by Serena Bell
“Gabe,” Lucy says.
“You know these are real questions,” he tells her, in a way gentler tone. “Along with, will there be some customers who don’t like the fact that we’re peddling sex toys?”
That gets my blood up. “They can go fuck themselves. What Rachel’s doing is great. Yeah, she’s selling sexy stuff, but she’s also educating. You should have seen those women. They had fun, and they learned a lot, too. If we have customers who are uptight about this, they can fuck right off.”
Gabe draws back, obviously startled by my speech—and my vehemence.
But he doesn’t argue. He looks at me, considering, and then nods. “I need numbers,” he says. “Show me the numbers.”
And once again I’m staring at his back as he strides away.
Damn it.
This is such a familiar scenario. The way my stomach clenches, I might as well still be the teenager who just lost his first job after showing up late for the third time in a row.
Nothing I do will ever be good enough for Gabe.
Lucy’s face is sympathetic. Her kindness makes me feel, if anything, a tiny bit worse than Gabe’s hardassery.
“You got this, Brody,” she says. “We’re going to make this work. I’m going to go get started on your campaign. Line up as many of these as you can with Rachel and let me know the dates.”
“Thanks.” I hand her back her phone, which she pockets before heading back to her workstation.
I pull out my own phone and take another look at the reviews.
It was fun to talk about this stuff.
What a great setting for a party.
I’m pissed at Gabe, sure.
But for a change, that familiar emotion is warring with an unfamiliar one. It’s definitely quiet, muted—but it’s there.
Pride.
And that’s the emotion that makes me text Rachel:
Let’s do it.
9
Rachel
“Louisa,” I plead over the phone. “I need your help.”
Louisa is a first-class bestie. After I saw Werner’s butt, Louisa helped me pack up my stuff and get the hell out of that apartment. I slept at her place that night, and we shuttled the rest of my stuff into storage and found me a plane ticket. Meanwhile, she pushed boxes of tissues, glasses of water, chocolate, and wine at me, listened as I told the story of where perfect had landed me, and instructed me that I should have a rebound fling with “that bad boy.”
Ages ago, I’d mentioned that Brody was my first crush. Unrequited. She wanted to know if I’d ever tried to see if it could be requited, and I said that Brody had never given me even the slightest sign that he was interested in my existence, let alone my lady bits.
Anyway, I told Louisa, by the time I’d had the wherewithal to stage anything like a seduction, Connor had gone off to college and Brody had stopped coming around. She said that was lame, and I said it was life.
We were probably both right.
“You got it! What’s up?” she asks me now, in response to my SOS.
“I need to bag the bad boy.”
She screams on the other end of the phone, and I have to pull it away from my ear. When it’s safe to resume holding it by my head, she says, “Rachel Perez, are you going to do something that’s not in the plan?! Say it isn’t so!”
Louisa and I are opposites-attract friends. She has never had a plan in her life, and I have rarely moved a muscle without one. It works, somehow, the way these things do. But we make fun of each other a lot, which is probably how we cope with how impatient we make each other. Like, Louisa is basically never on time. Ever. And I pretty much won’t say yes to anything if I don’t have twenty-four hours to plan it.
“You have to tell me everything. Everything!”
“It’s a long, zany story.”
“I’ve got time.”
It’s hard to know where to start, but I tell her about my mom breaking her foot and about the first girls’ night out.
“Wait, what?” Louisa demands. “You? You’re selling sex toys? How does that even happen? Was that in the plan?”
“No,” I say. “It was definitely not in the plan. But I kind of love it.”
I tell her about the parties I’ve done. How the women talk to each other, the confessions they make, and the healing they do.
“That’s really cool. But what does this have to do with the bad boy?”
“I told you it was a long story. The bad boy?”
“Yesssss?”
“He has a boat.”
“Okaaayy?”
