Chapter 20 Talbot #2
“Fine. Maybe Talbot will be so kind as to volunteer as the 3D version of the game. Then these women can actually see what they’re missing when they sell out and sit at home all day, waiting for a cheater who can’t properly wash his own ass to crawl into their bed along with his three best friends, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and—”
“Rachel,” Grandma Pam shrieks, “you must do something with your mother.”
“I’m the only one who showed up with anything useful,” Granny Keagan shoots back. “Food, booze, and sexy party favors.”
“Gran, this is supposed to be a nice bachelorette party.”
“Boo, you mean boring.”
“There are children present.”
“Don’t clean up on my account.” Lucy shrugs, “I’m the one who found the esc—”
Misty shoves a cupcake in her mouth. “Taste this. Does it still taste okay? They were bouncing around in the car. Now, where’s the alcohol? We should have a signature cocktail, and the white wine needs to chill.”
Aunt Kathy starts to rearrange the cupcake tower that Rachel set out because “it just looks a little messy, dear.”
“We want everything to go perfectly for Brielle’s big night,” Aunt Kathy adds with a practiced Stepford smile. “You understand, don’t you, Rachel? We don’t want a repeat of the last wedding.”
“That wasn’t Misty’s fault.” Sienna unfolds a tablecloth.
“Damn right,” Granny Keagan adds. “Your cheating golden boy walked away from a good woman. Isn’t that right, Talbot?”
“Of course it’s her fault. She didn’t follow the diet plan.” Pamela scoffs.
“At least, unlike her mother, she didn’t baby-trap poor Austen,” Kathy simpers.
“Don’t worry, Gumdrop,” I interject, “you can baby-trap me anytime.”
I’m parked at the bar, mixing another cocktail for Misty’s mom, who’s stress-laughing at her mother-in-law’s passive-aggressive comments and shaking out the last drops of her drink.
The WAGs arrive wearing five-inch heels and spray tans, the scent of high-end perfume trailing behind them.
I glance around. Half these women look like they’ve been on a juice cleanse since the early 2000s—plastic-surgery-sharpened cheekbones, skin tight, hair fake.
They’re all in those clingy, skin-baring dresses from the discount-Instagram-influencer collection, constantly adjusting their straps and pouting for each other’s selfies.
Those NHL guys have all that money, all that fame, can have any woman they want, and they choose this?
They look a lot like the girls I was so desperate to be around at the fancy Colorado ski lodges.
It’s an uncomfortable thought.
Misty weaves through them, passing out the cardboard cutouts with Austen’s face printed on them. It’s a horror movie. A room full of Austen Langley clones, dead eyes, and frozen smiles.
Brielle struts in at last, dressed like a bride meets Vegas showgirl—skintight short white dress, a feathery oversized bunny tail pinned to her ass, and Austen Langley’s signature scrawled big, bold, and sequined across her tits and hips.
She does a little spin, arms out, as the WAGs, wearing their boyfriends’ or husbands’ numbers somewhere on their pink dresses, gasp and coo, giggling as they pose for photos.
When they see Misty, they smile and give her barely-there one-armed hugs. No real smiles, not with those big, too-white veneers.
“You’re so brave for being here,” one purrs, laying a manicured claw on Misty’s shoulder.
“What a trooper,” another adds, “planning this party.”
“I could never, but you just keep on going.”
“Such a good, helpful sister.”
“I try,” Misty says weakly.
I want to take her away from here. Shoot Austen first, duh, but then whisk Misty away. We can go to Colorado, a chateau in the Alps. Anywhere but here, where she makes herself smaller for her so-called family.
“You’ll find your man someday,” one doe-eyed WAG assures her condescendingly.
That last one nearly gets a laugh out of me.
“Well,” I say, sliding Misty’s mom her fifth drink, “I’d say she already has.”
That gets a few wide-eyed glances. The temperature in the room shifts.
“Is Ryan really going to let her marry him?” a WAG whispers like I’m not three feet away.
“The real question,” another counters, “is if he’s going to marry her.”
That one gets a chorus of sharp, knowing chuckles. Misty stiffens, eyes wide. She jumps when I uncork a new bottle of white.
A blonde lets out a shrill squeal when I pass her a skinny peach Bellini. “Oh my god, signature cocktails? Adorbs.”
“Ladies,” I say, letting my voice drop as I hold up the wine and signature cocktail, “pick your poison.”
Misty’s eyes bug out in horror.
I reach behind me, grab the hem of my shirt, and pull it over my head in one smooth move.
Screams. Full-blown chaos.
GrandPam is furious. Aunt Kathy’s lips are pulled back.
“Or,” I say, tossing the shirt onto the counter, “you can have door number three.”
Phones come out. Flashing lights. Granny Keagan hoots from the kitchen.
I need to do something, anything, other than sit quietly while they turn Misty into a joke.
“I didn’t know your boyfriend was a stripper!” One WAG wolf whistles.
“I can’t wait for you to be Brielle’s new fiancé so you can be the next groom, yummy,” another shouts drunkenly at me.
“You need to come to Cabo with us.” A WAG with platinum ombre hair screeches in laughter.
“Brielle, invite Misty so she can bring Talbot with her. Then we don’t have to go hunting down a pool boy or something for you.”
“Yeah, or we could bring Kiera’s boyfriend.”
“Brielle was all over him at the fundraiser,” one of the WAGs snickers to another.
Brielle’s nostrils flare. “Are you implying that I, the captain’s fiancée, would cheat on Austen?”
The WAGs all fall over themselves to suck up to her.
“Put your shirt on,” Misty hisses.
“Don’t act like you don’t want to feel me up, Gumdrop.”
She gives me that quick longing look. “Don’t worry, I know how to keep my hands to myself.”
I pour Misty a glass of wine as Brielle corrals the WAGs. “Austen’s in the early stages of CTE if he’d rather have one of them instead of you. This shit is wack.”
“You mean you don’t go to your fake best friend’s bachelorette party all so you can shit talk her later with your other fake friends?” Misty rolls her eyes.
“I… didn’t, but seems like a popular pastime here.”
Misty’s mouth screws up. “Too bad you’re a hitman with standards. You could clear out this party, and we could all go to a real bar.”
“Dark, Gumdrop real fucking dark.” I toast her.
She slaps a hand to her face. “Ugh, I’m a horrible person. I need to stop spending so much time with you.”
“Am I making you a bad girl?” My voice drops.
Misty reaches out to poke me, forgetting I don’t have a shirt on. As soon as her fingers touch my bare skin, she snatches her hand back like she’s been burned.
I grab it, bring her fingertips up to my mouth, and want to roll around in the scent of her. She shivers under my touch then pulls away. I want to crush her back against my chest and never let her go.
“I need to put more mini quiches in the oven. The WAGs are eating more than I thought.”
“Your grandmother’s been hoarding them in her purse.”
Misty’s not in the kitchen when I head in to cut up more peaches. Maybe she escaped upstairs?
If you’re horny, I remind myself, there are at least three different WAGs who not-so-subtly offered to do their patriotic duty in one of the rec rooms in the massive stone mansion.
It wasn’t like me not to take them up on it.
I’m on a job. It has nothing to do with Misty, right?
I stare out the dark window over the kitchen sink.
I see someone, her red sweater wrapped around her as she trudges through the snow.
Misty?
What’s she doing without a coat?
And what’s Austen doing wrapping an arm around her?