“Hey.” Jason came up behind me. “You okay?”
Pure evil filled me, and I didn’t bother to hide it. I smirked as I imagined all the hell I was going to put them through. “Oh, I’ve truly never been better.”
“You look homicidal.”
“I may be . . .” I said, my body humming with excitement. “You know we never fully congratulated the happy couple.”
“Huh?” Jason’s eyes pinched together. “What are you talking about?”
“Follow my lead.” I couldn’t have hidden the grin even if I’d wanted to.
Milo and Max were sitting in their seats at the table, drinking wine, pretending everything was peachy as shit, and I was about to not only rain on their parade, but shoot thunder and lightning out of my ass.
Okay, maybe not my ass.
Too far.
So I’d been under a lot of emotional stress—it ended tonight. And I was going to put her through—I looked down at my watch—about twelve hours of the same type of hell she’d put me through.
Then I’d kiss her again.
Marry her.
Lock her in her room and think of about a million different ways I could punish her—as well as make her remember that she wasn’t anyone’s but mine.
“So.” I rubbed my hands together and cleared my throat to get everyone’s attention. “I would just love to hear how you two got together.”
“Who?” Mrs. Caro looked around the room in confusion.
“Max and Milo.”
“What?” Milo coughed.
Max grinned. “You see, it really is a funny story.”
“Max . . .” Milo warned.
“Really?” I crossed my arms. “I’d love to hear it.”
Max’s chest pumped up a bit and then his eyes narrowed in my direction. Shit, he knew. He knew that I knew.
“I sang a song.” He stared right through me, and then broke eye contact as he addressed the table and stood. “You see, I love to do charity.”
“No he doesn’t.” Milo laughed, trying to get Max to sit down. “He hates charity, really, just . . . hates . . . helping people.” Her voice died at the end a bit as she stared into her wine, most likely wishing she were drunk already.
“My little love muffin’s so humble.” Max patted her head, then pinched her cheek. She hated being pinched. Pinching Milo was the equivalent of attaching a piece of raw steak to your ass and running full blast toward a tiger.
Needless to say, it wouldn’t end well.
Unless you were the tiger.
“That’s so sweet.” One of the bridesmaids leaned over the table, her cleavage almost dipping into her chocolate cake.
“That’s me—sweet.” Max winked. “Anyways, as I was putting on this concert for charity, inspiration hit.”
“I’d like to hit something,” Milo muttered.
“Why not propose onstage?”
The girls giggled.
Max returned their grin and shrugged. “I invited her onstage, played the song I wrote for her, and got down on bended knee. It really was romantic, I—”
“I wanna hear it,” I shouted.
“What?” Max covered his choke with a cough. “Hear what? The proposal?”
“The song.” I grinned. “I want to hear this . . . romantic song. I mean, shouldn’t we all get a chance to share this special moment?” I looked around the room.
Mr. and Mrs. Caro sighed into each other’s arms, the bridesmaids all but swooned out of their chairs, and Milo killed me with her eyes.
I blew her a kiss.
Her cheeks stained red. “Um, guys, Max is probably tired from . . . earlier today, and it’s getting late. We don’t want to miss the bachelorette and bachelor parties.”
“We have time!” Jason said from behind me.
I loved that man. No, seriously. Loved him.
“See?” I clapped. “No problem.”
“Great,” Max said through clenched teeth. He walked toward the middle of the dining room and then paused. “You know, I, uh, noticed you don’t have a piano, and it’s really difficult without the proper, um, notes.”
“Oh.” I walked up to him and patted his back. “No worries, man, you just sing from the heart. A cappella is fine. Right, everyone?” I started chanting, “Max! Max! Max! Max!”
With each shout Milo sank lower and lower into her chair.
When the noise died down, Max cleared his throat and looked heavenward. Yeah, both he and Milo deserved what was coming.
“Milo,” he crooned in a voice that wasn’t at all terrible, damn it! “My special girl! I want you to know, if I could, I’d give you the world.” He paused dramatically, then fell to his knees.
No freaking way.
“My heart and soul are yours alone my special, pretty, pretty”—he paused again—“lady. So promise me now you’ll forever be my baby.”
He ended on a high note that I’m pretty sure no man can reach unless he’s been castrated. Then he got up from his knees and bowed.
Bastard.
Milo was the first on her feet, clapping wildly. “It’s even better than before.”
It was on. They had no idea of the war they’d just started. They might have won one tiny battle—but I was going to be the ultimate victor.
So without thinking, without really even realizing I was talking out of my ass, I said, “When did you propose?”
“A few months ago.”
“What day?”
Max grinned. “Tuesday.”
“What Tuesday?”
“March fifth.”
“Was a Wednesday.”
“How do you even know that?” Milo snapped.
“Whoa there!” Jason reined me in for a hug. “Sorry, he’s been hitting the bottle.”
Just kidding. I hated Jason.
“Bachelor party?” He pinched my neck so hard I was going to have bruises.
“Yeah.” Defeated, I started to walk away, but stopped. “Hey, Max, you should come too!”
“He can’t!” Milo blurted.
