by Emilia Finn
“The point is,” Jen sneers when Hannah makes herself busy fixing the mirror I knocked over. “Bryan Kincaid is a douche. His cousin is getting married. His other cousin is famous for shaking her ass. And while we’re on that train, his sister is a stuck-up bitch. But there ain’t a damn thing I can do about it except pour their champagne during dress fittings, because…” She does the jazz hands. “Hello, status and money. I’m not saying no to this opportunity.”
“Do they know who you are?” I whisper. I push up to sit, to get closer, like that’ll help me get to the truth. “Is it awkward when they’re getting the dress altered?”
She shakes her head. “I suspect I’m one of a million idiots who has used his revolving door. I doubt he gives his family a report on who he’s fucked in his spare time.”
“So you just…” Chrissy turns on my legs to study Jen. “You just act like everything is normal?”
“Uh huh. That’s called being a professional.”
“You should fuck up her dress,” Hannah growls. “Make it too small so she feels fat on her wedding day.”
I roll my eyes and scoff. “She’s a professional fighter. Girls with six-packs don’t feel fat. They know it’s literally not possible.”
“I wish I had the lady balls to fuck something up for them,” Jen whines. “That family has been nothing but a pain in my ass my whole life. He’s the reason I’m not the one being fitted for a wedding dress.”
“Err… Nope.” I hiccup, and ride my wave of drunken happiness. “You are the reason you don’t get that pretty dress. You were the one with a ring on her finger. He was just…” I snicker, then slur. “Entrepreneurial, I guess. I’m not saying it doesn’t make him a total dick,” I throw my hand up to the skies, like the universe will feel my wrath. “And it’s soooo much worse, because we know he did it to dig at Jackson. But he didn’t cheat on anyone, Jen. That’s on you.”
Point made, I drop back to the thick pillows, and go to take a sip of my wine, only to find it mysteriously empty. “Who did that?” I look up. “It’s all gone.”
“I got it.” Chrissy snatches my glass and rolls off the bed to refill it. “And I agree with Maddi. Sleeping with you may have been a dick move… but we already knew he was a dick. You were the one in a relationship. But also…” She pulls the foil off a brand-new bottle of white, then turns to us and points a finger, “You didn’t even like him anyway.”
“Bryan?”
“No, Andrew! Raise of hands, please, ladies. Who here thought Andrew was our girl’s prince charming?”
Not one single hand is raised, so Chrissy turns back to the wine and begins pouring. “Dodged a bullet, is all I’m saying.”
“It was a good pairing,” Jen grumbles. “His family, and my family—”
“Are you a fucking dog?” I demand. “Is it imperative you breed more designer dogs? Jesus, Jenna! Get off the ‘Momma and Daddy said’ train, and think for yourself. He was a dick, he had a combover, he was as boring as a bag of rocks—”
“And about that smart.” Chrissy tips the bottle back and takes a long chug. “He was a complete idiot. We need to choose smart, ladies. And Andrew was never gonna make the cut.”
“I had a plan,” Jenna whines. “And one night with a jerk undid it all.”
“One night of something fun and mysterious,” I point out. “And now you’re holding a grudge against the wrong person, all because you got caught.”
“Whose side are you on?” She grabs a nail file from the bed and tosses it at me. “Girl squad means blind support, Maddi! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I support you!” I laugh. “Ohhhhh, that scoundrel. That good for nothing, but very pretty jerkhole. I just cannot believe he’d go to bed with a pretty girl when the opportunity arose.”
“My daddy is still pissed,” she whimpers. “All that non-refundable money. All of those guests. The business dealings that were supposed to take place.”
I lay back down when Chrissy brings my glass over, and though I roll my eyes, I hide it from the scorned. “Have you ever considered falling in love, ya know, for the sake of falling in love? And not because it would be an economically appropriate move?”
“Of course I’ve considered it,” she snaps. “But that’s not how it was gonna work out for me. Now I’m designing Little Miss Obnoxious’ dress, and having to bite my tongue every time she and her perfect posse of pretty princesses come into my shop.”
I snort. “Alliteration is so much fun.”
