The Pact

by Max Monroe

  Flynn actually smiles at that, and immediately, it’s melted butter where cartilage should be in my knees.

  He reaches out and steadies me with one hand while easing my phone out of my hand and into his with the other. With a lot of pushing of buttons, he enters his number into my contact list and then pushes the call button to bestow his phone with the same information from me.

  And just like that, I have a lifeline to the most interesting man—who just so happens to be my husband—I’ve ever met in my life.

  I stare down at his programmed number. Damn. I really didn’t dream it. I got married last night.

  In a rented wedding dress with Marilyn Monroe officiating, no less…

  “Oh shoot!” I look up at Flynn. “My dress…the rental shop. It’s still on the chair in the bedroom and—”

  “I’ll handle it,” he says with a soft smile, promptly stopping me from diving into a needless ramble about return policies.

  “Thank you, Flynn,” I blurt as my eyes stay locked on his face and refuse to let go. “I’m really not sure if I said it in all the chaos of the night, what with my freak-out and basically making you convince me that it was the right thing to do to marry you…to pact with you.” I laugh, and he grins. “But thank you. You’ve quite possibly saved my life, and you’ve done it without even asking for anything in return. Please, if you ever figure out a way for me to repay you, I’m telling you now, don’t hold back. Okay?”

  “Okay, Daisy.”

  I nod then. Okay. That’s…done. My frazzled brain nearly mocks me. Oh yeah, Dais, you’ve really got everything completely buttoned up.

  Light lasers through the window, a perfect beam of illumination reflecting off the paint of my Uber as it pulls into Flynn’s driveway and comes to a stop.

  I glance back at my contracted husband and plaster the biggest smile on to my face that I can manage. “Well, I guess it’s time to go.”

  He nods and then surprises me by moving forward, putting his strong, firm hands to my jaw, tipping my head back, and pressing his lips to my own.

  It’s a delicate, strangely innocent kiss, given the intimate knowledge we have of each other from last night, but the jolt it rockets through my pounding chest is nearly enough to send me to the hospital.

  “Goodbye, Daisy Winslow.”

  My stomach turns over on itself as he reaches around me and opens the door, holding it for me gallantly.

  I look from him, back to the house, and then out to the car.

  I guess that…is really that.

  “Goodbye, Flynn.”

  Flynn

  In an expensive Las Vegas penthouse stood a man with a crappy cup of hotel coffee made from a temperamental Keurig, the logistical, legal side of his life having changed dramatically overnight.

  I, Flynn Winslow, am that man, and what a night it was.

  I’m officially the first Winslow brother to be married, and no one’s ever even going to know about it. Fucking hell. That’s funny enough to almost make me laugh.

  I take another sip of my coffee and stare out the massive windows of the penthouse suite that Remy, Ty, and I reserved for Jude’s bachelor party weekend. For once, the Strip looks calm and quiet, and very few tourists mill about on the sidewalks. Hell, even the neon lights of the desert city look almost reserved beneath the Nevada sun.

  Now this is the kind of Vegas I can get behind.

  “Damn, Flynn, you’re up early.”

  I glance over my shoulder to find my eldest brother Remy shuffling toward the kitchen, most likely in search of coffee, and jerk my head toward the clock on the wall. He follows my gaze and cringes to himself.

  “Shit. It’s already eleven?”

  I cover my smile with a sip from my coffee cup and turn back to face the window. I have a feeling the quiet atmosphere outside is compliments of many, many people in a state like my brother Remington.

  Compared to the rest of my three brothers, I’m always the early bird who gets the worm, but when it comes to this weekend, it’s mostly because I don’t drink like a fucking fish. A beer or two is about as far as I get. And without me there to keep them in check last night, I can only imagine how close to dead they all came. This morning, of course—well, it’s a whole other story entirely.

  Remy sets the Keurig to brew, and a groan escapes his lips as he puts his hand to his head. “I never should’ve agreed to do tequila shots last night. Ty and Jude are fucking assholes.”

