Chapter -13- #2
Shit . Was Denz daydreaming about grilled cheeses and velvety lips on his neck while in his sister’s office? He’s truly fucked up.
“I want this as much as you,” he blurts, cheeks hot. “To step in as CEO. Keep our family name where it belongs.” He tugs his collar away from his damp neck. “Sometimes, I’m in over my head. I know. But this isn’t a fantasy for me. It’s a goal.”
Kami’s shoulders straighten. The deep plum shade of her Ted Baker Michahd pencil dress accentuates the ruby undertones in her complexion. Denz recognizes the thoughtful look in her eye.
Of the three of them, Kami’s always been the most driven.
Just like Nic’s the brains and he’s the life of the party.
It’s never been a competition with his siblings for who can stand out the most. And out of everyone in his life, Denz is certain his sisters want the best for him.
They’re never afraid to be unapologetically honest with him.
Kami finishes her muffin before she says, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes, dork.” She dusts crumbs into the empty wrapper. “Let’s show everyone whose fucking name belongs on this company.”
Denz’s grin matches the one on Kami’s mouth. His eyes dance around the office. Her latest vision board is pure chaos. Scattered photos connected by red dry erase marker lines. It’s like a murder wall.
“Is that—” Denz’s eyes narrow on something in a far corner. “—BASE jumping?”
“Warner’s idea,” Kami says with a long exhale.
“Jesus.”
“ Emily wants to arrive by helicopter. Her ideas are a carbon copy of what her sisters did, but bigger in the worst ways.”
“Remember when Taylor arrived in a carriage like Cinderella?”
“Or Madisen’s musical entrance like Belle from Beauty and the Beast ?”
“That’s why Emily wants snow in March?” Denz snorts. “Going for Elsa from Frozen vibes?”
“She’s insufferable. I like the challenge, but it’s so much drama for an engagement party .”
“Imagine planning their wedding,” Denz says.
On top of the eight million things on his to-do list, he’s also been keeping tabs on 24 Carter Gold’s competition.
If Denz wants to prove he can take the company to the next level, he needs to know what the enemy is doing.
Elite Events and Something Blue Enterprises get their biggest social media numbers from weddings.
Huge, flashy affairs. That’s how they stay so close to the top.
“Do you think Auntie Eva might be right?” he asks.
“Hmm?”
“You know.” Denz gestures toward the whiteboard. “Getting the company back into weddings. Re-creating the buzz we once had.”
Kami’s nose scrunches. “Are you still on that?”
“It’s not a silly idea.”
“Wedding planning is the worst.”
Denz barks out a laugh. “How would you know?”
By the time Kami finished her degree at Emory, settling into life as a single mom with a newborn and even more expectations, their dad had fully severed ties from wedding planning.
They started small again. More intimate connections with their client’s vision for a perfect event rather than what would land them on the cover of Southern Bride .
“I saw what it did to Dad and Mom back then,” Kami says matter-of-factly.
They don’t talk about it often. The behind-closed-doors arguments their parents had in Denz’s early teens.
All the tension from the company’s rapid popularity.
Paparazzi waiting outside restaurants. The juxtaposition between their camera-ready faces for a Christmas spread in Simply Southern magazine and the long, awkward silences over family dinners.
The topic of their parents’ almost-separation sits in a dark corner of their history.
Next to Kami and Matthew, Auntie Eva’s first failed business venture, the way Denz’s grandparents forced Auntie Cheryl to end things with Jordan’s dad for the sake of the “family reputation.” But the ripple effects are always felt.
Even now.
Still, Denz can’t help saying, “It’d be different this time.”
No matter who wins, Denz and Kami will have each other’s back. They can ease into wedding planning. A new client every few months; rekindle that magic spark that made them who they are.
“The company’s fine,” Kami says. “We’re good.”
“But we could be better.”
