Blitz: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romantic Comedy (Blast Brothers Book 3)

by Sabrina Stark

  Already, I'd put Mina off by explaining that my family and I weren't getting along so great – which was the God's honest truth, even if Cami and Arden didn't see it that way.

  As far as Mina's family, I figured we'd deal with them next week at the Tomato Festival and take it from there.

  But today, the surprise arrival of Cami and Arden was throwing a monkey wrench in my schedule, even more so when they informed me that Mason and Brody would be here shortly, right after they checked into a nearby hotel.

  While we waited, I'd given Cami and Arden a tour of the festival grounds, showing them the sights and explaining what we'd been doing for publicity.

  Now that the tour was over, we were standing in the festival office, killing time while waiting for my brothers. The office didn't have air-conditioning, and the windows were open, letting in the sounds and aromas of the festival.

  This would've been nice, if only I weren't under siege.

  I told Cami and Arden, "Maybe it's not you two that I'm worried about."

  Cami asked, "What does that mean?"

  I gave her a look. "I mean your fiancé—"

  She smiled. "Don't you mean your brother?"

  "Either way, you've got to admit, Mason isn't so friendly when it comes to Mina."

  "Of course he isn't," Cami said, "because he doesn't know her. Once he does, he'll love her as much as you do."

  Now that was funny. "Who says I'm in love?"

  Arden spoke up. "You don't have to say it. It's so obvious by the way you look at her. I mean, we do follow the news coverage."

  I was just about to reply with a smart-ass comment when I heard Mason's voice from somewhere behind me say, "You're giving him way too much credit."

  I turned to look, and there they were, Mason and Brody, coming into the office. They strode past me to stand with their fiancées.

  I told Mason, "Give it a rest, will you?"

  "Not a chance," he said. "You're using her, and I don't like it."

  So I'd heard. Repeatedly. "Who cares what you like?"

  "She's a nice girl," he said. "She deserves better."

  Well, that was brotherly love for you. "Better than what?" I laughed. "Me?"

  "No. Better than being used."

  By now, I'd heard more than enough. "Right. Because chicks are only good for one thing, right?"

  Cami spoke up. "Oh, stop it. You don't mean that."

  "Sure I do," I said, giving Mason a sharp look. "Because I’m just gonna dump her when the campaign's over. You know it, right?"

  I was being sarcastic, but you'd never know it from the looks on their faces. Even Cami, who was the nicest person I'd ever met, was eyeing me like I was a total piece of shit.

  And in that moment, I wasn't sure what pissed me off more – that they had such a low opinion of me, or that I had lived my life in such a way to make my sarcasm believable.

  "You know what?" I said. "Forget it. Have fun at the festival." And with that, I turned and stalked out of the building, leaving the four of them to do whatever.

  This might've been a perfect exit, if only I didn't nearly collide with a certain blonde I'd been working to avoid.

  It was Angelique Delmonico, and she was looking way too pleased for my comfort. Behind her was some heavyset guy with a video camera. He was holding the camera loose at his side, not filming, thank God.

  When I made a move to sidestep both of them, Angelique said, "Aw come on. Don't be like that."

  I stopped. "Like what? The dick who starred in your book?"

  "Well, you were a dick," she said. "So I don't know why you're complaining."

  Okay, maybe she had a point, but I wasn't nearly as bad as she made me sound. Plus, I'd changed a lot over the last few months, even before hooking up with Mina.

  I gave Angelique a hard look. "So, what do you want?"

  She smiled. "I've got something to show you."

  She'd said such a thing before. It was on the first day we'd met, when she'd showed me her ass, along with a few other choice parts, all within minutes of meeting her.

  She'd looked good. She still did.

  But looking at her now, I felt only disgust. "If it's your ass, I already saw it."

  She was still smiling, and for some reason, this made me uneasy. Was I missing something?

  With a little laugh, she said, "Oh, don't worry. This time, the ass isn't mine." And with that, she reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone. She tapped at the screen and turned it to face me.

