CHAPTER ONE
REID
“You’re like a fish out of water, man. A dog without a bone. A mermaid without her—” Max turned and looked to his fiancée, Becca.
“Merman?” she suggested. I rolled my eyes. Great, just give Max more ammo.
“Yes.” Max snapped his fingers. “By God, you’re brilliant.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s why you keep me.”
“Oh.” Max put his arm around her. “And here I thought I kept you for sex. My bad.”
“Clearly your sex isn’t enough to keep the woman trapped,” I offered in a condescending voice. “She needed diamonds too.”
“Nobody asked the Reid gallery,” Max snapped. “And we weren’t talking about me, we’re talking about you.”
“My favorite subject.” I winked at Becca.
Max threw a chip at my face. “Put sunglasses on those things before she throws her bra at you. I don’t want my fiancée launching herself across the table because you don’t know how to train those eyes. Feel me?”
“Do it again,” Becca whispered.
“What’s Reid doing?” Milo asked, plopping down next to me with Colt and Jason in tow. We were having our weekly meeting at our favorite bar in the city.
I still wasn’t sure how it had happened. Four months ago I was invited to Jason’s wedding. The plan was simple: break up the bride and groom. The bride in question just so happened to be an ex from hell. The type of ex you order a hit on just because the mere fact that they’re alive and breathing offends the shit out of you.
I would never go as far as to do something like that . . . but I did try to break them up. In doing so, I experienced some of the most traumatizing moments of my life at the hands of an eighty-six-year-old woman who truly had the strength of ten men.
I’m not exactly sure what happened, because I was high most of the weekend on antianxiety pills Max crushed into my drinks, but there were ants, trees, at one point I think she rubbed Bengay on me, and when I opened my eyes one fateful Sunday afternoon, the woman had no top on.
She was also putting on a Superwoman wig.
But that’s not the point.
The point is that somehow, that experience had bonded me to everyone around the table. Jason was a local police officer and had had more than his fair share of bad luck when it came to relationships. Milo, his sister, had recently married Colton, his best friend since childhood. I wasn’t sure how that didn’t affect their friendship, but they all seemed completely okay with the fact that Colton was sharing Milo’s bed at night. I glanced to the right. That left my brother and his fiancée. Damn, a lot had changed in the last year. One weekend was all it took to transform my otherwise normal life to one where I scream when I smell Bengay and hide under the table whenever an elderly woman walks into the room.
“The eyes!” Becca explained to Milo. “He was doing the eyes again.”
“Damn your eyes!” Max exploded. “This night is about an intervention.”
I raised my hand.
Max swatted it down.
Sighing, I waited for his speech. Max never did anything halfway. His explanations were always—and I do mean always—long. And they usually involved lots of pictures, props, and hand gestures, all of which were more than likely illegal to use in public areas.
“My intervention six months ago was about getting my head out of my ass,” Max said thoughtfully as he tapped his fingertips against his chin.
“Hear, hear.” I lifted my glass in the air and smiled.
Max’s eyes narrowed. His intervention actually included more than getting his head out of his ass. We had signed him up for a reality dating show on which he got attacked by goats and sea life on a daily basis and nearly got clawed to death by twenty-five available and desperate women. Judging by the tic in his left eye, I imagined he was taking a stroll down memory lane.
“Continue.” I sipped.
Max shook his head as if returning to the present and pounded the table with his fist. “Reid’s intervention is about getting ass.”
Whiskey went flying out of my mouth before I could stop it—landing on Jason’s cheek and nose. Cursing, he wiped his face off and stumbled backward, landing on one of the waitresses.
Chips and salsa went sailing into the air.
Joining the whiskey on Jason’s face.
We waited in silence for Jason to set himself to rights. I ordered another whiskey. Milo yawned. Colt took out a few more napkins “just in case,” and Jason finally rejoined us at the table smelling like a Mexican fiesta gone wrong.
We often waited for Jason. He was so accident-prone that Max actually ordered giant-size bubble wrap for the guy as a birthday present.
Jason hadn’t been amused.
I’d laughed my ass off.
Also earning myself a black eye to match the one Jason had at the time.
“I get plenty,” I explained once Jason joined us again. “And why are you concerned?”
Max tilted his head, then covered my hand with his. “Bless your heart, you don’t even know.”
“Know?” I repeated.
“Your balls.” He nodded. “They’re getting old.”
“They are not!” I jerked away from him. “I’m twenty-eight!”
“Next stop forty,” Max said under his breath. “Should we pick out your coffin? I’d go with oak. It’s always so nice—soothing, really.”
“Funny, I’m a fan of the darker woods myself,” Milo piped up.
“I’m not dying!”
“Shh,” Max whispered. “It’s okay.”
Patience. Patience. Patience. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, when Max was born? No praise. In fact I’m pretty sure the doctor said, “Sorry, ma’am, we did everything we could.” He’d been a pain in my ass since birth. When he was an infant he did nothing but cry; even then he knew how to push all of my buttons, repeatedly.
