He refuses to look at his phone as he walks. "I can't go through with it, man. I just...I can't marry Sera."
The video goes wavy. Staticky lines jump across the screen. Poor connection. "What do you mean you can't marry Sera?"
He covers his eyes with a pair of sunglasses and he pulls his baseball cap lower over his face. I hear a blurry voice over a PA system announcing the boarding time for a flight to Cleveland. I see a pair of women stroll by in airline uniforms.
"Are you at the airport?! You need to get back here," I demand. “You need to face her like a man.”
A range of emotions cut across his face in rapid succession. Shame then impatience then anger. “I’m not coming back, Jace." His words clip with frustration. Then, they soften. "And you need to take care of Sera."
This is not fucking happening. Not to Sera. She doesn't deserve this.
Rocky snaps again. Impatience this time. "Do you hear me, Jace? Go take care of Sera."
The fucking bastard. He doesn't have to tell me to take care of her. Because that girl is my favorite person in the world and I take care of the people I love.
Over his shoulder, I see a purple-haired woman trying to get a glimpse of his screen. "Is there a woman with you, asshole? Did you leave Sera for someone else?"
He turns to glare at the woman then he runs a hand down his face. “It’s…complicated.”
I hear Declan’s voice right next to me. “Oh shit! That’s Carrie. Climate Change Carrie.”
“You know her?” I glimpse at my brother.
“That girl was at the strip club last night. Climate Change Carrie,” Declan announces, saying the words meaningfully, like I’m supposed to know what the hell he’s talking about. “I told you about her.” My gape-jawed brother addresses Rocky. “Dude, are you running off with some random chick from the strip club last night?”
I can’t fucking see straight. My chest is a barrel of rage. My stomach muscles throb with anger. "You are a dead man, Rocky.” I jab a finger threateningly at the screen. "A dead man." The video clips on and off. Colorful lines blur the screen.
He hefts his backpack strap on his shoulder. "I deserve that," he concedes.
That shock of purple hair fills one corner of the screen again. "Rock, we've gotta hurry. We're gonna miss our flight," the woman says.
No fucking way.
No. Fucking. Way.
The weak connection snaps completely and the call cuts off.
I’m left standing there, staring at the blank screen, wondering how the hell I’m going to break this news to Sera.
But when I turn around, she’s standing a few feet away from me, hands covering her face, heaving into her palms.
Shit. She overheard the whole thing. And the devastated look on her face kills me.
The devastated look on her face reminds me why I am never getting married.
Seriously, what’s the point? Love is a fucking joke and people are fickle as hell. They make all kinds of grand promises they can’t keep. They get your hopes up and, when all is said and done, they end up taking off, anyway.
I approach Sera and gather her up into my arms. “It’s okay,” I promise as I squeeze her tight. “It’ll all be okay.”
I feel fury—pure fury—as I protectively drape an arm around Sera’s shoulders and guide her down the building’s steps toward my car.
Four
Sera
The night that changes everything…
"You ready?" Minka grins mischievously as her glassy-eyed stare sweeps the group.
My girlfriends hunch over the high-top table—each with a shot glass in one hand and a lime wedge in the other—waiting for Minka to give the signal.
When she does, they’re like a team of tipsy synchronized swimmers, chomping into the limes and knocking back their shots in unison.
I follow along listlessly with barely enough energy to lift my small glass to my lips and tip it back. "Ugh!" I groan, sticking out my tongue in disgust. I plop onto a stool, bumping into the table on my way down.
Gagging dramatically, Nadia makes a face and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Desiree grips the edge of the table, sways on her feet and yawns.
These girls are getting wasted. Fast.
Meanwhile, Minka shakes her booty and howls like she just got an energy infusion in the form of tequila. “Rot in hell, Rocky Pfeiffer! Rot in hell!” She slams down her shot glass.
Katrina stumbles into the chair next to me and pulls it closer to the sticky high top table. "Remind me why I'm doing this to myself?"
