Chapter 28
chapter twenty-eight
Natalia
The covered tiki bar was packed solid. Half of it dipped into the pool where there was a swim-up ledge with stools floating in the water and cocktail waitresses standing in the wake serving drinks. I squeezed my way through on landside to the sticky wooden bar top, wedging my elbows in and waving my hand at the woman behind it with a bottle of tequila flipped over, draining through a metal topper into a plastic cup. She twirled another bottle, bumping hips with a coworker as they both danced around each other making cocktails.
“Be right with ya.” Her blonde bubble-braided pigtails slapped her shoulders, and the button on her jeans shorts was undone, showing off a peek of a bright blue bathing suit. She passed by, reaching for a bottle of orange juice out of a mini fridge and then backpedaled to a sliding cooler where she grabbed three glass bottles and wedged them between the webs of her fingers. Then she was gone again, to the far end of the long table top.
“Excuse me!” Phee uselessly called after her. A hundred grabby hands were waving at the bartender for attention, and ours were getting lost in the mix.
“What’s a girl gotta do to get a drink around here?” I huffed. “If I’m sober I’ll lose all the go-fuck-yourself confidence I’ve built up this morning, and we can’t have that.”
“Your go-fuck-yourself confidence outscales mine at its base, so I wouldn’t worry too much about that.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been this mad at him.”
Ophelia’s lips thinned. “Does this have to do with some X-rated stuff you don’t want to talk about, because I totally get that and I’m not pressuring you at all, but it might feel good to let it out and get another perspective. I’ll listen like a therapist, not a friend who’s seen you doing the splits in reverse cowgirl.”
My lips curved at the corners. “Have you been watching our streams?”
“I subscribed to support you, but curiosity got the best of me.” Phee hid her face while mine lit up in a bright cackle. “I swear it was just one time. You told me about the steak slapping and I needed to see it for myself.”
“That’s true love. That’s soulmate level shit, Phee. I can’t believe I ever thought you might see me differently for my career choices.” I threw my arm over her shoulder and she laughed alongside me. “How did it look, though?”
“Literally stunning. The lighting, the athleticism—you’re unmatched.”
“Mateo and I have something special,” I sighed. “And it’s not all about that. Our fight. We’re just on completely different pages. He lied to me about how much work he’s been doing at TechOps since Frankie left, and his parents bought a house in Florida without telling anyone, apparently, and he didn’t think I’d be able to handle it. I know he’s struggling, but he won’t let me in.”
Mateo’s anxiety attack was at the tip of my tongue. I stopped myself before I went too far. It was his story to tell, and though I could use a person to confide in, the only one I would be helping was myself. I wouldn’t break that trust no matter how hard it was to watch him take it on alone.
“You’ll come out stronger together on the other end of this, Nat. I know you will, because Mateo is fucking obsessed with you. What you need to do at this moment is get a drink, remember you are that man's everything, and then beat him in a scavenger hunt so he has to perform an interpretive dance to prove his undying love for you in front of his entire family. We’re already two steps ahead.”
“You’re right.” A jolt of positivity needled up my spine, straightening my shoulders. This was still my bachelorette party; it was what we made of it. I adjusted my veiled crown purposefully and caught myself looking around at everyone perched on the edge of the circular bar, hoping my eyes might meet soft, familiar hazel ones.
“Of course I am.” Ophelia’s arm flew out, waving toward the bartender again.
“It’s hard to get their attention.” A man beside me brushed his arm against mine and I peeled it back, staring up at him. It might have been an accident, but the crooked smile said differently. One of his bottom teeth was jagged, there was a gap between the two middle, and he was wearing a bowling shirt with the name Lance sewn into the breast pocket. The hair at the top of his head was visibly thinning through a combover. “Let me buy that drink for you. Wedding gift.”
I turned away, looking for the bartender. “No, thanks.”
“Come on, what are you, here for a bachelorette party? Where’s the rest of you?”
“In a much luckier position, I’m sure,” Ophelia edged back.
I leaned away but the crowd was so thick it was difficult to fully move. “Uninterested.”
“Don’t be like that.” He chuckled. “Isn’t it the last night out or something? Final fling. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. It’s just a drink.”
“I said no.” I turned back toward him with heat in my eyes. I’d gotten exceptionally good at telling men to fuck off online, but it was always nerve-wracking in person. You never knew how they would react. My guard was constantly up, unless I was with Mateo. “What is with you putrid predatory losers and the lack of comprehension? No is a full sentence, now find a hole in the desert and fall into it before someone does it for you and makes it look like an accident.”