Frustrated with my lack of giving a shit, she grabs her glass of wine and chugs half in one go. “This is why I drink, by the way. Because the world ain’t fair.”
“You’re so right,” I give an exaggerated sigh. “Scoundrels and jerks. Every man on this planet is either a scoundrel or a jerk. Zero exceptions.”
“Thank you!” She finishes her wine and lets out a low growl. “It’s about damn time you showed some damn respect.”
“When’s the wedding?” Hannah asks – loudly – with a swish and a flick of her powder brush. “Is it gonna be a drawn out, ten-year thing where we’ll never hear the end of it? Or is it the already knocked up and needs to tie the knot to make it all tidy kind?”
“I don’t think she’s knocked up,” Jenna answers. “She was in this week for a fitting.” She looks down at her naturally thin body, and grabs the world’s smallest roll of skin at her belly. “She has a six-pack, guys.” She sighs. “I see her in her underwear, and I’m just saying, if I was into chicks, I’d have a hard time not coming when that Kincaid crooked her finger too.”
“Ugh.” Hannah tosses her brush and swaps it for an eyeliner pen. “That’s so annoying. Some people get everything, and others have nothing.”
Says the socialite’s daughter who has never gone hungry in her life.
“Newspaper said November,” Chrissy mumbles. She turns to her side, and plays with the rope around my shorts as she slowly, carefully winds it around her finger. “Mid-November. Early enough that it can be out of the way before this year’s tournament, but late enough that she’s had most of the year to plan it.” She pouts. “I read the whole effing article.”
A cellphone trills somewhere beneath the piles of pillows and tossed clothes, but everyone knows it must be Jen’s or Chrissy’s. Both are on-call for work, both uber professionals.
Considering I’ve literally never heard my ringtone in my life – hello, silent mode – I lay back and let them scramble for their phones to see who has to work while drunk.
I sure hope it’s not Chrissy.
“It’s mine,” Jen raises her ringing phone like it’s a trophy, then brings it back down and coughs, like clearing her throat will make her sound less intoxicated.
When she has it under control, she hits the green icon and lifts her chin – like that, too, will help hide her inebriation.
“Hello?” Her brows pull closer together. “Miss Kincaid.” She grits her teeth – comically so – and fists her glass of wine until her knuckles turn white. “Hi, I was just thinking about you.”
Drunk me insists I howl at the irony. Drunk me insists Jen put her call on speaker so we can all listen to Sporty Spice. But PR me grabs a pillow and presses it to my face before I get my friend’s ass booted out of a wedding she really wants, because… ‘status and money.’
“Oh… uh, sure. That’s fine. I can…” She pauses with a frown. “Sure. I’ll fix my schedule to make that work. Yeah, girl! Totally okay.”
“Yeah, girl?” I howl into the pillow. Giggle until tears form in my eyes. But then a fist slams down onto my exposed thigh, and ruins my attempts at being quiet.
“You got it, Miss Kincaid. I’ll see you on Friday. Yup! It’s totally fine. Okay, bye… okay, bye…” She grunts. “Okay. Bye.”
I remove my pillow, and peek at my friend as she pulls the cell away from her ear and hangs up, then I squeal when she turns to me and slams a fist onto my thigh a second time.
“Ouch!”
�
�Don’t mock me while I’m on the phone, jerk!”
“Who says ‘yeah, girl’? Yeeeaahhh, gurrrrrl.” I cackle. “You sound like you’re trying too hard.”
Unamused, Hannah scowls. “What are the chances of her calling right when we were talking about her?”
“Probably felt her ears burning,” Chris mumbles. “What’d she want?”
“Reschedule her next fitting,” Jen grumbles. “We were booked in for Wednesday. I moved clients for the Wednesday slot, and now she wants Friday.”
“You’ll have to move clients again? Guuurrrrrl…” I burst out laughing. “Guuuuuurl, that sucks!”
“Shut up!” She tosses her phone so hard that the corner slams against my knee and – I swear – dislocates the whole damn thing.
“Ouch! Stop hurting me. What happened to that oath about never harming?”
“That was me,” Chris raises a hand. “Jen never made that promise.”