  Why he’d ever think our youngest brothers would steer him in a good direction when it comes to alcohol is beyond me. Most of the time, he’s old and wise enough to hold himself above their standards, but for whatever reason, this weekend, he’s been caught in the drunken tide with them.

  I quirk an eyebrow in his direction.

  “Shut up,” Remy snaps, making just the corner of my mouth kick up into a subtle grin.

  “I didn’t say anything,” I counter.

  “Trust me, your look implied it all. Was it the shots—or the bourbon you chose to keep drinking with the shots?” he mocks in a sarcastic voice that I think is supposed to represent my own. It’s even more ironic that, because of my absence, I don’t have a fucking clue what he was drinking.

  A laugh escapes my throat. Evidently, his subconscious sounds a hell of a lot like me.

  “Now’s not the time for your fucking logic, man,” he grumbles, holding his head with his hand and stumbling back toward the bathroom.

  My phone chimes inside the pocket of my jeans, and I pull it out to find a text from our baby sister, Winnie. A successful physician for the New York Mavericks and married with an eight-year-old daughter, she may be the youngest Winslow sibling, but she definitely isn’t a baby anymore. The pigtailed, knobby-kneed version of Winifred that we all grew up with is a distant memory at this stage in our lives.

  Winnie: Anyone in jail?

  A small grin raises one corner of my mouth as I type out a quick response.

  Me: Nope.

  Winnie: Everyone still alive?

  Me: Yes. Although, the hangovers Rem, Ty, and Jude are going to be facing today will probably make them wish they were dead.

  It takes a special amount of alcohol to make three grown men not even realize they were missing the fourth member of their group.

  Winnie: Let me guess…Ty started with the damn tequila shots, and Jude succumbed quickly to the peer pressure.

  I might not know the exact details of last night’s debauchery, but after forty-one years on this earth studying these morons, I have a pretty good idea.

  Me: Something like that.

  Winnie: I’m thankful at least one of my brothers is sane. Taciturn, but sane.

  I shrug to myself. What can I say? I am who I am. Still, I wonder what Winnie would think of her one sane brother if she knew all the things about me I don’t tell her.

  Winnie: Oh well. I’m just glad it’s your job to deal with them on the flight back home and not mine. I’ve never been good with barf bags. Love you, Flynn!

  I shake my head on a soft smile.

  Me: Love you too, smartass.

  “You texting with that hot blonde from last night?”

  I lift my eyes away from the screen of my phone to find Ty looking at me from the large leather sofa in the center of the living room. Jude sits beside him with his head resting back against the big plush pillows and his eyes sealed shut.

  With dark circles under both of their eyes and stiff jaws punctuating their faces, it appears my prediction was correct.

  Looks like the hangover gang is officially all here.

  “What was her name, by the way?” Ty asks.

  “Who?”

  “The hot blonde who wanted to fuck you,” he comments on an annoyed sigh. “You know, the woman in the tight red dress at that karaoke bar off the Strip.”

  Jude quirks one eye open to look at Ty. “We went to a karaoke bar last night??”

  Ty’s face morphs from discomfort to hilarity, and a raspy chuckle jump
s from his lungs.

  Though, it takes Remy to actually answer Jude’s question. “Yeah, bro. And it was your stupid fucking request.”

  Jude glances at all three of us in bewilderment.

  “You do one hell of a Journey rendition, my man,” Ty chimes in and nudges Jude’s shoulder with his fist. “And apparently, Flynn needs to get his eyesight checked because he can’t remember when a woman who looks like Farrah Fawcett back in the day is flashing fuck-me eyes at him.”

  I don’t know how to break it to these motherfuckers that I wasn’t even there for the red dress-sporting Farrah Fawcett, but I’m thinking the best option is to not. It’ll be a hell of a lot more fun this way.

  “She wasn’t even the hottest woman we saw yesterday,” Remy responds, and Ty’s face scrunches up in blatant disagreement.

  “My ass, she wasn’t the hottest woman in Vegas. Who the hell do you think topped her?”