“And, long story, but the gist is, his family owns an outdoor adventure business—you know, it’s the Pacific Northwest—and they’re trying to get more business from spa-and-wedding tourists, and he asked me to do a girls’ night out on his boat.”
“And you said yes?” she demands. “To selling sex toys on his boat?”
I can’t exactly claim credit for that decision. I explain about how I didn’t know it was sex toys. And neither did Brody.
“But then I found out and I did it anyway.”
I tell her about the women at my first party and how they inspired me with their bruised but brave sex lives and their honesty.
“Holy shit, Rush Creek Rachel is incredibly badass.”
She kind of is, I think.
“Yeah, well, she needs to be even more bad…tushy.” Gopher butt, I’m talking about myself in the third person. “I need to be even more badtushy. I need to seduce him.”
I could swear Louisa is cheering.
I start to explain about Jack Buddy and she jumps in. “Oh, my God, I used to love that thing when I was dating this guy who was totally obsessed with hand jobs!”
I tell her about Brody’s studied disinterest, and, most importantly, what happened after the party. How Brody was staring at my mouth, how he looked up guiltily and said, “Connor would kill me,” and how we both knew he didn’t mean for selling vibrating bunnies on his boat. And I update her on the state of the union with the parties, that after he said he didn’t want to do any more, he agreed to do at least a second one, in a few days.
“So? So? What are you going to do about it?”
“Well,” I say. “I don’t know. It’s confusing. He is my brother’s best friend. This could be the small town equivalent of a diplomatic incident. Maybe even declaration-of-war level.”
“Rachel,” she says sternly. “You are not going to miss your chance to bag the bad boy because your big brother might get testy with you.”
“No,” I agree. “That would be criminal.”
“So? What’s the plan?”
“I guess… I’m going to seduce Brody Wilder, on his boat, with a sparkly purple dildo?”
She giggles. “It sounds like a kinky game of Clue. I guess now we know what the rope and the candle were really for.”
“Candlestick.”
I can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “Candle. Like, wax. You know.”
“Wax?”
“Oh, Rachel,” she groans. “You have so, so much fun ahead of you.”
“I need a strategy,” I say.
“Do you?” she asks. “It sounds like you’re doing pretty well without a plan.”
I picture the smolder in Brody’s green eyes and decide she’s right. Also, for the first time in my life without a plan sounds strangely wonderful.
“Oh, shit!” Louisa cuts into my fantasy, sounding panicked. “I just realized I’m supposed to be on a work call as of three minutes ago. Gotta run. Enjoy your walk on the wild side!”
“My walk on the Wilder side,” I correct, giddy. “It’s way wilder than picking your scarf with your eyes closed, right?”
That’s one of the things Louisa makes fun of me for, that I have fifty-five days worth of interchangeable work clothes (eleven shirts, five pants; can be worn in any combo), but I choose my scarves daily with my eyes closed, to shake things up.
Louisa snorts. “Fuck yeah. Have fun, girl!”<
br />
We say goodbye, and I swipe to hang up.
“Who was that?” a deep voice behind me asks from the doorway, and I nearly jump out of my skin.
“Connor! I didn’t know you were here! Where’s your truck?”
And, oh, megadooky! Was he listening?
“Dad took it to Home Depot. I was helping Mom with some stuff. Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”
Nah. He couldn’t have been listening, because he doesn’t look particularly concerned. And I know Connor doesn’t hold back when he has an opinion, which he definitely would if he’d heard anything I’d said about Brody.
Connor is intensely protective of me, and always has been. One of my most cherished memories is of the time when Connor was teaching me to ride a bike. He kept saying, “I won’t let you fall, Rachey!” Finally my dad came outside and made Connor let him take over. It took me all of five minutes after that to ride on my own. When Connor grumped about my dad taking all the credit for his hard work, my dad told Connor: “You can’t teach someone to ride a bike if you won’t let her fall.”
Yep. That’s Connor.
