Prologue Dane #2
Duncan yanked Rune against his chest, hooked one arm around her waist and the other around her shoulders, dipped her backward, and kissed her stupid.
I couldn't help myself. "Get a room, you two!"
"That's the plan," Duncan said, lifting his wife to her feet. "But first, we party! Let's get it, Badd boys and girls!"
Cheers erupted, and white roses were thrown at the couple as they walked down the aisle together toward the Passage, Aunt Eva snapping roughly a hundred photos every few seconds.
As choreographed, Lindsey and I were next, meeting at the front of the aisle and pausing so Aunt Eva could get a portrait of us together.
At the very last second, as my aunt was crouching to get the right angle, I snagged Lindsey's hand and stepped closer to her, angling my body toward hers as if we were not just standing up in the wedding together, but actually were together.
"Aww," Aunt Eva crooned as she snap-snap-snapped. “You two are adorable together! Lindsey, sweetheart, turn toward Dane a touch. There you go. Perfect!"
Aunt Eva stepped out of the way and snapped again as we walked hand-in-hand toward where Duncan and Rune were waiting.
Lindsey, the second Eva turned to focus on Raquel and Jax, yanked her hand out of mine. "What the hell was that?" she hissed, sounding absolutely furious.
"I don't know what you mean," I said, trying to sound innocent. "Just posing for the photos."
"You made it seem like we're together," she said, still hissing her words with serpentine venom. "We are not together, and you know it."
"We aren't?" I said, faking shock—gasping and clapping a hand to my chest. "My god, if only I'd known…
.oh wait, that's right." I snapped my fingers.
"We fucked exactly once, after which you freaked the fuck out, bolted without a word, and haven't so much as acknowledged my existence since, let alone offering me some kind of an explanation. "
She stomped with blatant fury radiating from every pore. "Maybe it just wasn’t that good," she snapped, “and I'm just not interested in a repeat."
"And maybe you're full of shit." I leaned toward her. "It was goddamned fantastic, and you know it, Lindsey. You owe me an explanation."
"I don't owe you shit," she answered, now speaking through gritted teeth as we reached Duncan and Rune. She left my side and hurried to Rune. "Congratulations, bitch. I can't believe you're married and pregnant!”
The girls embraced, and I sidled over to Duncan, wrapped an arm around him, and shook him. "Congrats, I guess." I bumped my head against his. "For real, bro, I am happy for you. You snagged a winner."
He turned to me and pulled me into a hug. "Thanks, Dane. I know I did." He put his mouth near my ear. "When are you gonna tell me what the actual fuck is going on with you and Lindsey?"
I blew out a frustrated breath, squeezing him closer and embracing him hard. "Soon as I fuckin' know, man. She won't talk to me."
He laughed, the bastard. "Ah. So…what'd you do?"
I frowned at him. "Why do you assume I did something, asshole?"
"Because you're my little bro and I know you. You'll shoot yourself in the foot before you even know you're holding a gun and then put that foot in your mouth."
I shoved him away, laughing even as I bitterly recognized the nugget of truth at the center of his teasing statement. "Shut up, jackass."
"For real, though, man, what happened? I know something happened."
I shook my head. "Not the time or the place, Dunc." I clapped his shoulders. "Today's about you and Rune. We'll talk later."
He nodded. “Heard, bro." He playfully shoved me. "So, you gonna be lonely all by yourself up there. Last kid in the house."
I snorted. “Yeah, I think I'll be okay."
Jax and Raquel joined us then, and the opportunity for private talk was gone as we were ordered by Aunt Eva into roughly forty-seven billion different poses and configurations with the wedding party—which consisted of me and Lindsey, Raquel and Jax, Mom and Dad, and Tom and Kelly Rigby.
Why Duncan and I had to pose with Tom and Kelly, I wasn't sure, and neither did they, I didn't think, but you didn't argue with Aunt Eva.
She was the sweetest, most soft-spoken woman you'll ever meet, but my god, she had a core of pure titanium.
I mean, she'd been married to Uncle Baxter for something like twenty years, and god knows that man is more than a bit of a handful.
Takes a hell of a strong woman to tame a man like Baxter Badd as much as she has.
While photos were happening, several party buses were transporting the rest of the wedding guests to Badd's Bar and Grille for the reception, and then a stretched limo took the rest of us once photography was over.
The irony of the reception was that Duncan, in solidarity with his pregnant wife—that's gonna take a while to get used to, my big bro being married—didn't drink any alcohol.