Jason sat down on my other side. Smart move, since I was a few seconds away from committing fratricide, and at least now Jason’s body blocked me from getting a direct shot to Max’s head with my fork. “Honestly, he’s right. I mean, it’s time to settle down.”
My eyebrows shot up. “This, coming from the guy who almost married Satan last year and since then hasn’t been able to go on a date with anyone under the age of fifty?”
“Leave Cecil out of this!” Jason defended his elderly companion, with whom he had Friday-night dinner on a biweekly basis.
“What?” I snorted and glanced around the table. “You guys all have a clock or something?”
“It’s called biology,” Max said slowly. “Don’t you read?”
“Do I—” I licked my lips and looked down. “Max, what’s this about?”
He shrugged. “Ever since Grandma.”
I started shivering in my seat. Jason wrapped his arm around me.
“Don’t touch him!” Max yelled. “That makes it worse.”
I nodded.
Jason held up his hands in surrender while the waitress set my whiskey on the table. Everyone waited while I threw back the entire thing. Max scooted his drink toward me and nodded.
So I took his drink.
And then Milo sent hers.
And really, I lost track after that, but at least I wasn’t thinking about Grandma again.
“So . . .” My vision blurred. “What’s this about ever since . . . her?”
“You’ve lost your game.” Max shook his head. “All you have left are the eyes and, let’s be honest, those have made their fair share of misfires this past week.”
“What? When?” I picked a chip off Jason’s shoulder and popped it in my mouth.
“Thanks, man,” he mumbled.
“Can we get some salsa up in here?” Colt yelled.
“Dude!” Max’s eyes widened a fraction of an inch as he leaned in; the group followed. “The mall.”
“The mall?” I repeated. “What did I do at the mall?”
“You gave the eyes to a puppy, man. Not cool.”
“It was a badass puppy!” I said defensively.
“There are ways to look at puppies, Reid, and there are ways to look at puppies. Feel me?”
“What? No! You’re crazy!”
“I’m only saying this because I love you, but the puppy started crying when you looked at it, Reid. What does that tell you?”
“I don’t know!” I rubbed my face. “I scared it?”
“Nature . . . is off because you, my friend, are off. You need to get back on the horse. Forget about Bengay. Use the power”—he pointed to his eyes—“for good. Stop staying in on the weekends! Don’t drink by yourself! And for the love of God, you don’t need to pack a gun. Jason’s grandma isn’t coming for you! All right? Now, I have a plan.”
I slammed my fist against the table. “Prison. Death. Choking.” I pointed to everyone. “Those are what your plans entail. Do I need to reference the last time you guys all had a plan? Or an idea?”
“Black eyes,” Jason added.
“Community service, damn it,” Colt muttered, grabbing a chip from Jason’s other shoulder.
“I can’t control the world!” Max lifted his hands in the air. “Jeez, I’m not God and I’m not president.” He beamed. “One day, but not now. No, it’s too soon.”
Beside him, Becca rolled her eyes. How the hell did she put up with his bullshit all the time?
“We’ll start slow.” Max shrugged. “Slow and steady wins the game.”
“Says no athlete—ever,” I sang.
“Shut it, Reid! I’m doing this because I love you!” Max turned away from me and toward the crowd. “We’ll start with a plain one and then move on from there once you’ve done your time.”
“Time as in prison?”
Max ignored me. “I see her now. Brown hair, brown eyes, not too skinny, not fat, just right.”
“We picking out a puppy?” I joked.
“You and puppies!” Max gave me a look of complete disappointment before scowling. “Stop being weird! Now walk up to her, do the eyes, and seduce her.”
“What?”
“Seduce her.” Max smiled. “It’s easy. Watch.”
He turned to Becca and nodded his head. “How you doin’?”
“Oh, dear God.” I rubbed my face with my hands, wishing I could teleport to my apartment without having to ride back in the car with my brother.
“Trust.” Max gripped my hand. “Don’t you want to expel Grandma from your brain? From the very blood that flows through the Emory veins?”
“Hell, yes,” I growled. Another drink was set in front of me. I tossed it back.
“That’s the spirit!” Max shouted. “Now, go seduce the girl! Give her the eyes, be a man!”
“On three.” Colt held out his hands. “Manhood!”
Max counted, “One, two, three, manhood!” We all cheered and I stumbled toward the bar.
Let’s pause here for a second and do a little counting, shall we?
One drink when I started the story.
Another drink.
Three more drinks, considering I also drank Max’s, Colt’s, and Milo’s.
And another, all before I made my way toward the bar.
Five drinks. Five drinks in less than fifteen minutes.
Carry on.
Like I said, it all started with listening to Max, so as I got up on shaky legs and made my way over to the bar, I had no idea I’d be sealing my fate.
No clue that the plain girl twisting the straw between her pretty little fingers would destroy me.
Or that there’d come a time when I’d go through drunken hell on a daily basis if only she’d give me another chance.