Minka throws an arm around my shoulder and hollers over the pounding techno music. "Because our girl Sera just got her heart broken by some asshole and we’re not gonna sit by and let her mope. We’re gonna remind her that she’s a badass bitch!”
A badass bitch? Sitting in a sweaty nightclub in my wrinkled wedding dress, I feel like the furthest thing from a badass bitch.
I feel bitter. I feel resentful. I feel rejected.
I invested over two years of my life into my relationship with Rocky and, truth be told, I never quite got out as much as I put in. He always complained that I was too committed to my corporate job, even while we both put his football career above all else. He pushed my needs to the back burner while I was constantly making sacrifices and working myself to the bone to accommodate his dreams.
Still, I never expected it to end like this. I never expected him to ditch me on our wedding day without an explanation.
Seriously, how could Rocky be such an asshole? You see that crap in movies all the time, but who really does that in real life? Who goes through the whole charade of proposing and planning a wedding and dropping all that cash, if they’re not one-hundred percent in?
He seemed perfectly normal this morning, totally his usual self. Did he know he was going to bail on me just hours later? How could he be so selfish? One minute, telling me he loves me. The next, he’s dumping me on the courthouse steps. With zero explanation.
Now, I’m left feeling completely lost, worthless and confused. Did I even know the guy at all? Was I really that blind? My intuition must be shit because I did not see this coming.
“Tonight, you’re gonna drink, Sera. You’re gonna drink and dance and sweat the plague known as Rocky Pfeiffer right out of your system. Like a fever.” Minka shakes a fist and pronounces her words with more faith and self-righteous conviction than an evangelical pastor at the pulpit.
I think her plan is working. Sort of. Because while the thumping music of Club Mermaid vibrates through me, making my stomach quiver with nausea, at least I feel something. At least I’m not numb like I was only hours ago when it finally settled in that my groom had gone AWOL right before our wedding.
Usually, nightclubs are not my scene. They’re too noisy and crowded and sketchy. But I don’t want silence right now, I don’t want peace and quiet. I have a bad feeling that once silence settles around me, the weight of today’s events will drop on me like a truckload of bricks.
Still, I need a few moments of reprieve from the chaos to pull myself together. “It’s really loud over here. I’m gonna go sit back there for a minute,” I say into my sister’s ear as I rise from the table, pointing at a more private corner of the room.
Katrina watches me, a frown line forming when her eyebrows dip down with concern. “I’ll come with you,” she volunteers. Quickly gathering up her purse, she stands too, with that perpetually-concerned stare of hers.
My sister may only be a year older than I am but she has always been maternal. That personality trait comes in handy in her job as a grade school teacher. I appreciate her protectiveness but right now, I need a second alone to catch my breath.
“I just want a bit of space, Kat.” My eyes beg her to understand.
Her astute brown gaze studies my face for a beat. “Fine," she mutters reluctantly as she settles back in her seat. “I’ll be right here if you need me. Okay?”
“Okay.” I pat her on the arm then mel
t into the mass of sweaty, gyrating bodies.
As I’m headed toward the back of the club, I run into my brother and his crew hogging up a poker table in the corner of the room. But they aren’t exactly playing a game of cards.
Wyatt—still in his military uniform—seems to be putting his interrogation training to good use. From the concentrated look on his face, I can tell he’s bombarding a nervous-looking Declan with detailed questions about Rocky’s bachelor party shenanigans last night.
Jace and Liam stand side by side like stern club bouncers, big arms folded across their big chests watching the whole thing go down. Seeing the four of them huddled together is a throwback to our high school days.
Wyatt’s attention snaps up to me as I pass by. “You good, sis?” my tank of a brother asks in that protective tone of his. He’s been deployed for so long, I was starting to forget how freakishly tall he is.
I nod. “I’m good,” I say, barely managing to form a smile.
Declan gives me a pleading face from where he’s cornered against the bar. His usually playful eyes send a panicked SOS signal my way.
I veer off my trajectory to intervene on his behalf. Declan may be the goofball of our bunch, but he’s a sweet goofball and he doesn’t deserve to be grilled over something that’s not his fault. “Wyatt, please.” I lay a hand on his log-sized forearm. “Don’t take this out on Deck.”