“Yeah, and my brother could bring me better muffins,” Kami teases, tossing the crumpled wrapper at him. “Sometimes, things don’t need drastic changes to be better. Subtle tweaks. Remembering what made it great in the first place.”
He fake-yawns. “Boring!”
“Anyway, how’s Braylon?”
A familiar tingling sinks into Denz’s cheeks. Memories rush him: kisses against his throat. Calculated fingers tickling along the inside of his thighs. Braylon coming apart seconds after Denz did.
“Oh, um, good?” He shifts anxiously in the chair. “Alive?”
“Wow.” The smile on her lips is peak Auntie Cheryl after discovering a new piece of gossip. “You’re smitten . You’ve got it bad, Denzel Carter.”
Yeah, no. He doesn’t.
“So,” Denz says, by way of deflection, “when’s Suraj proposing? Isn’t it about time?”
“All right.” Kami shuffles the papers on her desk. “You’re excused. Go away.”
Denz wishes his thoughts would go away that easily.
Things like maple syrup drizzled on brioche bread.
The pleasant burn of stubble against his chest. His old sweatshirt, the one Braylon’s kept all these years.
The unnerving number of times his mind drifts back to one silly night while he’s having an afternoon espresso or answering an email, pacing around the parking garage three times looking for his car before realizing he’s on the wrong level, is absurd.
Which is how he ends up at Twist-n-Salt, another one of Jamie’s bars, with a bowl of nachos and whatever drinks his best friend slides in front of him.
The bar’s vibe aims for upscale chic, but lands somewhere left of an elevated Applebee’s.
First, the visual nightmare of neon signs hanging everywhere. Then there’s the tacky upholstery on the booths. The wobbly high-top tables. Christmas tinsel on the shelves of alcohol bottles behind the bar. Denz is certain the staff left that up out of pure spite rather than negligence.
“Okay,” Jamie says between customers, resting his elbows on the stained-wood bar. “Tell me how it happened.”
Denz picks at his nachos. The cheese is radioactive orange and, despite what the menu advertises, the soggy jalapenos are from a jar, not fresh.
“Again?”
Jamie grins. “I need to get inside your head to understand.”
Denz doubts that. They’ve traded sex stories before. He’s heard all the messy details of Jamie’s first time. In return, he overshared about that one hookup who was fiercely into foot play and dirty talk.
But this is Braylon . Fake-boyfriend Braylon. There shouldn’t be a sex story about him, at least not a recent one.
Denz sloshes his drink around. It’s a suspicious shade of purple.
“I went to his place for a grilled cheese. We talked about London. I word-vomited about my stressful week at work—” He clocks the sharp eyebrow raise and makes a mental reminder to apologize for not coming to Jamie first about his problems. “Blah, blah, blah. He thought a blow job would calm me down—”
“And it did!”
Denz refuses to agree.
“And then,” Jamie says eagerly.
“I found my old sweatshirt under his bed,” Denz says.
Jamie considers this, the neon pink NO PLACE LIKE HOME sign above his head shining across his furrowed brow. He steps away to refill someone’s beer, mix a martini for another customer. When he returns, Jamie smiles and says nonchalantly, “Sounds like nothing to me.”
Denz winces at his next sip. It tastes like berry-flavored toilet bowl cleaner. Also, did Jamie not hear a word he said?
“Nothing?”
“You were upset,” Jamie says. “He gave you comfort head. Happens all the time. Especially with boyfriends.”
“We’re not boyfriends.” Denz buries his face into his hands. After a beat, he hisses, “We’re only doing this for my family. It’s not real.”
Jamie pops a cheese-soaked nacho in his mouth. “Is Braylon freaking out?”
Denz pauses. “No?”
Braylon’s perfectly normal. He still emails new ideas for the spring break party. Texts his awful “boyfriend” jokes that Denz finds himself laughing at in the middle of meetings with Eric. Nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe that’s why Denz’s brain is mush.
Does he want Braylon to act differently? To show the slightest hint of awkwardness about what happened?
