s here as a guest of Owen’s, which seems like a stretch, but Owen has a big heart, and so does everyone I’ve met so far in Hollow Brook.
A trio of violinists starts in and fills the mountainside with a blissful rendition of “A Whole New World.” I happen to be a Disney fanatic, so I happily swoon to the romantic melody.
“What’d I miss?”
I turn to find Rex seated by my side, his dark hair makes those robin’s egg eyes of his stand out like stars, and every girl in a ten-seat radius sighs at the sight of him. My stomach tenses as he leans in farther. His sharp features, his broad face, he’s pretty much your textbook all-star handsome, very good-looking quarterback. Honestly, it’s as if the drama department cast him for the part—type cast. Young, hip, all-American perfection made to melt panties nationwide. It’s sickening the way he demands my thighs quiver for him. Not that my thighs are allowed to quiver for him. It’s strictly an involuntary act of biology. And everyone knows biology can be a damn bitch when she wants to.
“You missed your manners.” I hold my finger to my lips. “They’re starting now.” Owen walks Piper down the aisle before taking a seat up front. Piper looks stunning per usual in a strapless gown in a funny shade between lavender and green. Cade walks Baya down the aisle, and they both join Piper up on stage. Marley’s sister, Jemma, walks herself down the aisle, and the faint scent of smoke trails her as she passes me by. It looks as if she finally got that cigarette—or more to the point, the entire pack. She reeks like a walking hookah shop for God’s sake.
The music switches up a bit, and the two grooms appear at the altar, both looking calm and relaxed, dapper to the nines with their matching black suits. The crowd stands and faces the rear, and we see them—Marley and Annie stand there both in luscious satin gowns. They’re beyond beautiful, and just the sight of these pristine, very much in love girls has the power to take my breath away. The gowns themselves are nothing too frilly, yet they both manage to look like Greek goddesses descending Mount Olympus. Marley has her hair up in a messy bun with a spray of baby’s breath sprouting from it. Annie has her long hair down and wears a wreath made of braided miniature roses. They both look like storybook brides, the kind that make you want to weep and die on the spot because you’re filled with so much heartfelt admiration. I pull a tissue from my purse and ball it up into the corners of my eyes as they pass me.
“Hey”—Rex lands his hands over my arms as if he were allowed—“you okay?”
“Yes, I’m okay,” I snap back. “Can’t you see I’m at a wedding?”
He frowns at my frank analysis, and we join the rest of the crowd in taking our seats. The minister speaks to the four of them as if they were one while gifting the couples with a special blessing. Annie and Blake read their vows first, nothing too lengthy, just your standard I-promise-to-love-you-forever-and-then-straight-into-eternity.
Izzy steps up to the altar, holding their son, passing him off to Blake, and the water works start again. I pull out another tissue and shove a wad into each eyeball as I boohoo with the best of them. Annie, Blake, and their sweet son form a holy huddle as the minister moves his attention to Marley and Wyatt, aka Barbie and Ken. The two of them look like a pair of cake toppers come to life as they exchange their vows. Once they’re through, Jemma shoots the lucky couple a thumbs-up, inciting a
soft roll of laughter from the crowd. I’m sure if that were Sabrina she would have given me an alternate finger, thus inciting gasps of horror from my wedding guests. Come to think of it, when Sabrina and Duncan tie the knot, I might be tempted to do the same.
The minister asks if there are any objections to these holy unions, and the crowd stills for a moment.
Rex leans in and whispers, “I don’t get why they do that.”
“Neither do I, but in about a month and a half, if things go very, very badly and we find our parents babbling half-truths about eternity, we’ll be damn glad they do.”
A quiet burst of laughter comes from him just as the minister allows the grooms to kiss their brides. The entire crowd goes wild as if we were witnessing the most important lip-locks in human history—and in a way we are. These sweet pecks earmark the first day of the rest of their lives as a family. This right here, is the beginning of everything they will ever be as a happily married couple.