My big brother barely spares me a glance. “Look—I’m just trying to figure out why the asshole who was supposed to marry my baby sister ended up jetting out of here with some girl from the strip club instead. Declan is the only one who has any answers.” Tipsy as I am, I’m not sure if that’s steam coming out of his ears or if it’s just fake mist generated by the gaudy nightclub’s fog machine system.
“And what’s gonna happen when you get the answers you’re looking for?” I dare to ask.
Wyatt squeezes his bear-sized paws into tight, quivering fists before unclenching them. “When I get my hands on Rocky, I swear I’m going to kill him for hurting you. He’s a dead man. Dead. He’s gonna wish he’d never wormed his way into your life.”
“Not if I get my hands on him first,” Jace growls, snatching his beer bottle off the countertop. An angry shade of red races across his chiseled cheekbones.
Even Liam has a murderous look on his face. He and I aren’t friends and he barely says a word to me unless he has to. But he’s come to tolerate me professionally ever since Wyatt pushed him to hire me as a junior associate at his real estate development firm.
This is mortifying, having my boss witness me at my lowest. I’m trying to climb the corporate ladder, dammit. And with Wyatt and Jace acting like I’m some helpless thing who can’t take care of herself, my credibility is officially in shambles.
It’s bad enough that Liam only hired me as a favour to my big brother. How am I ever going to prove myself in the business world when my boss is witnessing the people who know me best treating me like this?
I sigh and adjust my glasses. “Look, I’m flattered that everybody wants to assassinate Rocky on my behalf but if you all get tossed into jail, I won’t have anybody to hang out with and that would suck.”
My brother rolls his eyes. “Haha! Good to see you can laugh about this mess. But I’m definitely not joking around.”
“Y’know what they say—gotta laugh so you don’t cry,” I mutter under my breath.
Pulling a wad of Kleenex from my bra to blot my eyes, I turn and plod into the darkest, loneliest, saddest corner of the nightclub. I drop onto a low suede sofa, feeling sorry for myself, trying to weed through the tangle of emotions inside me as I pluck the flowers out of my hair, crumple them up and dump them into the table’s centerpiece.
When a waitress swings by my table wearing skintight sequinned leggings and clam shells over her boobs, I order the biggest, girliest, most obnoxious cocktail on the drinks menu.
Propping one leg up on the other one, I squeeze my fingers past my strappy heels and massage my tired feet. I’m much more accustomed to the sensible little black pumps I wear to the office every day. Not these tall stilettos I bought for the marriage that didn’t happen.
The waitress returns with my drink and she places it on the small coffee table in front of me. It’s frosty and blue like a Slurpee with cherries, gummy fish and neon-colored umbrella straws hanging off the rim of the half-gallon fish bowl. I lean forward and take a sip, ready to drown my sorrows in this cocktail.
But it isn’t long until an imposing shadow stretches over my table. My heart shouldn’t flutter the way it does when I glance up and make eye contact with Jace. Damn the charming bastard, with that dimpled smile and that dark tousled hair and that raw sex appeal dripping from his mile-wide shoulders.
It’s all very confronting. Especially for a drunk girl.
Today was an emotional day. I try not to beat myself up for having an inappropriate visceral reaction to my brother’s best friend.
He plops onto the sofa, all easygoing nonchalance. But that carefree grin of his looks forced tonight. “So, what are we drinking?” His chin gestures toward my cocktail glass.
I sway slightly when I lean forward and take another sip of the sweet, sour, boozy concoction. “Fishbowl punch.”
He lifts one perfect eyebrow and regards me with open judgement, like he finds my drink choice ridiculous. I feel a reluctant smile lifting one corner of my mouth.
Jace’s eyes stay on me as I lift my cocktail and suck on the straw, taking a few silent sips. Is it just me or is he staring at my lips? I must be imagining it. I guess getting left at the altar makes a girl desperate for validation, no matter the source. Or maybe I’m just having a hard time seeing through the seven thousand sticky fingerprints on my glasses.