“He should,” Jason agreed. “Come on, Max, come hang out with the guys.”
Max took a few steps away from Milo but kept looking back as if to ask permission. I wrapped my arm around his shoulders and squeezed so tight I was pretty sure his back popped. “We’re going to do some male bonding and shit.”
“You know,” he whispered under his breath, “I don’t know how you know, but you know . . .”
“’Bye, guys!” I yelled over his voice, then whispered, “Yup, and you’re going to help me or I’m sending you into the bachelorette party with some Skinnygirl Sangria and a box of chocolates.”
He gasped, his eyes round with horror. “You wouldn’t!”
Ha, I had him by the balls. Time for a twist. With a malicious grin, I waited for him to keep arguing. “I’ve already done my time!”
“Then play by my rules,” I said coolly. “Agreed?”
“Milo’s going to kill me.” Max reached for my hand and sealed all our fates.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MILO
“Milo?” Mom came into my room, took one look at me, and burst out laughing. Tears streamed down her face and a few hiccups followed.
“Do I look that awful?” I pulled the red leather dress lower, but it was useless. Every time I tugged it just snapped back to where it had been before, which was so inappropriate I probably wouldn’t be able to bend over without getting arrested.
“No,” she sighed happily. “It’s just—you have it on backwards.”
I swear. Sometimes it feels like I’m not even a girl. Colton doesn’t think of me as a woman and now I can’t even put on a dress right? I was being overdramatic, but still. It was the stress speaking.
I felt like crying.
See? This was why Colton didn’t notice me! I wasn’t sexy! I wanted to be sexy! And Max went and sang that nice song and now Colton believed him, but if they got him drunk—God help us all if they got Max drunk.
/> He was one of those emotional drunks. You know, the type who sits at the bar and makes friends with everyone, then continues to buy shots for people, until he bursts into tears and exclaims in slurred language that he loves everyone so much that he wishes he could just give the world a hug.
“Crap.” I sat on the bed with a huff and crossed my arms.
“Let me help.” She pulled me to my feet.
Fifteen minutes later the dress was on the right way, with the plunging neckline in the front and the high part in the back. I suddenly remembered why I’d bought it in the first place without trying it on. It was gorgeous. It fit really tight—I’d probably have three bruised ribs come morning, but it was worth it.
“Shoes.” Mom clasped her hands. “You need something tall.”
“But that’ll make the skirt look shorter!”
“Exactly.” She waved. “Oh, look! You still have your shoes from homecoming.”
I winced.
Homecoming. The senior homecoming I attended with my own brother. Awesome, like I wanted to relive that sad moment.
“Put them away, Mom.”
“No.” She put them by my feet and held them stable while I stepped in. They were strappy black six-inch heels—at least they still fit. “Now twirl.”
I twirled lamely on the heels, nearly toppling over.
“You need makeup.”
“Mom, I don’t—”
“Sit!”
After another twenty minutes, I was convinced I could make a good living as a prostitute.
Eyeliner thicker than sludge? Check.
Short tight dress? Check.
Stripper heels? Check.
Bright red lipstick? Check.
“Perfect!” she shouted. I’m pretty sure she was slightly inebriated. “Now go have fun!”
I hobbled down the hall and then hobbled down the stairs and out the door, and made my way to my car.
Our town might not have had a lot of places to eat but it had a crap-load of bars. The girls wanted to do a bar crawl from one end of Main Street to the other, finally meeting up with the guys around midnight.
I locked the car, jumped out, and nearly sprained my ankle. Yeah, I was going to be that girl at the end of the night—the one who carried her shoes and caught a foot disease from the dirty sidewalk.
I would rock it in Vegas.
I continued to tell myself that the evening was going to be fine; it had to be fine. All I needed to do was make sure Max kept his hands to himself and Colton actually noticed I was wearing a dress and had boobs. Yes, that was my mission: make Colton aware of boobs. If all else failed, I’d have some drinks, stay silently in the corner, and pray that Max practiced self-control. He was an adult, after all.
“Drink! Drink! Drink!” the bar patrons shouted as Max downed his third shot in a row.
The dude could party—had to give him that.
We’d been at it for at least three hours and he was still as solid as Fort Knox—never slipped up once about the engagement.
It wasn’t that he didn’t talk about it.
He talked all damn night. Milo this and Milo that. I almost ran my head through the bar.
“So . . .” I waved my hand at the bartender and pointed at the empty glass. “Tell me about Milo. What’s the deal?”
“Uh . . .” Max looked away. “I gotta go to the bathroom and—”
I grabbed the collar of his shirt and tugged. “Sit.”
“Drinking game!” Jason came up behind me. “Cups!”
“Did someone say cups?” Jayne shouted, coming into the bar with a few of the bridesmaids, and finally Milo.
Shoes in hand, Milo, my newfound nemesis, walked into the bar, cringed, then set eyes on me. Her smile grew until she saw Max. She looked beautiful. Her short dress didn’t hide an inch of her legs. I drank my fill and then cursed when I realized I was supposed to be paying her back for all the hell she’d been putting me through. Did payback include licking those thighs? The bartender dropped a shot in front of me. Bottoms up. Something told me I wouldn’t be doing any licking for quite a while. Not if I had any control over it. Pain first, pleasure second.