Nine months without drinking? Yikes.
I, obviously, didn't have that hindrance, so I went after it. A DJ had been hired so Canaan, Corin, Aerie, and Tate could enjoy the reception rather than provide the music, and I spent a lot of time dancing with my various cousins, doing shots, and avoiding Lindsey.
Avoiding didn't mean I didn't think about her, though. Or, more specifically, her claim that the sex hadn't been that good.
My response had been automatic—I'm pathologically incapable of filtering myself. But after the fact, it was haunting me.
My memory of that night was crystal clear.
After Duncan and Rune had gone upstairs to Rune's room to talk, Lindsey and I, having spent the better part of the day flirting, had gone to dinner together.
Dinner had led to drinks at a bar near her apartment in West Hollywood, and drinks had led to us going to her apartment.
The sex, according to my memory, had been goddamn spectacular.
I know for a fact that she'd had at least one orgasm—unless she was faking it, but she'd need to be an Oscar-winning actress for that to have been faked.
I felt her pussy spasming while I was inside her, for fuck's sake. I don't know how you can fake that.
We'd passed out together. Woke up. Pillow talk about nothing in particular.
And then I'd gone down on her. Eagerly. For a very, very long time.
And skillfully, I like to think. I certainly have never had any complaints.
And again—unless she was a world-class actress, she hadn't faked the orgasms I'd given her.
Once she'd recovered, she started returning the favor.
Now, admittedly, we'd had a good bit to drink, and I was a bit hazy from that and having just woken up in the middle of the night.
But I definitely don't remember doing or saying anything that could be construed as pressuring her to do anything.
I wouldn't. I may be a horny jackass and bona fide hookup artist, but I'd never pressure a girl to do anything.
Lindsey had gone down on me of her own free will.
And then, after I came—and I gave her plenty of warning beforehand so she could choose how to let me finish—she freaked the fuck out. Rolled away from me, hyperventilating, locked herself in her bathroom, and screamed at me to get the fuck out.
I remember being confused as hell. Like, what just happened?
Did I do something? I've scoured my memory of that night obsessively, and I can't think of anything.
I hadn't held her head down, hadn't forced her down or anything like that, and I gave her lots of lead time before I let go.
I hadn't begged or demanded or insisted or cajoled.
The second I'd finished making her come, she'd seemingly eagerly moved to suck me off.
Great, I love it. But if she had some sort of an issue with it, I'd never have let that happen.
In the words of a somewhat overrated hero, I may be an asshole, but I'm not a hundred percent a dick.
With no other option, since she just kept screeching for me to get the fuck out, I'd gotten dressed and left, going back to the hotel Duncan and I were sharing.
She’d refused to speak to me since. She blocked my number. Didn't answer texts, didn't return voicemails. I even talked to Rune about it privately—without explaining what happened, just asking her to have Lindsey get ahold of me—and had been told that Lindsey wasn't talking to her about me either.
She'd shut everyone out when it came to me.
Which made me think that whatever had happened in her head wasn’t about me.
But it just doesn't seem fair that I get punished for it.
Fuck, I'm thinking about it again.
I took a fresh bottle of beer through the kitchen, pressing the dewy, icy-cold bottle to my sweating forehead and cheeks. I'd long since lost my suit coat and tie, had my sleeves rolled up, and my shirt undone so my tank top peeked through the gap of my open shirt.
I emerged in the alley behind the kitchen, taking a long slug of beer. Which, honestly, should have been water, considering I was pretty tipsy. But fuck it. Your brother only gets married once.
I hope.
I leaned against the brick wall next to the door and held the bottle against my cheek, trying to quiet the chaos in my mind.
I'm ADHD, so that's a losing game, but right now, the crazed squirrel on a treadmill that is my brain is going a little haywire, and I needed a moment alone in the silence to bring down the noise in my head.
Which is when I heard it.
A sniffle.
A shuddery sob.
And damn me, but I recognized the voice, somehow.
I looked left and saw Lindsey in her baby blue bridesmaid dress, leaning against the wall a few feet away, head tipped back, weeping.
Fuck.
“Um, hey," I said. “Uh, you…you good, Lindsey?"
She snorted. “Yeah, Dane. I'm peachy. I'm out here bawling my eyes out for fucking fun."
"Jesus, dude, I was trying to be nice. Fuckin' shoot me for having the teensiest bit of compassion, even though you won't fucking tell me what the fuck I did wrong."