The guy looked me up and down with amusement, a snarl poking out between his chapped lips and I crossed my arms over my chest as a shield. Something caught his dark gaze behind me then, in his periphery, and his face paled. Brows arching, he stumbled back and bumped into the person behind him, sending their cup and a splash of red liquid onto the sand, and then he was quickly shoved sideways and out of the immediate area by a new throng of people competing for a sliver of pine at the bar top.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought!” I boasted, giving Phee an impressed nudge. As I was patting myself on the back, two large bodies saddled up beside us, unbothered and slurping noisily from a straw. I didn’t even need to look to realize it was in fact not me, but Sam and Tyler, who had scared the creep into a speechless, fumbling mess. The two stones of ex-military concrete known as the Swan brothers stood behind me and Ophelia like a blockade.
The bartender materialized out of thin air, glancing at the boys with a smirk. “Can I get you guys something?”
“We’ll do two Blow Job shots,” Sam said. “You ladies need a refreshment?”
“Please, vodka sodas,” Phee ordered. “Doubles.”
I blanched at Sam. “You’re not serious.”
“Thank God we were here.” He clicked his tongue.
“I had that handled.”
“I’m sure of it.” He smiled in that sideways, charming way I’d only ever found harmless coming from Sam Swan. I could see how it might not be so harmless to any other woman in the world. “You’re lucky it was us and not the other two.”
He was probably right. The most intense I’d ever seen Mateo was when he stood up for me, and he very well might have taken Camilla’s Chippendales comment to heart despite how ridiculous it was. Our emotions were heightened. Petty is as petty does.
“Does he even care?”
Tyler scoffed mirthfully. “You women are so smart, yet so unbelievably self-deprecating.”
The bubble-braided bartender returned with our drinks and two frothy shots and placed them eagerly in front of the Swans.
“You’re actually out of your mind,” I said through a reluctant grin. “Can we get this on camera, actually? I’m saving it to warn the poor women you marry of the eye-shielding embarrassment they’re getting themselves into.”
“Put on the flash. We’re in it to win it, baby.” Tyler muscled to the table. It seemed like everyone around us dispersed to make room for the two of them to have their space. “Check it off the list, too.”
They weren’t kidding. I watched with a mix of pride and mild humiliation as my future husband’s groomsmen, special forces veterans, and two of the most masculine men I’d ever met stood at the edge of the bar on either side of me, put their hands behind their backs, and deep-throated a whip-cream-covered shot glass without a shred of hesitation. A giggle bubbled from my throat as they lifted the glasses off the table with their mouths and threw their heads backwards, shooting the creamy liquor without spilling a drop.
My eyes pinched closed and a smile spread across my face. The whole thing plucked at something hopeful inside my chest, regardless of how it put our team at a disadvantage in the scavenger hunt. I didn’t grow up with brothers, but I figured this was what it must have felt like. The ridiculous antics, the air of protectiveness, coming to my emotional rescue when they know I needed a pick-me-up.
Tyler licked his sticky fingers clean and ran his forearm across his mouth.
“Showboater,” I said, elbowing him.
He shot me a wink.
I turned my back to the bar and looked out into the crowds of people around the pool. A significant area beneath a platform at the edge had been cleared to make room for something. People floated around in bright-colored tubes and flamingo-shaped floats. Like a magnetic pull, my eyes wandered to the opening in the dance floor as it split, and Mateo and Frankie poured out of the dense crowd. A pang hit my chest, like a single piece of thread being tugged, a sewing needle through my heart pointing toward his with the remaining stitch.
His wide hazel eyes found me in an instant. There was something hurt, but hopeful, in them, just the same as mine, and a flush of panic subsided to calm when he realized it was the four of us standing there.
“Did you tell them we were here?” I gestured toward Frankie and Matty.
“Of course.” Tyler checked himself out in the sunglasses sitting on top of Ophelia’s head. “Stop running away, girls. We’ll always find you. Whether you want to be found or not.”
The commotion at the pool reignited and Sam watched with rapt attention as a tall man in flagrant chrome sunglasses and layers of beaded necklaces hopped onto the small wooden stage with a microphone. The man waved his hands and the poolgoers cheered expectantly. “Who here’s got the best belly flop in Las Vegas?”
“Oh, Jesus,” I snorted. “Who in their right minds would ever voluntarily do that to themselves? In front of thousands of people, no less. We should get out of here before this gets too crazy. Looks like the entire place is about to be standing around this pool any second.”
Sam glanced past me at his brother, then back to the pool. My face dropped. Not Sam. He was reverent, and quiet, an observer , perfectly melting into the background. The liquor shot was likely going to his head because a wicked grin stretched across his face and he pushed off the bar and started for the pool.
“He’s joking, Tyler. Tell me he’s joking.” I took one worried step toward Sam and then looked back at his beaming brother. “What is with you two and public humiliation? This has to be some sort of kink.”
“Wink never jokes about winning.” Tyler whistled at him. “Hey, shirt! Pockets!”
Sam stalled briefly to peel off his shirt and strip down to his black boxer briefs, showing off trim muscle that accentuated a body full of traditional American tattoos. I caught his clothes clumsily as he tossed them back to us, and then he continued toward the water.