3. Three
3
THREE
W hen I woke the morning after the engagement party—who has an engagement party when they’re already married for crying out loud?—I felt as if I were crawling through pea soup. Everything hurt. My stomach was a ball of repressed rage that wanted to explode. There was something—it was better to not name it—that was going to happen with my bowels at some point. My head pounded like war drums. Yes, I was regretting my life choices.
Then I realized there was a warm spot in the bed next to me.
It took me way longer than it should have to register that. I had a suite at the hotel—the whole family did—which meant I was used to sleeping in a king-sized bed all by myself. The sheets were normally crisp and cool, which was exactly how I liked it.
So why was there a big warm spot to my right?
Slowly, I opened my eyes. I immediately had to shut them because I’d forgotten to close the blinds when returning to my room the previous evening. That was a blur itself. I remembered laughing—really hard actually—but the walk from the Cosmopolitan to the Stone required navigating a skywalk and a really busy stretch of the Strip.
Little memories flashed as I rubbed my eyes to swipe away the morning crusties. My false eyelashes were coming off, which meant I hadn’t taken the time to remove my makeup the night before. That was just great. My facialist was going to give me hell when she saw me in a few hours. I’d thought ahead and booked that appointment. The only thing worse than feeling thirty-five after a night of drinking was looking it.
I remembered laughing. There had been a lot of laughing during the walk. Who had I been laughing with, though? I remembered losing a shoe at some point and somebody had carried me. Somebody big … and strong. The laugh that kept whipping through my mind was familiar. Since I wasn’t firing on all cylinders, however, I had trouble putting a face with the laugh.
That meant I had to steel myself and open my eyes again. The light would hurt but not knowing who I was in bed with—did I need to call security?—was something I couldn’t handle. It took two full seconds for my vision to clear enough for me to register the big presence in the bed. My heartbeat picked up a notch when I recognized him.
Apparently, I didn’t have to call security. They were already here.
“Rex.” His name was a strangled gasp as I took in his shirtless form. He was on his back, one hand thrown over his head, his chest rising and falling as he happily snored away. I’d seen him shirtless before of course—he liked to flex when he was down at the pool on his days off—but it was somehow different seeing him shirtless in my bed.
He had eight abs. I’d seen that in movies of course—who hadn’t?—but seeing them in my bed was something I had trouble wrapping my head around. His skin was a pretty olive color, only a few moles offsetting the smoothness. When I got to the bicep thrown over his head, I had to marvel at his definition even though he wasn’t flexing. Then I realized he had no hair in his armpit.
“Do you shave your armpits?” I asked before thinking.
He hadn’t woken when I gasped his name. I’d spoken the question so loudly, his eyes snapped open, however. “What?” There was a fuzziness to his expression as he regarded me. He acted as if he were still dreaming because he smiled, the real world a distant memory.
I waited for the realization to slowly dawn on him. When he rocketed to a sitting position, he almost jostled me right off the bed.
“Hey!” I glared at him as I clutched the sheet to my chest. I didn’t have to look to know that I was naked. That was my normal way of sleeping. The abnormal part of this morning was the fact that he was in my bed.
“Sorry!” Rex grabbed my shoulders to stabilize me, his gaze searching. “Um…” His tongue split his lips. “Just out of curiosity, did we…?” He didn’t finish out the question.
“Are you kidding me?” He had to be joking.
“I’m just checking.” Panic had his nostrils flaring.
My heart continued to threaten to beat out of my chest. All I could think was that we’d made a terrible mistake. Obviously, Rex was right there with me.
“Ruby,” he said after a few seconds of unmitigated terror.
“Yes, Rex.” My tone was steadier than I anticipated. One of us had to hold it together. It obviously wasn’t going to be Rex.
“What happened?” he asked.
He sounded so frightened that my stance softened. He didn’t remember it. I barely remembered it. Only flashes and shreds of memories had managed to push through the hangover fog. That was probably for the best.
Except, well, those flashes and shreds involved a lot of panting … and tongues … and way too much groaning. How was I ever going to get those noises out of my head?
Wait…I was supposed to be focusing on something else, right?
I forced myself to be calm as I regarded him. “I believe you insisted on walking me home last night,” I started.
“The others wanted to stay,” he replied dully. The fog in his mind was clearly starting to lift. “We were drunk.”
“You were definitely drunk,” I agreed.
That earned a smirk. “I’m pretty sure we were drunk together.” His hand landed on my bare back. He finally seemed to realize I was naked because he jerked his hand away as if he’d been scorched. “Crap.”
Under different circumstances, I might have laughed. If Rex was a family friend who I wasn’t tangentially related to, this would’ve been funny. The fact that his sister was married to my brother made things exponentially more difficult, however.
“This is … unbelievable,” I muttered, dropping my face to the top of my knees, which I was holding in front of me under the covers.
