27. Rex
TWENTY-SEVEN
REX
I found Donny on a bench overlooking the vineyard, his knee bouncing up and down as he kneaded his hands like they ached. He looked up when I dropped down beside him, then turned to stare at the vines again. In the distance, dust kicked up on the dirt road leading down the back of the property. A convoy of vans carrying supplies for the wedding approached.
Behind us, through the tall double doors that led inside the building, the clatter of chairs and tables and decorations being set up reached us in a steady thrum. A tree fluttered in the breeze to our left, one leaf detaching and spinning to the ground. The air was still warm, and the skies were clear.
It was a beautiful autumn day to get married.
“You good?” I asked.
“I can’t do it,” Donny blurted. “I can’t marry her.”
“Whoa,” I said.
“It’s the videos and the content and the fakeness, Rex. I can’t go through with it.” He shoved his hands through his hair and tugged, groaning. “I read my vows again this morning and they don’t even sound like me.”
“Okay,” I started, going into crisis mode. “At least you’re realizing this now, before the wedding happens. That’s good, right?”
“No!” Donny exclaimed. “Before, I didn’t know any better. Now I do, but I can’t call it off. Look at this!” He extended his hand toward the vines.
On the far side, a cop car came screaming down the dirt path, lights flashing and siren blaring. It screeched to a halt, and two officers got out. From the middle of a row of vines, two teenage girls stood up and screamed, then took off at a run.
I recognized Bryce’s nasally voice as he yelled at them to freeze. The teenage girls screamed again.
“This whole thing has gone too far,” Donny said, dismayed. “Blair is gonna kill me if I call it off.”
“Yeah, she will. But this is your life. If you don’t want to get married, you shouldn’t go through with it.”
“I have to,” he pressed.
“You don’t .” If our parents hadn’t gotten married, we wouldn’t exist—but we wouldn’t have had to endure the tension-filled childhood, the hair-trigger temper of our father, the fights, the silent resentment. If Donny went through with this, there was a good chance he'd repeat the same cycle. “You’re Donny Montgomery. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
The cops got back in the police car, and on the loudspeaker, Bryce warned, “All intruders will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
“Oh my God,” someone said behind us, and I looked behind me to see one of the bridesmaids, the dark-haired one, with her phone out and pointed at me and Donny. Her eyes were wide, and then she swung the phone around to film the police car speeding around the vineyard.
Donny jumped up. “Tammy. Are you filming us?”
“Blair is going to freak when she sees this,” she said, then took off.
“Fuck!” Donny yelled, sprinting after her. “Tammy, get back here!”
“Donny!” I started after him, but a car came crunching on the gravel toward me.
“Freeze, Montgomery,” Bryce Lawson said through the car’s megaphone.
I rolled my eyes and turned to face him. “Really, Bryce?”
“I’m going to need to see your admission wristband,” the megaphone commanded, and then Bryce rolled down his window. “We’re checking everyone. The security they hired is useless, and we’ve already caught three groups trespassing."
“I’m the groom’s brother and the best man,” I said, exasperated.
“That may be so, but I still need to see your wristband.”
“Give me a break, Lawson.” Every guest and staff member had been issued a wristband to be allowed on the property. Mine was stuffed in my tuxedo jacket pocket upstairs in the room where I’d dumped my things when I first got here, because I’d needed to carry some supplies inside and I hadn’t wanted it to get damaged.
“You can put that bracelet on your wrist, or I’ll slap this one on,” he said, spinning his handcuffs around his index finger. He wiggled his white-blond eyebrows at me, smirking. Dick.
“I left it upstairs,” I said, sighing. “Is this really necessary?”
“I’ll follow you up.”
“Don’t you have anything better to do?” I asked as he got out of his cruiser. “More teenage girls to chase and threaten?”
Bryce’s eyes narrowed. “Heard you and Abigail Stone were sneaking around. She’s a bad influence, you know. Nearly burned down the wedding yesterday; who knows what she’ll do today?”
Was that all anyone saw in Abigail? How about the kickass sales agent? The woman who could put out fires as well as I could?
“I need to go find my brother. I don’t have time for this.”
Bryce jangled his handcuffs at me again, and I snorted. “Fine. Follow me.”
We entered the chaos of the reception hall, where Abigail was standing under an arch of flowers, looking equal parts bored and exasperated. Her brother was behind the bar on the far side of the room, wiping glasses down with a clean white rag.