“It was good, right?” Jamie asks.
“No comment.”
“You needed to de-stress,” Jamie notes. “It’s not like you’re getting dick regularly.”
“I get dick,” Denz argues.
“Doesn’t sound like it to me,” a middle-aged white man wearing a mesh trucker cap and far too much flannel for March says from two stools over. “Another Guinness, J.”
Before Denz can react—or scream—a waitress sidles up with a tray of empty glasses. “Yeah, sorry sweetie,” she says, tucking a strand of overly dyed blond hair behind one ear, “but the way you’re acting, seems like that orgasm was long overdue.”
She ignores Denz’s unhinged flailing while offloading her tray. “Can I get a round of Fireball for table seven?”
“You mean the Jamie Peters Special?”
“No,” she grumbles, not in the mood for Jamie’s offbeat charm. “Fireball. That’s it. Don’t make me cut you.”
Jamie salutes her.
Blondie Waitress pivots to Denz with a sympathetic smile he wants no part of. “Work stress is the worst, hon. Get a vibrator. Saved my life.”
Then, she’s gone.
Denz wants to know when his sex life became a group project. He watches Jamie refill Flannel Guy’s beer before pouring whiskey into five new shot glasses. Reluctantly, Denz sips his lavender-hued cocktail.
Fine, Jamie—all of them— might be right. What happened with Braylon did feel good. Incredible. And he’s been less tense around the office ever since. But was it just the blow job?
“Stop!” Jamie smacks Denz’s hand. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what ?”
“Get all in your head. It makes you look constipated.”
“Fuck you.” Denz laughs, ignoring the fact that no one’s said that to him since college.
Since Braylon.
Jamie wipes down the bar and adds, “It’s not the end of the world. You have what? A month left of this? Enjoy it.” He lowers his voice. “If one of my exes agreed to fake-date me and was that good with his mouth, I’d find out what other things we could fake-try while we still had time.”
“Anyway,” Denz says, shaking his head. “I didn’t come here to talk about… that .”
“Like hell you didn’t,” Jamie says, snorting.
“I wanted to officially invite you to bartend at my dad’s retirement party,” Denz says louder. “We could use the extra hands.”
It’s not the only reason he’s offering Jamie a gig.
Dinner with his parents was, as expected, a disaster.
Jamie’s not answering any of their calls.
That also means his bank account’s a little tighter.
Even through his post-toe-curling-orgasm haze, Denz still notices the way Jamie’s being fiscally cautious, but he knows his best friend never accepts handouts, no matter how sincere they are.
“So…” Denz chews another sodden nacho. “Want to come party with the Carters?”
“Do I get my own staff?”
“You’ll be on a staff. It’s an open bar. You’ll split tips.”
“Do I have a say on wardrobe?”
“If you want to suffer Auntie Eva’s vengeful wrath, then sure.” Denz tugs out his phone. “All-black dress code. No T-shirts. Nice jeans.”
“Do I at least get a drink named after me?”
Denz tosses a jalapeno at him.
Jamie shakes it off. “Everyone’s going to be there? Aunts and uncles?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Nic?”
Denz points an accusing finger. “You two better stay at least ten feet from each other. You’re like Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn at parties.”
“She’s the Vince.”
Denz grins. “Obviously.”
“And what about…” Jamie dries the same spot on the bar over and over. “Jordan?”
“Why wouldn’t he be there?”
Jamie doesn’t answer. He fixes an apple martini that’s a shade too green for Denz’s liking before passing it off to a waiter. “Okay, I’m in.”
“Perfect.” Denz chokes on another sip. “Bro, this is awful .”
Jamie guffaws. “Too late. You already hired me. No take-backsies.”
Denz sighs, unsure what he’s going to regret more: hiring the world’s worst bartender for the biggest night of his family’s life or the hangover he’s going to have tomorrow morning.
Most likely, both.