Anyway, the way he’s looking at me is making me self-conscious. With both hands, I lift my giant glass off the table and tip it back, swallowing down the last of my booze.
He scoots closer and nudges my shoulder with his. “Talk to me,” he coaxes softly. “Tell me what's going on in your head."
I shake my head and I can almost feel my sponge-like brain bouncing off the hard walls of my skull. “I…I…”
“Come on, Seraphine. You can tell me anything.” Those warm chocolate eyes watch me encouragingly.
I shrug. My teeth sink into the inside of my cheek as I carefully choose my words. “What can I say? I’m The Sweetheart of Sin Valley. Dumped on her wedding day.” My quiet voice cracks under the heavy beat of the club’s jarring music. My eyelids rim with tears that never manage to fall. “I feel like such a loser. How could I have been so stupid, Jace? How could I not see that Rocky didn't love me?” I stare into his pretty, pretty face, searching for an explanation. “I mean, was I just that desperate to matter to somebody? Or was I too distracted by my job to notice that he didn't care? Did I bring this on myself? I don't even know what to think.” The idea is absolutely overwhelming.
Jace tilts his head to the side and watches me under a furrowed brow.
“And why the hell am I not crying?” I ask in a whisper, almost embarrassed that I haven’t lost my shit and broken down. “No emotional outbursts. No overwhelming sadness. Just...acceptance.” I pause and toe off one high heel and then the other. “It’s so weird, Jace. It's like…what if I didn't love him either?” I meet my friend’s eyes now, absolutely horrified by my own words. “As far as I’m concerned, marriage is a lifetime thing. And if Rocky and I wouldn’t make it to forever, it’s a blessing in disguise that we never got to the altar, right? I mean...what if I was about to marry a man I wasn't in love with? God, should I be thankful that Rocky called off the wedding?” I speak distractedly as I curl my legs beneath me, my silky wedding dress puddling out around me on the sofa.
Something weird crosses Jace’s expression. It’s gone before I get a good read on it. But if I had to take a guess, I’d say it looked a little bit like…desire?
God—this cocktail is hitting hard. I quickly drop my eyes and examine my
empty fishbowl. How drunk am I exactly?
He pauses. His soulful brown eyes slowly scan my face. “I’m sorry, Baby Girl,” he says quietly.
“Sorry for what?”
“I'm sorry because...I don't know how to make this better.” He lays a big hand on my cheek. “You know that if I could I would, right?”
When he says that, my teenage crush on my brother’s best friend lifts one corner of the comforter and pokes an eye out from under the bed where I stuffed it away a long, long time ago.
With a fluttering heart, I lick my lips and look away. “I know…”
I blink against the harsh neon lights and stare off across the room. Desiree is still swaying and yawning on her barstool, but Minka has climbed up onto a tabletop. A crowd of captivated men surround her as she performs a one-woman burlesque show under a shower of dollar bills. Meanwhile, an exasperated-looking Katrina tries to coax the tipsy wild child back to solid ground while Nadia tosses more shots back and laughs her ass off. Oh, boy.
Jace flags over the waitress. The perky woman and her perky boobs are standing at our table in a flash. “What can I get you?” She bats her long lashes at my friend.
I thrust my empty glass out to her. “Another fishbowl thingy. But bigger, if you can. And with more cherries. And maybe some sprinkles. And if you happen to have a little coconut Cool Whip—”
Chuckling, Jace grabs my hand out of the air. “Okay, okay. You plan on getting shit-faced drunk tonight. I get the point. You don’t need a mouth full of cavities, too.”
The waitress returns her flirty smile to Jace. “And what can I get you, handsome?”
“Just a water bottle,” he tells her with only a brief glance.
I roll my eyes at my irritatingly over-protective friend and his conservative drink order. “Boring!” I heckle, giving him two enthusiastic thumbs down. “I thought you were a fun guy, Jason Bellino. Since when did you become such a buzzkill?”
Playing House: A Small Town Brother’s Best Friend Romance (The Playboys of Sin Valley Book 1) Page 3