“Gurrrrrrl.” I scramble along the bed with snorting giggles when Jen’s face reddens with anger. “You’re such a pussy,” I tell her. “You bitch about her behind her back, but then you yeah, girl her to her face. That makes you two-faced and a coward.”
“Er, no. That makes me a smart businesswoman who knows not to shit in the hand that feeds me.”
“Pussy.” I climb off the edge of the bed, stumble when the covers try to tangle me up and pull me back. Then I trip my way to the bottle of wine Chris opened. “You’re all pussies. Over here bitching about a family, but you’re waaaaay too scared to ever say anything to their faces.”
“Why would we say something to their faces?” Hannah glowers. “That’s called career suicide.”
“Is it really?” I pour, and giggle when it spills. “They seem like a duke-it-out kind of family. If they have enemies, they fight about it, not bitch about it.”
“Easy for you to say,” Jen scowls. “You haven’t had a run-in with any of them.”
“You slept with the ponyboy.” I clap my hands. “You.” Clap. “Slept.” Clap. “With.” Clap. “Him! He didn’t take advantage of you. You’re just mad that you got caught. And you!” I point at Hannah. “You’re mad he won’t sleep with you.” Then I turn to Chris. “Remind me again why you’re mad?”
She snickers. “They’re obnoxious.”
“Oh yeah! She’s mad because they’re loud. Gurrrrrl, those rapscallions are so loud.”
“You should be the maddest of us all!” Hannah snaps. “Are you serious right now, Maddi? You know the stories. You know what that family did to yours.”
“Please.” I roll my eyes so hard that I almost drop to the floor. “I’m finding it a little hard to get mad over what happened like…” I count with my fingers. “I don’t even know. Fifty years ago? Sixty? Fuck knows how long, but it was eons before I was born.”
“If you met them,” Hannah growls, “you’d get on board this hate train.”
“I should pull the rug on the dress,” Jen grumbles. “Get her excited for her gown, and on the morning of the wedding, accidentally lose it.”
“Yes!” Hannah stands, so this becomes super American Pie, ‘we’re all going to lose our virginity’ pact. “Yes! Let’s fuck them up. As if they don’t deserve a slice of humble pie once in a while.”
“Not it,” Chris slides in with a fast tap of her nose. “Nuh uh. I’ve grown since grade school. I have a career I’d really like to keep, and self-respect I’d rather not toss to the gutter.”
“I can’t do it,” Jen says. “They already know me. Bryan…” She shudders. “Intimately. And Evie, because of her dress.”
We look to Hannah.
She only shrugs and lets out a drunken belch. “I’ll have to think about it. It’s not like I see them on the daily, so opportunities to fuck them up won’t come organically.
“Oh! OH!” She bounces with excitement. “You should approach them, Maddi! Offer to sponsor the tournament, or some shit. Get them invested, but make sure you add some clause to the contract that’ll get you out of it.”
I bark out a loud laugh. “Why the hell would I want to get out of it? Having Monaco logos plastered all over their tournament would be a solid business move for my company. Hell, my dad might actually tell me he loves me.”
Chris throws her head back on a bellowing laugh. “Poor Maddi, our emotionally stunted mushroom. Her daddy never told her he loves her.”
“Shut up.”
I grab the almost empty bottle and chug until it’s all gone. Then I slam it back to the mahogany countertop and spin when the door at the top of the stairs opens.
First, a pair of shoes come into sight – black, dusty, and a little scuffed at the toes. Then jeans – dark, designer, and expensive. Thighs – thick, muscular. Fighter’s thighs. Wrists – one of which is adorned with a shiny, gold Rolex. Then finally, Jenna’s older brother comes into sight, his chiseled jaw and salon-styled haircut, before he stops at the bottom of the steps and takes in the carnage of four women, seven bottles of wine, and one epic bitchfest.
His dark eyes roam along my legs, so when they stop on my gaze, his lips quirk up – despite the bleeding slit that mars them. “Ladies.”
“Go away,” Jenna whines. “Girls only tonight.”
But then she looks again, and her eyes widen.
“Jackson!” She throws herself off the bed, and races to the stairs to cup her brother’s bruised jaw. She runs a thumb beneath a bruising eye, and turns his face to the left to study the other side. “What the hell happened to you?”