The universe must be looking out for me, because a moment later, my dad pulls up and climbs out of the truck, and Connor gives me an unconcerned wave, jumps in, and drives away.
Whew.
If I’m going to walk on the Wilder side, I should probably do it a little more stealthily.
10
Brody
The night after Lucy spots my good reviews, Kane and Hanna corner me in the office after work and invite me to Oscar’s Saloon & Grill with them.
I’ve mostly stayed away from Oscar’s since the incident where I got stinking drunk and picked a (well-deserved) fight with Len Dix, but Kane is insistent.
“Brody.” Kane is my most level-headed brother. “You can’t stay away from Oscar’s forever. It has the best burgers in town.”
“Wait, you’re going to Oscar’s?” Easton demands, appearing out of nowhere. He has a way of doing that when there’s the slightest opportunity for a night out, a party, or getting laid.
“Right,” Hanna says. “I just remembered I have to wash my hair tonight.”
“Go easy on me, Han,” Easton says. “I’ve been a good boy lately.”
“Meaning you spent at least one night in your own bed this week?”
Hanna and Easton have been frenemies as long as any of us can remember. They were in the same class at school, and when Hanna applied for employment at Wilder Adventures, Easton begged Gabe not to hire her. “She hates me,” he pleaded, but Gabe said Hanna was too good at what she did to let that get in the way. He’d said she’d be mostly working with Kane, and Easton wouldn’t see her that often.
That didn’t turn out to be true, but somehow Easton and Hanna have tolerated each other all these years.
And they’re very good entertainment.
There must be some kind of magnetic field whenever three or more Wilder brothers are gathered, because Gabe and Clark drift over, then, shortly after that, Amanda. Before I can come up with a good excuse, I’m being shepherded into Gabe’s Jeep and driven into town.
And to be honest, it’s really nice. I’ve been in a weirdly good mood all week, ever since the reviews came out, and for a change, I don’t feel like there’s a wall of black fog between me and Gabe. The seven of us cram into a booth made for six, and we drink and kid around. Even Clark jokes a bit, showing more life than he has in months. Then people start drifting away, until it’s just Kane, Clark, Easton, and me, and the conversation turns to the whole Wilder Adventures revamp. Kane’s starting to plan a big winter holiday event to fundraise for breast cancer survivor support—the Tinsel and Tatas Winter Games & Gala. Clark’s got some fancy RVs in the works, but short term, he, Gabe, and Lucy are hosting glamped-up camping trips with—“Get this,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Shower tents and toilet tents.”
“Wait, so—someone has to hump that?” Easton asks.
“Yeah, that’s why I’m bringing backups.”
“No,” Kane protests. “That’s gotta be twenty pounds, at least.”
“Yup. Making Gabe carry it.”
We all laugh.
All of a sudden Kane, who’s facing the back of the restaurant, gets a look on his face. Alarm bells go off in my mind. “What?”
“Nothing.” But he gets up from where he’s sitting—on the other side of the booth with Clark—and slides in next to me. Which is fucking weird. I turn around to look, and shit.
It’s Zoë, with a sleeping Justin in her arms, and Len Dix, and they’re coming toward our booth.
Now I get why Kane changed seats. To hem me in so I couldn’t get up. That’s Kane for you: the peacemaker, the problem-solver, the trouble-soother. When we were kids and the rest of us were beating the shit out of each other, Kane was mediating, making us “use our words” and “talk it out.”
I have to admit, I can’t help wondering if Kane actually likes running trips. All us other Wilder brothers are living our best lives—well, except for our romantic disasters—but Kane? I don’t know. Sometimes I think he might be happier doing something else.
“Hi, Brody,” Zoë says. Her brown hair is pulled back in a too-tight ponytail, her skin is paler than usual, and there are dark circles under her eyes. “Hey. Kane, Clark, Easton.”
My brothers all give her tight unsmiling nods.
Love them.