The minister nods to the anticipatory crowd. “It is my privilege to introduce to you for the very first time, Mr. and Mrs. Blake Daniels, and Mr. and Mrs. Wyatt James!”
A thunderous applaud breaks out, and even the warm perfumed breeze kicks in as if lauding their efforts. The happy couples run down the aisle, and I spot Annie’s brothers, Bryson and Holt, up front wiping tears from their eyes. Piper and Cade embrace at their brothers’ shared union, and even they have glistening tracks down their cheeks, and I lose it. I plop my face into my palms and weep for the happy couples. Their joy is almost too much for me to take in.
A warm arm finds itself around my waist, and as much as I’d love for that to be Cassidy or Daisy or even Piper stealing a moment from her familial bliss to comfort me, I know it’s none of the above. I struggle to pull it together and open my eyes to Rex Toberman holding me with the backdrop of the mountain behind him, just a wall of granite dotted with sprays of yellow honeysuckle. His dark hair, those serious eyes demand I pay him attention.
The crowd has all but dispersed, moving out into the clearing where a huge line forms to congratulate the happy couples.
Rex brushes the trail of tears from my cheeks with his thumb and nods to the cliff side. “You want to head to the overlook?”
“Sure.” He helps me make my way over the patchy grass in the suicide heels I thought it was a great idea to don, and we head straight for the altar. It feels like magic stepping underneath the wisteria rainbow above us. “Wow, I almost feel like a bride.” A swell of anticipation rears in me for something I had never imagined I even wanted. “I’ll probably make a hideous bride. I’m pretty sure I’ll wear black on my wedding day, and knowing my hair, the entire nightmare has Halloween written all over it.”
Rex belts out a hearty laugh at the thought of my future bridal disaster.
“You’re going to make a stunning bride no matter what you wear.” His eyes narrow into mine, still squinting with their silent laughter. “You can show up in the nude, and you’d out stun every girl on the planet.”
My mouth opens as if to say something, some sarcastic retort, anything to decry what he just suggested, but quite frankly, I’m too shocked to think he believes this to be true.
“I bet you’d love nothing more than a nude wedding.” I roll my eyes. “Come to think of it, that’s probably your favorite pastime—picturing people in the nude. Is that the first thing they teach you in Football 101? Imagine your opponents in the buff, and you’ll no longer find them intimidating?”
Any trace of a smile drops right off his smug mug, and a sense of satisfaction fills me, because let’s face it, my work is done. “I have never, nor will I ever envision a team of sweaty dudes in the buff.” He looks me in the eye, and that snide smirk of his reprises. “Now the cheerleaders, that’s a different story.”
“Ugh, you’re such a pervert.” Savannah and her long, slender ponytail comes to mind, and for a fleeting moment, she bounces through my mind in the nude, her perky little boobs taking turns swatting her in the eyes. I’d like to give her two black eyes myself. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone annoy me more, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. “And never mind me as a bride. I’m never getting married. Marriage is a joke,” I spit the words out like they were a mouth full of antifreeze.
“Whoa.” He glances over his shoulder. “Keep it down. There’s an entire fleet of cameramen present capturing every nuance of this magical day. It just so happens there are at least four people here who believe in that ‘joke,’” he says the last word in air quotes.
But something in me warmed when he said nuance. A dull smile rides on my lips. I admit the fact Rex doesn’t come across as your textbook dumb jock does please me on a cerebral level. In the least, it makes the time I’m forced to spend with him a little less painful. I’m sure his mother is proud of the fact he’s both well-mannered and erudite. I’m sure his father is pleased with his all-star jock standing, and perhaps his standing—or lying down as it were—with the cheerleaders, too. Too bad they couldn’t combine their pride and stitch back together that family they ripped asunder.
“Did you ever talk to your dad? What does he think of my father stepping on his terrain?”
“His terrain?” His chest bucks with a silent laugh, and he leads us closer to the railing. The sun lies silent over Hollow Brook, whitewashing it like an Impressionistic painting. “My father has relinquished my mother into the wild. Those who chose to can devour her at will.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “Are you saying my father is a wild animal?” My father is anything but. He’s a gentle soul, one far too kind to ever step on any other man’s terrain. Too bad my mother decided to turn a blind eye to his wonderful attributes.