He tries to shrug her off. Tries to act unaffected. “Just a scuffle.”
“With who?” she screeches. “And what the hell about?” If she had sleeves, she’d already be rolling them up. “Dammit, Jackson. This isn’t the first time you’ve come home with a busted face.”
Again he shrugs, and flashes a smirk in my direction.
Jackson is… I consider how best to explain him, and while I do that, I take a sip of expensive wine.
Well, Jackson is twenty-four years old, he’s handsome, fit, esteemed – whatever the hell that means in real-world terms – and has enough money to never have to work a day in his life.
Helloooooo, trust fund.
He fights at the local Devil’s Muay Thai gym, trains a couple times a week, and holds a filthy grudge because the one family he wishes would train him… said no.
Ouch.
He pulls away from Jenna’s probing hands, only to slide in my direction, and doesn’t stop until his expensive cologne is all I smell, his chest, all I see.
He’s broad, muscular, enigmatic. He’s what we’d call a career flirt.
But in my drunken mind, I poke my fingers into my mouth and fake gag.
“Have you guys seriously been getting your drunk on all night?” He lifts the empty bottle I just set down, turns it in his hands, then brings his trouble-filled gaze back to me. “A hundred and seventy-five dollars a bottle, and you ladies are treating it like this is an underage party in Kentucky.”
“Don’t hate us because you wanna be us.” I snatch up my glass and try to make my sip elegant. In reality, fruity white dribbles along my chin and drips onto my chest. “Who hit you?”
Jackson’s eyes darken. His jaw clenches and releases. “It’s not important.”
“It was Bryan Kincaid,” Jen snaps. “Wasn’t it?” She rushes to her phone, picks it up like that might somehow give her the answers she seeks. “It was, wasn’t it?”
He shrugs.
“It was! We’ve been talking about that family. Then the cousin called. Now this. Why did that prick hit you?”
“Dude doesn’t like to acknowledge that money can’t buy class, I guess.”
“Ugh!” Jenna tosses her phone down and storms back to where we stand. “I knew it was him! I totally knew it! It’s like the universe wants to rub them in our faces tonight.”
“What did they do?” Jackson asks. He narrows his eyes and stoops a little lower to catch her gaze. “Did that fucker come ba
ck looking for more?”
“No,” she grumbles. “I’m doing the wedding dress for his cousin. Chris saw the announcement in the paper. Hannah is big mad because…” She shrugs. “I don’t remember. And Maddi is over here defending them.”
Jackson’s fiery eyes swing to me.
“I wasn’t defending them!” I throw my hands up between us – and spill half of my expensive-ass wine. “I wasn’t defending them personally. I was simply…” Let’s go, drunk brain! You can do this. “Explaining that Jen’s grudge may be a little self-inflicted.”
“If you’re not with us on this,” he snarls, “then you’re the enemy.”
“Good lord.” I roll my eyes. “The drama in this house! I didn’t say they were my friends. I don’t even know them.”
“You know of them,” Jackson presses. “You know who they are.”
“Of course I know who they are. Everyone knows. But I don’t know them. I haven’t met them.”
“We’re gonna fuck them up,” Hannah adds with a sneer.
Jackson’s eyes go to hers; intense, steely, and dangerous. “Yeah?”
She nods and preens under his attention. “I say we make this the year of redemption. We’re taking them down.”
“You’re being way too melodramatic about this.” I take a sip of wine and sigh when it goes down as smooth as butter.
I think I’ve taken a step past drunk, and now I’m wading into… fucked up.
“I’m sleepy.” I turn away from Jackson and miss the way his hungry eyes slide over my ass as I move. The way his bleeding knuckles flex when he wants to reach out. The way he’s the hungry wolf, and I’m the naïve Little Red. “You guys can keep bitching. I need to pee, then I’m gonna watch a movie.”
I set my wine down on the bedside table, then move into the connected bathroom, and brush the fur from my teeth.
“He hit you?” Jenna asks her brother. “Bryan Kincaid hit you?”
“Bryan Kincaid is a fucking asshole,” he growls. “He was with some chick tonight, she said no when he started getting handsy, and when he wouldn’t listen, I fixed it for her.”