  “Didn’t you give some woman in the casino a five-hundred-dollar chip, Casanova? Are you telling me you did that shit for nothing?”

  Awareness heightened at the mention of Daisy, I instantly shift myself onto the arm of the couch to study their conversation more closely.

  “What? I didn’t give anyone shit. Did I?” Ty asks, humorously horrified at his own lack of memory.

  “I thought you were going to pull a Jude and marry her in Vegas, dude,” Remy remarks. My chest involuntarily squeezes at how close to on track he is with the wrong brother. Except for the love thing, of course. Flynn Winslow doesn’t fall in love.

  “Technically, I didn’t find love in Vegas, bro,” Jude adds. “I met the love of my life in New York, while she was pretending to be the bride-to-be at a bachelorette party and I was pretending to be an exotic dancer and giving her a sexy lap dance.”

  Remy just stares at him. “You realize that sounds insane, right?”

  Jude just smirks. “Oh, I’m aware.”

  “Enough about Jude.” Ty butts into the conversation. “What’s on the agenda today? A little pool time before we have to get on the plane to go back home?”

  “Enough about Jude?” Jude retorts. “This is my bachelor party, you fuck.”

  “Don’t know about the pool time. It’s already after eleven,” Remy answers, ignoring Jude completely.

  “What?” Ty shouts, outraged at time’s perpetual motion. “The fuck you say it’s after eleven.”

  While my two youngest brothers bicker over their need to be attention whores, I use that perfectly timed distraction to slide my phone into my back pocket, set my empty coffee cup into the sink, and grab my keys and wallet and already packed duffel.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Remy calls as I open the door to the suite. “We have to pack all our shit and get ready to go.”

  I give him a flick of two fingers toward my duffel and a cock of an eyebrow. “Speak for yourselves. I’m packed. I’ll see you shitheads downstairs.” Remy scowls as I let the door fall closed behind me, but just before it settles into the jamb, I push it open again. “Oh. And don’t forget to leave a tip for the housekeeper.”

  The door slams shut, and I head for the elevators. I’ve got an hour to get a real cup of coffee, find a spot in the hotel to people watch, and hope that maybe, just maybe, I’ll get a glance of a wild mane of curls before we need to head to the airport and leave Vegas behind for good.

  Flynn

  The sounds of Vegas have managed to follow me into McCarran International Airport. Even while sitting at our gate and waiting for our flight to New York to board, my ears ring with “the slot machine soundtrack” every damn casino in the city plays to lure tourists into thinking they need to get in on the gambling fun.

  I know New York isn’t the quietest city in the country, but I’ll take the sounds of honking taxis and street traffic over the ching-ching-ching Vegas song and dance any day of the fucking week.

  If I had my say, and if family and business weren’t keeping me as a full-time New Yorker, I’d permanently live in my desert house, where silence and the sound of the wind are about the only things that fill my ears. My Vegas residence might be close to the Strip, but I made damn sure when I bought and built that property that it was far enough away from the casino chaos.

  Yet you didn’t mind all that ching-ching-ching when there was a mane of curls and big green eyes adding to the ambiance…

  I’d be a liar if I tried to refute that sentiment. It appears the only thing that made Vegas interesting was Daisy Diaz.

  Actually, Daisy Winslow, the woman—your wife—whom you hoped to spot before you left the Wynn but came up empty-handed.

  “I swear to God, I shit a toddler in there. Little cherub cheeks and big fat arms, I didn’t even look back after I flushed the toilet because I don’t think there was even a chance my crap was going down,” Ty announces on his return from the restroom, climbing over the suitcases and bags under his and Jude’s chairs and collapsing into the pleather.

  “You’re fucking nasty, dude,” Remy remarks, pulling his sunglasses down over his eyes and sinking farther into the airport seating.

  “What? I haven’t been able to pinch one off all week. Traveling and booze make me constipated as a motherfucker.”