Len Dix doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t make eye contact. He’s a big white guy. Beefy and bearded. He looks like a lumberjack, and for good reason—he runs his dad’s lumbermill, employing an army of axe-wielding bearded dudes.
“Hi, Zoë,” I say. “Little late for Justin to be out, right?”
Well, shit. Didn’t know I was going to say it until it was too late.
“Not your concern, Wilder,” Len says.
I don’t have time to make a decision before I realize I’m being wrestled back into the booth by Easton and Kane, while Clark says, “Move along, Zoë—that’s what you’re good at, anyway, right?” Through the red haze of my rage I see Len start to round on my brother, but Clark gets to his feet and Len seems to think better of it. Clark’s as big as Len, and even a dumb Dix wouldn’t take on four Wilders in the middle of Oscar’s.
Then they’re gone and the fight fizzles out of me.
Easton pushes his half-full glass of whiskey across the table and I down it.
“Thanks,” I say.
I mean, Thanks for the whiskey, but also, Thanks for not letting me kick the shit out of him. Thanks for having my back. Thanks for knowing the right thing to say and the right thing to do, even though I haven’t been able to tell you what the fuck’s going on.
“Of course,” Easton says, and Clark and Kane nod. Not the tight one. The one that says, We’re brothers.
Which is sometimes all you need to know about us.
I wonder what would have happened if they hadn’t been here.
And for some reason, right then, I think about Rachel. Maybe it’s because she was there the last time I hit Len. Maybe it’s because most nights I haven’t been able to get her out of my head since she brought all those wiggly, vibrating objects onto my boat. Maybe it’s because right about now, Connor’s words are coming back to me:
Just don’t do anything half-assed till you have some time to sort yourself out.
Amen to that, friend.
11
Rachel
By the time I do Brody’s second party, I’ve hosted a couple more with my mom and have a pretty decent sense of the rhythm and flow. It’s basically like good sex: lots of conversation, plenty of foreplay, and then the lube comes out.
“So this—” I hold it up and take a quick peek to see where Brody is. He’s just outside the cabin door, standing and studying the sky, which is ribbed with wispy clouds.
He’s wearing his usual: jeans that on anyone else would be next week’s trash, but are living their best life cupping his business. Of course, boo
ts—badass boots—do women get to ask men to leave their boots on in bed? I’m seriously considering it. Assuming I can get him into bed…
“This is warming gel. There are so many fun things you can do with it.” I planned ahead for this. Yes, planned. I wasn’t planning to plan. It just happened. I pour a tiny bit of gel into a bunch of those little paper cups you get free samples in at the grocery store and pass them around. “You can rub it in almost anywhere, and it’ll warm up and start to tingle. Lips, clit, nipples, labia…”
I practiced that about a thousand times in the mirror earlier, and I manage the whole explanation without stuttering even a little. Which is good, because when I sneak a glance his way, Brody has quit staring at the sky and is watching me. Green-eyed and intent. Yes.
“Try dabbing a little on your lips.”
I dip a fingertip into the paper cup and run it over my lower lip. The women follow suit.
“Oh, wow!”
“That’s amazing.”
“Oh, yeah, I can see how that would work other places, too.”
“It’s edible,” I inform them, licking it off my finger and taking a quick peek Brody’s way. His eyes are fixed on my mouth. On the finger between my lips. My body warms like someone has slicked the gel between my legs. Brody leans his head against the cabin door, eyes never leaving my face. The heat in my sex thickens and twists.
Auria, one of the women at my party, notices Brody and calls to him. “You want some, Brody?” She and her wife Tilly are both here. Auria owns Spa Day Sandwiches and Tilly owns Glory Day Spa.
Brody scowls. “No, thanks.”
“Works for men, too!” I say cheerfully.
He narrows his eyes at me. I bite back a smile.
“What would happen if you put it on his balls?” one of the women whispers, mostly to herself. I know she doesn’t, literally, mean Brody’s but I get an immediate and vivid mental picture.