3. Rhett
“At least she’s hot.”
“Jackass.”
I ignored Wolfe and the sweat trickling down my back as I did a few practice swings with my golf club. She was hot. No point pretending otherwise. All fire and passion. About frogs, no less. Imagine what she’d be like about something that really mattered.
I swung and the follow through was fucking perfect. Grayson let out a low whistle as we all watched my ball sail through the air and land on the green. “Not bad, if I do say so myself.” I turned to Grayson, who was up next, and grinned. “Looks like I’m still the king of the course, brother.”
Grayson rolled his eyes. “It’s the first hole with seventeen to go. And we all know that focus isn’t exactly your strong suit.”
That was no lie, but I said, “Get fucked,” anyway.
Grayson chuckled and let rip with a swing so perfect I had to actually bite back a groan. It landed about a foot away from mine. He shot me a look of amused satisfaction and right there, I had to admit that his engagement had been good for him. If you’d told me my older, stoic, brooding, colder than ice brother would fall for a punk rock chick with blue hair, ripped jeans and enough sass to terrify mere mortals, I wouldn’t have believed you. But here we were. “Wedding plans all on track?”
“Sure. On the home stretch now, which is getting Mom all het up.”
“How so?”
“She loves weddings, of course, and hosting, and all the planning.”
“Can’t imagine that’s much fun for Stef.”
“She doesn’t mind. Quite likes it, actually.”
“No way that’s true. Unless she’s had a complete personality transplant.”
Grayson smiled. “I asked if she wanted to elope, she said no. She wants to stand up in front of as many people as possible and, uh, claim me.”
“Then stick her tongue down your throat.”
“Jesus, were you eavesdropping?”
Wolfe and I both laughed. “You still haven’t explained how she’s dealing with Mom.”
“As long as she’s got total say over what she wears, she’s not bothered. The only real snag was when Mom gently hinted that she might consider dying her hair a more natural look.”
“Can’t imagine that went down well.”
We waited, standing side by side, as Wolfe took his shot and, as expected, his ball landed on the green, very close to the other two. We’d all picked up golf clubs practically before we could walk.
Handing our clubs to the caddie, we elected to walk to the green rather than take the cart.
“So, how exactly did Mom’s suggestion about Stef’s hair go?” Wolfe asked.
“She made the mistake of saying it in front of me. I put paid to the idea immediately.”
“Nice one.” Like I said, brooding brother, sassy rock chick…I would have laughed in your face. “Helps to be the favorite child, I guess.”
“It has its upsides. To be fair, Mom’s limits have sure been tested. One son already married to a woman that lived in a trailer park with four kids. The other engaged to a punk. If you really want to improve your credit, bring home a woman Mom can approve of.”
“Ha! Funny. And very unlikely. I like my life just the way it is, thanks.”
“That’s fair. Now that we’re talking about the wedding, though, it’s a good time to mention that Scarlett will be invited.”
The way my pulse leaped. “And?”
Grayson glanced at Wolfe. It was like they were a united fucking front these days. “And, seeing as how she’s filed the injunction, it would seem that your meeting didn’t go so well.”
“It went fine.”
“She filed the very next morning. Perhaps our definitions of fine differ.” Grayson always talked like he had a stick up his ass.
“When an irresistible force meets an immovable object…you know how it goes.”
“Am I right in assuming that you’re the irresistible force?”
I gotta say, I didn’t like Wolfe’s tone of wry amusement. “Naturally.”
“I feel your grasp of the issue might be lacking, brother. Since it seems that the irresistible force was very easily resisted. And the object is completely unmoved.”
“We’ll see.” We didn’t say anything as we got to the green. Grayson and Wolfe waited while I putted, the silence continuing when my ball dropped neatly into the hole. “There’s the mediation process to get through before it goes to court. That’s my chance to make her see sense.”
“I wouldn’t bank on that.”
I shot Grayson a look. “You don’t trust me to handle it?”
He shrugged. “It’s not that. So much has gone wrong with this dumb fuck land deal that my expectations are extremely low of anything ever working out.”
“It’s all Dad’s fault,” Wolfe put in. “All of that effort just to spite a guy he went to college with, who he hasn’t seen in more than three decades. No due diligence, no forward planning, no contingencies. Just leaves it up to us to try to make it work.”
“Which is exactly why he’s got a bug up his ass about it. He needs this to work to justify the whole thing. Which is also why, Rhett, you have to be all over it like a fly on shit.”
“Great, thanks for that, Gray.”
“I’m serious. Do whatever you can to convince Scarlett that the benefits of the project far outweigh her concerns.”
“Whatever it takes, huh?”
“Yes. Whatever it takes.”
My brother had no idea of the world of options he’d just given me.