  “Ty, I’m not even remotely drunk enough to be having this conversation right now, and I can smell the booze seeping out of my pores.” Rem puts two fingers to the bridge of his nose. “So, can it with the literal shit-talk, for fuck’s sake.”

  “I’m just saying,” Ty says on a whisper then, focusing his monologue at Jude, a willing listener. “It was a violent showing by my intestinal system. I didn’t know the old girl had it in her, to be honest. I thought I was going to die in the bathroom. See Ty Winslow at his eternal resting place, kind of thing.”

  I step away from the group on a shake of my head and look for anything I can do that’ll be far enough out of earshot that I don’t want to puncture my own eardrums anytime soon—or admit that they’re a hell of a lot funnier than I want them to be. Just down from our gate, I spot a cluster of slot machines in the center aisle of the airport, mostly abandoned by passengers as they wait to board their impending flights.

  Daisy’s bouncy curls flash through my mind like a trailer for a movie, and I move on a whim. Toward the slot machines, around the group of them in surveillance, and then finally, to take a seat at the distinctly memorable buffalo game in the middle.

  I still fucking hate these things, but a smile almost cracks through the fatigue a weekend in Vegas with my three brothers has created on my face, and I find myself feeding the slot a twenty-dollar bill.

  I’m credited immediately, and as any guy with balls would, I hit the max bet button and take my chances with a spin of the reels.

  They’re off to the races, dinging and calculating and loading into the most random fucking line pattern in the world with buffalo and sunrises and wolves and all kinds of shit that shouldn’t have any part in real gambling. There’s no science to it. No figuring it out. No skill. It’s all blind luck based on the spin of a digital machine.

  Nevertheless, something evidently good happens in my favor, the lights and sirens firing wildly into the otherwise silent cacophony of the Las Vegas airport. I can practically feel the sneers from hungover passengers, their bloodshot eyes finding me from behind the solace of their big hats and dark glasses to gift me with a glare.

  That part of it, I’ll admit, gives me a little bit of joy. So much so, that I find myself nearly grinning when my brothers Ty and Jude gallop over like a couple of lost puppies on an exploratory adventure.

  “What the hell? Are you playing the fucking slots?” Jude remarks, his gestures just about as grand as his jubilant words. I roll my eyes at his obvious observation and hit the button to bet again.

  “Oh my God, you are,” Ty concludes, every bit of the PhD he holds clearly having been earned.

  “I never thought I’d see this. This is like a unicorn. A leprechaun at the end of the rainbow. A glitter fairy in a ne
on forest,” Jude rambles, taking out his phone to get a picture of me.

  I pay him no mind as I push the button again, the buffalo making a wholly obnoxious running in a stampede kind of sound when I hit the correct combination to win a bonus game.

  “I’m putting this in my wedding scrapbook,” Jude continues, pulling his phone to his chest and hugging it like an idiot. Ty laughs, which only encourages his behavior. “In fact, I’m going to text it to Sophie now so she can add it to the rehearsal dinner slide show. This is like getting a candid shot of Bigfoot without the photo looking like you snapped it with a potato.”

  A lesser man might cave to their bullshit—might snap verbally or physically by leaving—but I’m more than used to my brothers by this point in my life. For God’s sake, it’s always been like this, even when we were kids. They’re rowdy and mouthy, and if it weren’t for the distinct line of all our jaws, I’d swear I was birthed from a different set of loins. Or, at the very least, the mailman’s son.

  But we are definitely blood related, that fact known by all four of us and our baby sister and muddied by the reality that our biological father peaced out on his family when we were kids.

  I spin again, and another bonus round pops up. Once again, I’ve managed to double my money. I smile a little, thinking of how excited this would make Daisy and picturing the expression on her face when she realized it was even more thrilling when my tongue was spinning her reels.

  Fuck, she makes a good face when she comes. Pretty and memorable but not off-puttingly over the top like some women I’ve been with. She’s uninhibited without dramatizing her reactions like some kind of act. I don’t need the moans of a porn star from my partners—just undeniable acknowledgment that I’m making them feel good.