When I crossed in front of Abigail, she arched a brow at me, and then at Bryce.
Bryce’s boots, which had been clomping behind me, paused. I turned to see him looking at Abigail and resisted the urge to get in his face.
“You need somethin’?” she asked him sweetly.
“Just wanted you to know that if you do anything even slightly out of line, I’ll be right here waiting.” He jiggled the cuffs in his hands again. What kind of power trip was he on?
“Bryce, this is a wedding. What do you expect me to do?” she asked .
“I’m not a troublemaker like you, so I have no idea what you’re up to. All I know is I’m here to protect the bride.”
Abigail smiled, and it looked a little evil and a lot sexy. “Why Bryce Lawson. Are you a Blair Bear Cub? One of her rabid two point four million fans?”
Bryce spluttered and went red. “No. I just—I’m doing my job.”
“Sure you are. So you don’t also wait up all night to see a new post from her every day?”
He lifted a finger and growled. “Shut up, Stone.” I balled a fist, ready to put Officer Dickhead in his place, but before I could, Gabe barreled in.
“Hey!” Gabe shouted. “What’s going on over here? Abigail, what did you do?”
Abigail reared back.
I stepped in front of her and glared at Gabe. “She didn’t do anything.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Gabe said, rolling his eyes. “You don’t have to pretend to be her boyfriend right now, Rex. We all know what Abigail is capable of.”
Bryce’s eyebrows went up. “Pretend?”
Behind me, Abigail shifted. I felt her gaze on the side of my face, but I couldn’t look at her. I was sweaty and stressed, and there was too much going on. Donny was going to blow up his life, and I had to be there to help him deal with the fallout. Panic tightened my throat, my mind spinning out. I needed to go .
“Rex?” Abigail said softly.
Finally meeting her gaze, I saw the question in her eyes—and the disappointment when she read the answer in mine. I really, really didn’t have time to sort this out now. And it was just Bryce Lawson, for crying out loud. Who cared what he thought?
Bryce looked between the three of us. “What do you mean, pretend?”
Gabe waved a hand, eyes shifting. “Uh. Nothing. It’s just… They’re going through a tough time.” He straightened, his smile unconvincing. “Yeah. They’re only pretending to get along right now. Don’t worry about it.”
Bryce scoffed. “No surprises there.” He grinned, and with his white-blond, nearly invisible brows, the red splotches on his cheeks, and the beady little eyes that stared at Abigail, he looked like he was enjoying himself immensely. “Can’t manage to hang onto a man to save your life, hey?”
Abigail flinched. I couldn’t listen to this anymore. My heart raced and my palms twitched. Time was ticking. My brother had been caught on camera saying he wanted to call off the wedding. If Blair found out, she’d be apoplectic. Donny would get the brunt of it. He was a sensitive guy, and I’d seen the distress and panic in his eyes before he ran off. I had to go to him—had to help him get out of this.
Or worse—what if he decided to go through with it? I’d seen what that kind of resentment could do to a man. To a family. I had to stop him, talk some sense into him. That had been my job for a long time—since Dad died. And yeah, he needed to grow up. But not right now. Not in the middle of a crisis.
I was the first responder. I was the guy who was calm under pressure. I was the guy who fixed things. I’d been the glue that held my family together for as long as I could remember, and now was not the time to stop doing my job. If Donny married Blair, he’d regret it; and if he didn’t, he’d need my help to handle whatever came next.
So yeah. I could’ve stepped up to Gabe and told him it wasn’t fake with Abigail. I could’ve set the record straight.
But I didn’t. It wasn’t the right time. My little brother needed me now, more than ever. More than when he nearly got kicked off the football team in high school. More than when Dad died, and it was just the three of us. This was a defining moment in his life, and I had to save him from making a huge mistake.
“Back off, Lawson,” I cut in, a little more aggressively than I meant to. “Are we getting this wristband or not? I need to go find my brother.” As much as I wanted to defend the woman I was in love with, Abigail was tough enough to handle herself right now; Donny wasn’t. I was needed elsewhere.
Bryce complied with a nod, gesturing for the exit. I strode away, feeling the burn of a hot coal in the pit of my stomach the whole time. When I crossed the threshold to leave the room, I glanced over my shoulder.
Abigail stood there watching me walk away, a haunted look on her face. Gabe yammered on, but she didn’t seem to be listening to him at all. She just stared at me, hurt clouding her gaze.
And I knew I’d just fucked up. Bad.