  I felt myself frown. I was looking at a picture of Mina, and she wasn't alone. She had her arms wrapped around another guy – some blond fucker who looked like he worked out. Judging from the background, the photo was recent too, taken sometime this afternoon.

  What the hell?

  In front of me, Angelique said, "I've got the guy's name if you want it."

  I did. And I didn't. Whatever was going on, I wanted to hear it from Mina.

  I hadn't seen her for at least two hours, not since she'd left to handle some interviews.

  With growing concern, I pulled out my cell phone and checked to see if I'd missed any messages. Sure enough, she'd sent me a text maybe an hour ago. All it said was, "Where are you?"

  It was a funny question, considering that she'd been hanging with another guy. But then again, it's not like they were making out. Maybe he was a relative or a long-lost friend. Probably it was totally innocent.

  Mina wasn't the cheating type.

  And I wasn't the type to be cheated on.

  But just when I'd decided to let it go, Angelique smiled like she knew something I didn't. With a smugness that was hard to miss, she announced, "His name is Bryce, by the way."

  Chapter 68

  Chase

  A half-hour later, I spotted Mina near the kiddie rides looking nervous and unsettled. Our eyes met for only an instant before she looked away.

  I turned and looked in the same direction, but saw nothing worth watching.

  By the time I reached her, it was pretty obvious that something was wrong. Had Bryce upset her? If so, I'd deal with it.

  But when I went to wrap an arm around her waist, she pulled away and said, "Let's not."

  I shook my head. "Let’s not what?"

  "I dunno." She shoved a hand through her hair. "I guess…let's not act like a couple."

  I frowned. "But we are a couple."

  For some reason, she was having a hard time meeting my eyes. "Yeah, well, I've been meaning to talk to you about that."

  I did a double-take. What the fuck?

  She was lying.

  The last time I'd seen her, she'd been happy. And now she wasn't?

  In a careful voice, I asked, "Is there something you want to tell me?"

  Her chin lifted, and she met my gaze head-on. "Yes, actually." She hesitated. "And, um, maybe I should've said something sooner, but…" She gave a hard swallow. "I don't think this is working out."

  I stiffened. "This?"

  "Yeah. I mean…us."

  Us. That final word hit like a hammer, and for the first time in my life, I had no idea what to say.

  This had to be joke.

  With a laugh, I finally said, "You're not dumping me, are you?"

  I knew she wasn't. After all, no one dumped a guy like me.

  Call me cocky, but I knew what was true. I was the kind of guy no girl walked away from.

  If anyone walked, it was always me.

  And yet, the longer she went without answering, the more I began to wonder if Mina Lipinski would be making history, right here in the Buckville Fairgrounds.

  She still hadn't answered, and the silence grew heavy between us. I refused to fill it with words of my own.

  If she had something to say, I was all ears.

  Finally, Mina blew out a long trembling breath and said, "I probably wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but, um, yeah, that's what I'm doing."

  I'd thought I was prepared. I wasn't.

  I felt my b
lood drain from my face. "Dumping me." I tried for another laugh. "You're joking, right?"

  Her eyes narrowed. "Is that so hard to believe?"

  I forced a grin. "Well, yeah, actually."

  She made a sound of disgust. "God, you are so fucking arrogant."

  I stared down at the girl I thought I knew. Her words – the sentiment, the profanity, the way she'd said it – it was like they were coming from the mouth of a stranger.

  And of course, it wasn't lost on me that sometime within the last hour or two, she'd been hugging on her ex-boyfriend, Bryce Whoever.

  Was he the one who got away?

  The one she'd been secretly pining after for years?

  Was he that guy?

  Knowing Mina, it was hard to believe. The guy was a cheater and an asshole. And Mina was, well, the sweetest thing I'd ever known – unless I didn't know her as well as I thought.

  And now, she looked ready to cry.

