“Does what?” I wasn’t sure if he meant the coke or the extreme public cries for attention in which Parker was prone to participate.
“All the drugs and partying. I mean, we have it made, Porter. Look at this place,” he waved an encompassing hand indicating his perfectly manicured property, “He could have all this too if he’d just stop being a dumb ass.”
“Are you calling me a dumb ass?” I asked with a wink.
“No. I get why you don’t go for this. It’s not your style. I mean, your place is nice, but it’s also very you. Sleek, modern, minimal. But Parker wants this lifestyle, he just can’t afford it because he’s constantly snorting his money and taking his glorified whores out to elite clubs. I guess I just don’t get it. When does responsibility set in? When is he going to realize how much work and planning goes into having a place like this?”
“Honestly,” I hooked my arm around his neck and pulled him into my side, “I don’t know, kid. I’ve asked myself the same question for the last ten years. It’s common sense stuff to most of us, but to him, he’s just having a little bit of fun. He sees nothing wrong with it. After all, you and I get to have fun and have the nice things. Why can’t he? He doesn’t see the difference between once or twice a year and once or twice a week. I can’t help but wonder where the hell I went wrong with him.”
“No!” Preston stopped dead in his tracks, causing me to list dangerously to one side as I turned to face him, “You can’t blame yourself for the bad decisions that asshole makes. I turned out just fine and you had to compete with him for the title of role model. If anything, I should have turned out more fucked up than he is by that reasoning. Let him take the blame for being a fuck-up. He’s a big boy now.”
“That’s a lot easier said than done, Preston.”
He sighed, clearly frustrated with me, then quirked his head to the side as if listening to a far-off voice. He groaned a few seconds later.
“If he’s in there, I really hope he’s alone and fully clothed.”
The sudden change in topic threw me for a loop and I had to double-time it to catch up to him. His hand was already on the doorknob when I came up behind him and heard what he’d been listening to.
“Oh, gross…” I braced myself for the worst and hoped for the best. He turned the knob and the door swung open.
I was glad I had prepared myself for the worst.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Preston screamed into the dim, sweaty air.
Arms and legs jolted to life and I counted at least six bodies, both male and female, scatter in every direction. Only one person remained in the center of the room as the rest of the party hurriedly poured themselves back into their clothes and slinked past us through the door.
The debut film that had given occasion to the party still played on the wall.
The prone figure of our middle brother groaned from his place on the floor. One of his hands reached out to the side, groping blindly as if it had a mind of its own.
“Your friends are all gone, fool,” Preston spat as he made his way into the room, carefully picking his way over the debris and abandoned pieces of clothing.
“Well that explains why it’s so cold in here,” Parker mumbled as he rolled over onto his side.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Preston was dangerously close to Parker’s head and his hands were on his hips, indicating he was going to flip out. I was about to bear witness to yet another brawl between my younger brothers. I knew I should step in and intercede, but Parker deserved what he had coming.
I crossed my arms and leaned against the doorframe, fighting off the grin that kept creeping onto my face.
“Outside of the raging hangover that you’re not helping, I seem to be perfectly fine, if not a little bit nude.”
“You just had an orgy to the soundtrack of your baby brother fucking his way through an entire cast! You are not perfectly fine! You’re fucked up! I’m not sure which one of us needs a shower more at this point! What the hell made you think it was okay to fuck your friends while watching me?”
Parker groaned as he returned to his position on his back and flung an arm over his eyes, “Can you try to leave quietly and close the blinds before you go shower? My head hurts.”
That was the nudge Preston needed to send him over the edge. He swung his leg back and brought it down hard into Parker’s ribs. The breath was still wheezing out of the drunk one when the shoe dropped again. I listened hard for the sound of cracking ribs with each blow. I’d step in at that point, of course. Until then, Parker was on his own.
I’d seen this play out more times than I could count. It never failed: Parker would overstep a line, Preston would finally snap and throw the first punch, then Parker would pounce like a tiger knowing that as long as he didn’t swing first, neither of them would get in any real trouble for it. He would pound the ever-living snot out of our youngest brother until I finally stepped in and pried them apart.
Since Preston was the baby, he didn’t get in trouble for starting it.
Since Parker didn’t start it, he didn’t get in trouble for defending himself.
Since nobody ever got seriously hurt, I was off the hook for not stopping them before it got physical.
Something about this fight was different though. Some sixth sense was buzzing in the back of my head and I didn’t like it.
Preston’s shoe was about to crash into Parker’s chest for the fifth or sixth time when he froze. His foot hung there, suspended in the air a few inches from Parker, for several tense moments before he lowered it to the floor and narrowed his eyes.
“Get out,” Preston hissed, “Get off my fucking property and don’t bother coming back. I can’t watch you do this to yourself anymore.” He spun on his heel and stormed by me back into the yard.
As I stood there staring into the room, I finally realized why the familiar scene had bothered me so much: Parker hadn’t even tried to fight back.