She mouthed a curse and stomped over to us, crossing her arms over her really, really nice-looking chest, and glared. “Max?”
“Wazzup?” He swayed on the barstool. I held him steady and prayed he wouldn’t reach for her purse and puke in it. “You’re super pretty tonight, Milo, so . . . cold.”
“Cold?” she repeated.
“Yeah, like, you must be freezing since you’re naked!” He laughed at his own joke, then yelled, “She’s naked, she’s naked!”
“Strip poker!” Jason shouted above the music. “Back room!”
“Yay!” Max clapped his hands and slid off the barstool, swaying on his feet as he pulled Milo in for a hug. “You smell like . . . happiness.”
“What’s that smell like, big fella?” She sighed, helping him walk with us toward the back of the bar.
“Sex.”
“What?” She laughed nervously.
“Never. I never did it, Colton. Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. She said no.” His face drew into a tight pout. Holy shit, was he crying? “ ‘No, Max!’ She yelled at me, Colton.” He was enunciating my name like a three-year-old. “ ‘No, Max, I don’t want the sex like that!’ ”
“Max, maybe you should drink some water—” Milo’s gaze searched around the bar.
“No.” He pulled away, collapsing against my chest, then reached for my shirt and gripped like a freaking vise. “And you know what happened?”
I shook my head.
“I say okay Milo, you don’t want to ride the gluteus maximus.”
“He’s drunk,” Milo said in a desperate voice. “And that’s not how you—” She stopped talking.
“How you what?” I leaned in. “What, Milo?”
“How you . . .” She chewed her lower lip.
Max patted my face with his hand. “She’s a virgin,” I think he meant to whisper. Instead he said it so loud that the rest of the people walking to the back room with us paused.
“I want to die,” Milo muttered.
“Naked time!” Max launched himself from my arms and stumbled into the room. Poor guy was going to be puking his insides to his outsides come tomorrow morning.
Milo and I followed the herd into the room. I grabbed her hand and held her back. “So, you’ve never slept with your fiancé.”
“Nope,” she said tightly. “He’s, uh . . . Catholic.”
“Really?” I nodded.
“Very, very, very devout.” She looked down.
“Interesting. Is that why his Jeep has one of those Star of David stickers on it?”
“He’s a Catholic Jew,” she said in a desperate tone.
“Oh . . . I wonder what that’s like . . .” God, she made it so easy.
Jason whistled loudly and pointed at the group of people filing into the room. “Who’s in?”
“Milo is!” Max shouted, jumping into the air, his landing missing the chair by an inch.
“Me too.” I winked. “I love a good game of poker.”
“You gonna keep your pants on this time,” Milo teased, “or are you gonna freeze your balls off like the Christmas of 2010?”
“There’s a difference between choosing to lose and actually losing,” I snapped back.
“You still lost.”
“Milo, it was four in the morning! I had to be at the firehouse at five! I was exhausted!”
She grinned saucily. “Still lost!”
“Girls against boys!” Max danced around the table. Great, so he just got his second wind. “Shots!” I swear his yell shook the walls.
“Oh.” Jayne smirked in our direction. “Milo’s not drinking.”
“She’s pregnant too!” Max yelled.
The noise died.
Jason groaned into his hands while Jayne stiffened and set down her bottled water.
“Jason,” she said in a stern v
oice, “I thought we weren’t telling anyone yet.”
“Well.” He looked pissed. “They all know now, don’t they?” Uh-oh, drunk Jason was going to make an appearance. “Now everyone knows why the hell I popped the question! God knows I wouldn’t have done if you hadn’t trapped me.”
Oh, shit.
Max’s eyes widened. “So no game?”
“No game,” Jayne said in a stern voice. “Ladies, let’s go.”
With that they walked out, leaving Milo and Max with us and the rest of the guys.
Milo started walking toward the door, but I grabbed her hand before she could make it very far. “And just where do you think you’re going?”
“Home?”
“Milo bought a goldfish once.” Max felt the need to pipe up. “She was drunk. She loved that fish.” He snorted. “I ate it.” With a laugh straight out of a low-grade horror film, he collapsed into giggles, then yawned. “I’m so tired.”
The next thing I heard were snores.
And he was still standing.
Shaking my head, I pointed at him. “Real winner you got there.”
She tilted her chin up. “He’s sweet.”
His snore turned into more of a growl, getting louder by the minute.
“I can see why you’re waiting to have sex with him—waiting for that special moment, huh?”
“I told you he’s religious!”
“Bullshit.” We were standing nose to nose.
“Are you calling my bluff?”
“Sweetheart, you can’t even keep your lies straight anymore.”
“You can’t tell when I lie.” She poked my chest with her finger.
“Fine.” I stepped back. “Let’s play a little poker. Winner takes all. Shake on it?”
She slammed her hand against mine and tried to let go, but I pulled her in until she hit my chest. “Oh, and by the way, it’s strip poker, with shots, and I haven’t lost since I was sixteen.”