“It really is,” Rex agreed. “I just saw your butt crack.”
Unconvinced he’d said what I thought he’d said, I slid my eyes to him. “What?”
“You’re not wearing underwear.”
It almost sounded as if he was accusing me. “Um … neither are you.”
“I know, but I’m not leaning forward like that. I’m not giving you a clear view of my crack.”
“I’m going to give you a clear view of my fist if you’re not careful.” I was deadly serious. “I guarantee you saw my crack last night … along with a few other things.”
“Yeah.” Rex rubbed his cheek. “I can’t remember the other things, though. I mean … instinctively I know that I saw them. Not being able to remember them feels like cruel and unusual punishment.”
A horrible thought occurred to me. “Are you flirting with me?”
“No.”
I wasn’t so certain that was true. “I think you are.”
“Hey, if I was flirting with you, Booby Ruby, you would know it.”
Anger the likes of which I’d never felt before bubbled up, hot and acidic. “Stop calling me that! I can’t stand it.”
“You like it, and you know it. Also, if I were flirting, this would’ve been the perfect time. I mean … we’re already naked. I would be crowned king of the sex gods if I managed to pull that little maneuver off.”
“And who would be doing the crowning?”
“You know … the people who hand out crowns.”
“Right.” I glared at him. “You’re kind of an idiot. You realize that, don’t you?”
“Actually, I don’t happen to think I’m an idiot,” he countered. “I’m just trying to ease the tension.”
“You mean because we’ve now seen each other naked?”
“That would be the sort of tension I’m referring to,” he agreed. He rubbed his cheek. “Was I at least good?”
My eyes narrowed to the point where I couldn’t see anything. “Is that really something you want me to answer?”
He did consider the question long before nodding.
“I have no idea if you were good or not,” I lied. Unfortunately, I remembered the deed all too well now. At first it had been nothing but a hazy memory niggling at the corners of my mind. It was all back now, though. I could remember every detail … in excruciating splashes of color. “That really doesn’t matter. It’s also not what you should be worried about.”
“What do you think I should be worried about?”
“Whether or not my brother is going to kill you for sleeping with me.” Why I said that was beyond me. I was looking for something to snap him back to reality, though.
Rather than react out of fear, he snorted. “Oh, right,” he said. “This is the one thing Zach can never give me grief about. I mean … he’s married to my sister.”
“He could still be upset,” I argued. “You were upset when you found out he was really with Livvie.”
“That’s different.”
“Give me one way it’s different.” I was in the mood to fight. He was the only one present. That meant he was going to have to be the target of my ire, whether he wanted to be or not.
“Well, for starters, Livvie is my only sister.”
I waited for him to expand. When he didn’t, I shot him an incredulous look. “And?”
“He has three sisters. All of his worry and care has to be split between three people. That means the pool of emotions he has to draw from is one-third the size of my feelings for Livvie right from the start.”
“You’re totally making that up.”
“No. It’s true. Zach loves the three of you the same amount I love Livvie. That pool is split, though.”
“Yeah, that’s not the way it works.” He was even dumber than I thought. “What else have you got?”
“Well, Livvie is my baby sister.”
“So? I’m barely older than Zach.”
“Older is older. Besides, my father handed me Livvie the day she was born and told me that she was my responsibility to take care of. He said I always had to look out for her.”
“That was quite a bit of irresponsible pressure your father put on you,” I noted.
“Right?” Rex bobbed his head. “Anyway, I took my father’s orders to heart. I always took care of Livvie. Zach has never taken care of you.”
The way he said it—with equal parts disdain and pity—made me want to slam my elbow into his crotch. “I don’t think it’s fair to say that he’s never wanted to take care of us. It’s just that … we were older. We took care of him.”
“That’s what I’m saying. It’s different with big brothers and little sisters.”
Because I feared that he was right, that maybe Zach didn’t love me as much as Rex loved Olivia, I forced myself to go on the offensive. “There are other things you should be worried about.”
“Like what?”
“Well, for starters, you haven’t even asked me if I’m on birth control.”
Rex didn’t immediately panic. “I always use condoms.”
I had some bad news for him. “Not last night you didn’t.”
“I…” His smile faltered. “Wait.” It was obvious he was remembering the same thing I’d remembered two minutes before. “I couldn’t find the condom I usually carry in my wallet.”
“I believe you said you used it on one of the showgirls three days ago and forgot to replace it,” I corrected icily. It was small of me of course, but I got a little thrill when abject horror replaced smugness on his features.
“We didn’t use protection?” Rex’s face drained of color. “I always use protection. I’m always careful.” He gave me a cool look. “You don’t have chlamydia, do you?”
“You’re on my last nerve,” I warned him. “If anybody has chlamydia, it’s you. I mean … you’re the one who sleeps around. I haven’t been with anybody in almost a year.”