I pushed off the doorframe with my shoulder and strode toward him as he rolled back and forth on the floor clutching his ribs. Bruises were already forming on his naked skin. I could make them out even in the tenebrous light of the luxuriously large living room of the guesthouse.
When he finally caught his breath and stopped writhing at my feet, he let fly a string of curses that even I couldn’t keep up with.
When he finished, I asked the question that had been burning in the back of my mind, “Why didn’t you take him down?”
He stared at me with equal parts pain and anger shining through the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes.
“I know you could’ve,” I pressed when he turned away to stare at the ceiling in silence, “I’ve seen you do it a hundred times before. Why not this time?”
I saw his body tremble as he choked back a sob. I had to fight the urge to walk away and ignore what had just happened. That’s what I had always done before. I couldn’t close my eyes to it anymore.
“Why, Parker?” I yelled, “What the fuck is going on in that head of yours? You just laid there and took the beating of a lifetime from a guy I’ve seen you wail on dozens of times. I want to know why, goddammit!”
“Because I deserved it,” he whispered.
The tears finally slipped over the brim of his lids and traced wet streaks down his cheeks onto the carpet. Part of me felt bad for him, but a bigger part of me cheered at seeing him accept that he had messed up for once.
“I can’t argue with that,” I sighed, “Put some clothes on and let’s get you out of here before he comes back with a sledge hammer to finish the job. I’ve got a phone call to make.”
I rose to my feet and hit the power button on the projector near the door, erasing our brother’s naked body from the wall before stepping out into the sunshine. I’d spent enough time dreading the call I was about to make.
My family was a train wreck. Preston had just tried to kill Parker, my mom had detached herself from our lives in almost every way, Dad was dea
d, and I was about to have a panic attack over calling a girl.
I felt like a foolish ass as I fished my phone and her business card out of my pocket and dialed the number. I forgot how to breathe as my finger hovered over the ‘call’ button and I tried to convince myself that making the call was worthwhile.
“If you don’t push the damn button, you’ll never know,” I told myself and touched the little green phone symbol.
I put the phone to my ear and said a small prayer.
My stomach sank when the call went straight to voicemail.
“You are a fucking mess, Holly Nash.”
The encouraging words from my half-zombie best friend had me folding down the top half of the Sunday funnies to glare at her.
“Get some coffee, you grumpy bitch.”
She shuffled her way through the living room and into the kitchen, yawning and stretching as she went. Her flaming red hair looked like a flock of pigeons had nested in it over night and she wasn’t wearing anything but an emerald green bra and a silk g-string to match.
I turned my attention back to my comics while she went through the laborious process of ruining her coffee with precisely three tablespoons of sugar and a quarter cup of cream. She was so picky about her coffee that she had brought her own coffee mug to my house so that the coffee-to-junk ratio wasn’t ruined.
How she managed to keep her figure was a mystery to even the wisest of cardio queens.
As expected, my grumbly best friend and her miniature bucket of coffee flavored sugar milk joined me in short order. It only took two sips before she jumped into her play-by-play of my drunken temper tantrum from the night before.
I kept my face schooled in a mask of cool indifference, but on the inside I grew more mortified with every word out of her mouth. I could only pray that I hadn’t had a melt down of that caliber before I had left the party. I needed to call Preston and see if he could fill in any holes for me.
I was pretty sure I hadn’t been blackout drunk until the bottle of wine, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.
Becks finally stopped talking to breathe and take a sip of her latte. I pounced on the opportunity to derail her.
“I know I’ve said it a thousand times before, but I mean it this time. I’m never drinking again.”
She snorted into her nearly empty coffee bowl and rolled her eyes at me.
“You wouldn’t do that to me,” she announced as she rose to refill her caffeine supply, “Last night was comedy gold, honey. If anything, you need to be drinking more often.”
I stood and followed her into the kitchen to retrieve my cell phone. If she was this happy about how much of an ass I’d been, I needed to text Preston and apologize profusely before I called him to figure out what I’d done.
I hit the power button and waited for the screen to flash to life. Every ounce of Becks’ concentration was focused on making sure her scientific calculations were correctly executed, so I used the few moments of silence I had to practice the conversation I was about to have.
“Hey, Preston! Sorry I ruined your party last night… Let me know if I need to write a check or something.” No.
“Hi, P! I hope I didn’t break anything or throw up on someone last night!” No.
“Whatever happened, it wasn’t me!” Tempting.
I suck at apologizing.
My phone buzzed to life in a frenzy of long and short vibrations as the push notifications from text messages, emails, missed calls, and voicemails began to come through. The drunken party girl side of me told me to just hit the power button again and walk away until I went back to work the next day.
The meaner, fun-sucking adult side won the day and I pulled up my email first.
It didn’t take more than a couple flicks of my finger and a quick scan of the subject lines to ascertain that there was nothing that couldn’t wait until Monday and closed the app.
Text messages were next on my list. Becks had wandered off to the living room again, so I read through them all and fired off responses to the ones that weren’t business related. I promised myself the rest could be dealt with first thing the following morning.