  Fuck. I wanted to pull her into my arms and tell her that everything would be alright. But she'd already shoved me away once, and dumped me for good measure.

  Maybe I wasn't the one she wanted holding her.

  Yeah, it was far-fetched, but, hey stranger things had happened, right?

  If the script called for me to beg, she had no idea who she was dealing with. I forced another grin. "Hell, yeah, I'm arrogant. What, like that's a surprise?"

  From the look in her eyes, she wanted to slap the grin off my face and kick me in the nuts for good measure. But she didn't.

  Instead, she asked in an eerily calm voice, "Do you remember your idea from a week ago?"

  By now, I was finding it hard to remember much of anything. "What idea?"

  "Of getting another spokesperson to take my place."

  "Yeah?"

  "You were right. And I was wrong." Her lips formed a pale impression of a smirk. "Sorry."

  No. The only person sorry was me, because I'd just learned something that I should've realized earlier. Mina Lipinski wasn't the girl I thought she was.

  And me? I'd been playing the dutiful boyfriend long enough.

  I told her, "I'm glad you finally wised up."

  She blinked, and a single tear slid down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her fist, as if the teardrop had personally offended her. "Yeah, no kidding," she said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do."

  And with that, she turned and strode away, leaving me staring after her.

  Now, it was my turn to swallow. What the hell had just happened?

  Chapter 69

  Chase

  I didn't see Mina for the rest of the day, but I saw plenty of my brothers and their fiancées. By now, I was pissed and tired, and so confused, I felt like I was losing my mind.

  The only upside was that with my brothers on the scene, I could skip the personal appearances and shove it all onto their plates instead.

  And boy, did Mason love that.

  But I didn't care.

  Suddenly, I was finding it hard to care about anything. By the time night fell, and the midway glowed with carnival lights and the faces of happy people, I was almost ready to lose it.

  I ditched the festival and drove back to the hotel. And, because I wasn't a complete dick, I sent Mina a text beforehand, telling her to let me know if she needed a ride.

  Her reply came in an instant. "I'm good. Thanks."

  If so, that made one of us, because the longer this went on, the more I realized that I wasn't good at all. In fact, I was feeling so lost and shitty that I was having a hard time holding it together.

  But I did – right up until the moment I walked through the door of our hotel room and discovered that Mina had already moved her stuff.

  This shouldn't have been a big deal.

  It was easy to guess where she'd gone. Even though we'd been sharing my hotel room, she did have a room of her own.

  Pissed or not, I wanted to go down there and knock on her door, and while I was it, beg her tell me what had happened.

  But I didn't, because that was me.

  Of course, I wasn't the kind of guy to call the front desk either, but that's exactly what I did at ten o'clock that night, only to be told that Mina Lipinski had checked out hours ago.

  What the hell?

  Buckville was three hours away from Bayside, and she had no vehicle of her own – not up here, anyway. Today was Sunday, which meant that our next destination wasn't another festival, but wherever we called home.

  In Mina's case, this was her parents' farmhouse. In mine, this was a condo that I was dreading returning to. Why, I didn't even know.

  I mean, it's not like Mina was living with me.

  But the whole thing was so seriously messed up that I spent hours pacing my hotel room and raiding the mini bar until I was having a hard time seeing straight.

  The next morning, I woke feeling like shit, even more so when I checked the usual news sites and saw pictures of me and Mina standing near the kiddie rides, looking tense and unhappy.

  Probably, they'd caught us in mid-breakup, but this wasn't the worst of it. The real kick came when I saw the other pictures – the ones of Mina climbing into a red sports car belonging to a guy identified as Bryce Foster.

  I also came across a few shots of Bryce loading up suitcases – her suitcases, the same ones I'd loaded into my car on Friday morning.

  Now that was a kick to the gut.

  But hey, it was her loss, right?

  Chapter 70

  Chase

  From my open condo doorway, I eyed the plate of cookies that Brody held out in front of him. "What the hell are those?"