Genuine shock reverberated through him. “A year? That’s not possible.”
“Well, it’s not only possible but it’s what happened. It’s been eleven months, three days, and six hours. Although, I guess that clock is no longer ticking.” Was that a relief or not? I honestly couldn’t say. “Huh.”
“So, that’s a no on the chlamydia I’m guessing.” Rex touched his tongue to his top lip. “What about syphilis?”
I lost whatever I had left of my cool. Admittedly, there wasn’t much left. I was overboard and drifting toward Niagara Falls, however. “I’m clear of all of them, you nincompoop. You’re the one who sleeps with everything that moves.”
“Hey, I have standards. I don’t sleep with everything that moves. Just like … half the things that move.”
Oh, well, that made me feel so much better. “You should probably go, Rex.” It wasn’t as if I was expecting a cuddly morning after. Neither of us were those types of people. I hadn’t expected to have to run the qualifying laps for the Idiot Olympics either, though.
“What?” Confusion had his eyebrows knitting. “You want me to go?”
“It’s not as if we’re together.”
“No, but … don’t we need to talk about this?” He didn’t look happy about broaching the subject. He was resigned, however.
“What is there to talk about?” I was baffled. “We got really drunk and had sex. I don’t think we need to dissect it or anything.”
“No, but … shouldn’t we come up with some rules?”
“What sort of rules?” Did he think we were going to do it again or something? He couldn’t possibly.
“Well, I was kind of hoping we could keep the fact that we did it to ourselves.” His cheeks flushed with color when I pinned him with a dark look. “It’s not that I’m afraid of your brother or anything,” he added hastily. “I just don’t want this to turn into a thing.”
“You just told me he didn’t love me, so it wouldn’t matter.”
Rex turned indignant. “I didn’t say he didn’t love you. I said I love Livvie more … and I stand by that.”
We glared at one another.
“Anyway,” he said after a beat. “I don’t want this to ruin our friendship.”
‘What friendship? We’re acquaintances.”
“Oh, come on, Ruby.” He shook his head. “You’ve always been my favorite of Zach’s sisters. We work together. We have a solid rapport. I don’t want to lose that because we got drunk and did something stupid.”
“So, so stupid,” I agreed under my breath.
That nudged a smile out of him. “We don’t have to tell anybody, do we? I don’t want your mom and sisters to give me dirty looks. I didn’t mean for this to happen or anything. I would never take advantage of you. That’s not who I am.”
I already knew that. As annoying as I found him—and right now he was really, really annoying—Rex was not a predator. He hadn’t hatched a plan to steal my virtue. In fact, he’d tried to escape before I dragged him out to the dance floor. That had led to another two drinks for each of us. Those final two drinks were what caused us to lose our heads.
“Nobody needs to know, Rex,” I promised him. “We both had a lapse in judgment.” I was rueful. “It was just an accident.”
“I’m usually way more careful. I know I have a certain reputation, but I don’t normally jump into bed with someone just to jump into bed with them. That’s not who I am. I always try to be a good guy about this stuff.”
“I think I just had an itch I wanted to scratch,” I admitted. “My father kept me under his thumb for so long…” I trailed off. That was not a happy subject.
“Your father was an ass,” Rex replied. “He was horrible to all three of you girls. He wasn’t much better to Zach. He just made sure the horror he heaped on you was different than the horror he heaped on Zach. Don’t ever base your self-worth on anything your father said.”
I was surprisingly touched by his words. “Thank you, Rex.”
“I really don’t want this to ruin our friendship, Ruby.” He held out his hands. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I would never take advantage of you.”
Pity welled up, and I nodded. “You didn’t take advantage of me, Rex. I promise. We’re good. I mean … I think we’ll have a few days of not being able to look each other in the eye, but after that, we’ll probably forget all about it.”
Or get better at pretending that we’ve forgotten about it, I silently added.
He exhaled heavily. “I appreciate that. I just … your family is important to me. Believe it or not, you’re important to me.” He poked my cheek in annoying fashion to cut down on the mush.
“Knock it off.” I slapped his hand away, then softened. “We’re good, Rex.”
“Okay.” He rolled out of bed, showing off his glorious ass. Man, did I really need to see that when things were getting better? Why? Come on. This was obviously torture.
“You know, you said you were fine on the STDs.” Rex pulled on his black knit boxers. “What about pregnancy, though?” He looked legitimately worried.
“It’s fine. I get the shot.”
“Okay.” He cracked a smile, his relief palpable. “Whew.” He mimed wiping invisible sweat off his brow. “So, we’re both agreed that we’ll avoid each other for a week and then pretend nothing happened, right?”
Despite myself, I burst out laughing. “That sounds like a plan to me.”
“I was hoping you would say that.”
“Then I guess today is your lucky day.”