I dialed my voicemail and put my phone on speaker as I turned to refill my own coffee cup. I dropped an ice cube into the steaming black liquid as I listened to the half dozen or so short updates about projects that had been green-lighted or cancelled in the twelve hours since I’d been on my self-appointed mini-vacation.
“I thought you weren’t working this weekend.” Becks was propped against the wall just inside the kitchen with her coffee cradled to her breast like an infant.
“I’m not,” I pressed the nine button on my keypad to save the message for later and waited for the last of the voicemails to play, “I’m just checking my messages and making sure the world didn’t end while I was ignoring my phone last night.”
“Hey, Holly, it’s Porter—er—Ryder. Hell, I don’t know what you know me as,” Becks and I exchanged surprised glances and she all but leapt on top of the counter to better hear what he was saying, “I figured I should probably call and apologize for last night. I was a bit drunk and pissed off at my idiot brother and I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on around me and I didn’t mean to run you over and I hope you can forgive me. If any damage was done when I spilled your drink all over you like a stumbling idiot, I’ll pay to have it repaired, cleaned, or replaced. Whatever you think is best. I’d also like to take you out for drinks or dinner or something to say thanks for not stabbing me in they eye with the stem of your martini glass. We can go wherever you want, whenever you want, and I’ll pay. Please let me know. Again, I’m so sorry for being such a total prick last night. I hope to hear from you soon.”
He left his phone number and the message ended with a click.
Becks and I stood there gaping at each other in total shock.
Had he sounded nervous? He’d definitely been rambling.
Before I had time to respond, Becks snatched my phone off the counter, ripping the charger out of the wall as she did so, and took off like a flash down the hallway. I heard the door to the bathroom slam shut and Porter’s muffled voice begin to play once more.
She wouldn’t…
Oh yes she would!
“Rebecca Sloan! You get your ass out here right fucking now!” I pounded my fist against the locked bathroom door and heard her giggle as Porter’s voice repeated his telephone number. I put my ear to the door as I furiously and uselessly jiggled the door handle. She wasn’t making a sound. I hammered my fist into the wood a few more times and yelled obscenities I didn’t even know I had in my vocabulary.
My phone slid through the crack under the door and I heard her break into hysterical laughter.
I stared down at the tiny black square of glass, metal, and plastic at my feet.
What had she done?
I bent down and retrieved the device with a trembling hand.
The screen flashed to life when I pressed the unlock button and answered my question. My stomach sank as my mind raced to come up with a way to fix it.
I sank down against the wall opposite the bathroom door and sat there staring at the text message that was still on the screen.
Dinner sounds great. Friday. 7:30. Spago Beverly Hills.
I closed my eyes and pushed my head back against the wall. I knew at that very moment that I was going to have to fake my own death. Or possibly go out in search of some heinous crime to witness so that I could testify and go into the Witness Protection Program.
My phone chirped in my hand and I dropped it like it had transformed into a spider.
An eye appeared under the door across the hall, “What did he say?” I could hear the excitement in Becks’ voice even with her face pressed to the floor.
“I don’t know and I’m not going to find out,” I said curtly, “I’m going to put you in my car, set it on fire, and drive it into the L.A. river. They’ll assume the charred remains were mine and I can slip away to Mexico un
noticed.”
“You’re being dramatic, Holly.”
“No, I’m being dead serious. I am not going on a date with a porn star. I have a career to think about. Can you imagine what the headlines of ‘People’ would read? Ugh. That’s not the kind of P.R. nightmare I want to deal with. No. Either you fix this, or your charred corpse is going for a swim.”
“So,” her eyeball disappeared from the crack beneath the door, “does that mean I can come out without you trying to hurt me?”
I kicked my phone back under the door, “No. You can fix it from there. The moment you set foot outside that bathroom, I’m going to bludgeon you with your own coffee mug.”
“Well, I’ll have to take my chances then because he says he can’t wait to see you. I’ll stay in here all night if I have to, but you’re not getting out of this. You have a date with Ryder Ruff in just over twenty-four hours and, by God, I’m gonna make sure you show up for it.”
I let myself slide sideways onto the cool hardwood and curled into the fetal position, “I hate you so much, Rebecca. You’re going to hell for this.”
“Thank me tomorrow,” she responded from her self-imposed prison cell, “Oooh! Think I can get him to send a dick pic?”
I lunged at the locked door, sending her into a fit of cackling.
“It was a joke, Holly! Christ! Calm down!”
“It wasn’t a joke and we both know it!”
“Well, it was mostly a joke,” she admitted.
“I hope the toilet overflows on you,” I spat with one final kick at the door, “It’d serve you right for being such an awful friend.”
“It’d be so worth it.”
I left my post outside the bathroom and retrieved my coffee from its spot on the kitchen counter.
She had to come out eventually, and when she did, I’d be waiting.
Holly’s text finally came through as I pulled into the gym and my first reaction was to call her and thank her for understanding. I didn’t want to push my luck though, so I just shot back a short response and called Preston. He was always my go-to guy for all things involving women.
Porter (Dick Dynasty #1) Page 4