  "Cookies," he said. "What do they look like?"

  They looked like oatmeal chocolate chip, homemade too. Brody's fiancée made the best cookies of anyone I knew, but that didn't mean I was hungry for them.

  Just to be a dick, I said, "So, did you make them or what?"

  He laughed. "Yeah, right. So, are you gonna let me in?"

  I gave him a look. "Since when do you need permission?"

  He gave me a look right back. "Since you're standing in my way."

  Yeah, I was. And I was in no mood to move. It had been four days since Mina had dumped me at the Buckville Fairgrounds, and they'd been four of the longest days of my life.

  I hadn't seen her or talked to her since.

  I hadn't seen any new pictures of her either, which was a damned good thing, because the last pictures had nearly sent me over the edge.

  Brody said, "You're still in my way."

  "I know."

  "And you look like shit."

  Like that was news. "Yeah, so?"

  When I still made no move to step aside, Brody shouldered his way past me and strode toward the kitchen. "Where's your coffee?" he said. "It looks like you need it."

  It was seven o'clock at night, and I wasn't in the mood for coffee – or anything else alcohol-free. Still, I trudged after him anyway, wondering what the hell he wanted.

  I told him, "If you want coffee, go ahead. I'll grab something else."

  He turned and eyed me up and down. "Looks to me like you've had plenty of something else already."

  I said it again. "Yeah, so?"

  He set the plate of cookies on the counter. "Those are from Arden, by the way. Cami, too. And just so you know, they both wanted to come with me."

  No way. This was the last thing I needed, and I told him so.

  When I finished, he said, "Yeah, but they're worried about you."

  I forced a laugh. "Why?"

  "Have you looked in the mirror lately?"

  I had. And okay, so I wasn't looking my best. But hey, I couldn’t look like a god all the time, could I?

  When I made no reply, Brody asked, "So, have you talked to her?"

  "Talked to who?"

  He gave me another look, one that said, "You're not fooling, anyone, you know."

  He was wrong.

  I was fooling myself. Or at least, I was trying to.
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  For the past four days, I'd been working like hell to reclaim my mojo, to shrug off the memory of Mina like I might shrug off a sweaty shirt at the gym. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't seem to do it.

  When I closed my eyes, I saw her face. In my dreams, I heard her voice. And when I thought of her with another guy – well, let's just say I didn't like it.

  In my kitchen, Brody said, "The guy's married, you know."

  I did know.

  Like a lovestruck puppy, I'd actually troubled myself to learn a little something about Bryce Foster. The guy was completing his residency at a regional hospital maybe twenty minutes south of Buckville. He'd been married for two years now.

  If I were the type to feel sorry for someone, I might feel sorry for his wife. But the truth was, I was feeling too sorry for myself to care about some chick I didn't know who'd married the wrong guy.

  To Brody, I said, "Yeah, well, the guy's a cheater. What do you expect?"

  "And Mina?"

  I shrugged. "And she likes cheaters. So what?"

  He gave me a long serious look before saying, "You're so full of it."

  When I replied with only another shrug, he asked, "So, did you ever tell her?"

  "Tell her what?"

  "That you love her."

  I made a scoffing sound. "No. Because I'm no liar."

  He was staring now. "Are you fucking serious?'

  "Yeah, why?"

  "Because anyone can see you're full of it. Admit it. You love her."

  When my only reply was a sullen look, he said, "Deny it all you want, but you and I both know it's true."

  Brody and I had always been close, but not so close that we talked about our feelings. And forget talking about love.

  I muttered, "Even if I did, so what?"

  "You still love her," he said. "Or you wouldn't be such a mess."

  I asked, "Is there a point to this?"

  "Let me ask you something," he said. "Do you really think Mina would take up with a married guy?"

  No. I didn't. And that was half of the problem. "Yeah, well, maybe I didn't know her as well as I thought."

  "Or maybe," Brody said, "you should talk to her and figure out what's going on."