“I’m saying your father is a nice guy.” He winces as if it pained him to admit it. “As much as I want to find fault with him, I can’t seem to. He’s been pretty great to my mom and pretty great to my brother, sister, and me.”
“Wow. I feel like an ass now. I haven’t exactly made a secret of how I feel about your mom. I mean she’s cordial to me. Sabrina and Lawson really seem to like her, too, but”—a mean shudder drills through my spine—“I don’t know. I think I’d better stop while I’m ahead.”
“No say it.” His hand finds its way over the small of my back, but in a rarity for Rex Toberman the act seems anything but sexual. His gaze presses into mine as if I’ve come to the precipice of some dirty family secret of theirs, and he’s beckoning me to fumble my way into it.
“Oh—I can’t.” I shake my head, glancing around at the diminishing crowd. Half of the guests have already left for the Black Bear. The sun is beginning to set as the wedding party poses at the distal end of the cliffs for those last few romantic shots of the day. My lips play with the idea of a smile. “Look at that,” I whisper. “Wedding pictures are the kind of things that haunt hallways and living rooms for decades to come.” I glance down at the ground, suddenly blinking back the tears already clinging to my lashes. “My dad finally took his down last summer, right around the time he started dating your mom. It felt like the final painful incision—his way of extracting my mom from our lives for good.” My chest hiccups with grief. “Of course, she’s eight years deep in a brand new family. My sisters, Chrissy and Gini, are pretty great. I just don’t really know them like I do Sabrina and Lawson. I would definitely trade Sabrina for them, though.”
We share a laugh.
“I’m sorry.” He leans in until we’re a breath away. There’s something about the manly girth of his body that makes me crave to wrap myself around him.
“What in the world do you have to be sorry for?”
“That you’re hurting.” He wipes the lone tear that’s managed to fall with his thumb and presses it to my lips. My stomach cinches like a tension wire, and my body catches fire from that small, kindhearted act. Our eyes seal over one another as if there were a magnetic force securing us, and there’s not a place on this planet I’d rather be right now than lost in Rex T
oberman’s river blue eyes.
“Excuse me,” a photographer calls to us, breaking the spell, and we look past him to see the entire wedding party making its way in this direction.
“I guess I’ll see you at the Black Bear.” I blink myself back to life as I struggle to find Cassidy in the crowd.
“I guess you will.” Rex pulls me in a moment with his strong, thick arms. His cologne blankets me like a testosterone charged reassurance. “It’s all going to work out,” he whispers directly into my ear. “I promise.” He takes off before I can respond, before my body can fully clamp on to his the way it wants, and I’m left shivering there in the late afternoon heat, longing to hold a boy who moments before I could hardly stand to look at.
What the hell is happening to me?
The Black Bear is festooned with paper wedding bells both out front and inside, but the deeper in you venture, the more elegant the affair becomes with the entire back of the restaurant draped in white linen and miles of tealight candles giving it a fairy-tale appeal.
Cassidy shuffles us to the bar where a skeleton crew mixes, shakes, and stirs to the patrons’ delight.
“Two piña coladas. Make ’em rough and dirty.” She winks my way. “Just the way it’s gonna be the second you and Sexy Rexy fall into the sack.”
I frown into this rough and dirty fantasy of hers. First, there is something disarming about Cassidy’s wide-as-a-Tennessee-sky accent that makes no matter what she says come across as the most benign news on the planet. And second, this is one of those rare unforgiveable instances where no matter how deep she dips herself into that country batter I will never find those words acceptable.
“I don’t drink, but I can see that you’re already tipsy as evidenced by your delusions of grandeur.” Not that there would ever be anything grand about me landing horizontal with “Sexy Rexy.” My soon-to-be stepbrother would be missing two very valuable balls if he ever attempted it.