Chapter 20 #2
Is he trying to play it cool with offering to show me fun?
Addison isn’t watching us. She’s chatting with Theo’s dad and uncle and cousin. Sabrina and Decker are whispering furiously. Most of Chandler’s family is fawning over Emma.
Everything seems pretty normal.
Lucky stands and clinks a spoon against his glass before I can figure out the answers to all of my questions.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming to Chandler and Emma’s bachelor-bachelorette party.
In just a minute here, we’re gonna be handing out clues for you to scurry off into the night on a scavenger hunt to find the world’s most epic bridal shower gift.
You don’t get to keep it, but you do get to give it to the happy couple. You ready for this?”
There are probably sixty people here now, and they all erupt in cheers.
“A’right! That’s what I love to hear. Party people finding the presents! Yeah! Let’s do this! My brothers, roll out the clues.”
Theo adjusts himself so he’s looping his arm around my shoulders, his hand hanging casually over my collarbone.
And it’s a thrill.
A serious, a sexy man is touching me thrill.
I know this is just Theo. He flirts with anything that moves. He puts fun above all else. And this is fun .
But it’s also making me warm and fuzzy and more than a little turned on inside.
I tell myself it’s because I’m basically playing besties with the baddest bad boy to ever bad boy in the Tooth.
That it’s the thrill of rebelling against the idea that he’s off-limits to a woman from a proper upper-middle-class family running, as Addison said, the biggest photo gift business in the country.
But thinking about him being not good enough for me makes me want to hit something at the same time.
He’s not a bad guy. Sabrina’s right. Since he discovered legal boundaries, he’s mostly harmless fun.
Who apparently solved an issue with the scavenger hunt before I ever thought to wonder if there was a problem with it. “When you say you fixed this ,” I say quietly as Jack approaches us with a basket full of clues, “what exactly do you mean?”
“In the interest of your innocence when everything goes to shit, as it inevitably will since I have done a good deed, I’m not telling. But before everything goes to shit, you should know that I did the best I could with what I had when the resort didn’t do what they’re fucking being paid to do.”
Jack stops in front of us. He looks at Theo, then at me, and then at Theo’s arm. “Ooooh, somebody’s parents are gonna have a shit fit,” he says.
“I know,” Theo says. “Dad was hoping I’d go for a chick with a motorcycle and more tats than me, maybe a longer rap sheet too, but here we are.”
Jack chortles. “Here, Laney. Bet you figure this out faster than he does. Good luck and don’t cheat.” He points two fingers to his own eyes, then at Theo, then back to his own eyes. “I’m watching you.”
“Not as close as I’m watching you.”
They both grin and do a complicated handshake, then Jack moves on to the next couple.
“Doesn’t that bother you?” I ask Theo.
“That Jack, Lucky, and Decker think you’re worth protecting?”
“That they have to tear you down to say something nice about someone else.”
“I’ve dragged all of their asses out of the bar one too many nights for me to take any of them seriously.
And the day any of those dudes finds a classy-ass woman who takes him down a billion pegs will be the day I’m standing in line to say the same, then beat the shit out of anyone else who insults him the way I get to. ”
We’re following everyone else off the lanai, even though Theo and I both apparently know where all of the clues will take us. The staff is supposed to lay out food while we’re scavenger hunting, and then we’ll have fun again.
“You sound like you’re their brother,” I say.
“Brothers of the heart. Sullivan triplets are fun.” He grins, then takes the clue, holds it up, and reads it. “ You will be very lucky tonight. In bed. ”
“That is not what our clue says. Hey. You’re holding it upside down. And backwards.”
“You sure?”
“Theo.”
“Wanna do something bad, Laney?”
A thrill zings through me from my nose to my vagina. “It’s Emma’s wedding week,” I whisper.
He steers me off the path behind the cute little resort bistro on the beach where Sabrina, Emma, and I had a very, very long brunch today—all fun, most of it waiting longer than I’ve ever waited for a pastry before in my life—and then he does something that makes me squeak in horror.
He twists the handle on the back door, the door marked staff only , and pulls me inside.
“Oh my god, we can’t be here,” I whisper in the dark.
“You know what this is?”
“It’s the bistro kitchen. We’re not staff. We can’t—shut up. I know what you’re thinking. Rule-following Plainy-Laney can’t have any fun . But this will get us kicked out , Theo. We’re not supposed to be here.”
“You know who is supposed to be here?”
“ Not. Us .”
“The staff making dinner for Emma’s bachelorette party.”
“What?”
He flicks on a light.
I wince.
“The staff, Laney. The kitchen staff. The wait staff. The staff that the front desk told you would be here? They’re not here .”
Oh, no. Oh, no no no.
“So. You wanna have some fun and help me solve another problem, or you wanna stand here talking about how we’re not supposed to be here?”
My brain is breaking even as it’s lighting up at the idea of solving a problem.
Pretty sure he knows this is like talking dirty to me.
“Why isn’t the staff here?”
“Not the most immediate concern, princess.”
“Okay. Okay.” I blow out a slow breath. “Right. Problem. Let’s fix this. Is there food? I can’t cook. I mean, I can cook, but I can’t cook for?—”
“Were those tacos good last night?” he asks.
I blink at him.
“Laney. Were the tacos good last night ?”
“They were until they made us hit a wild pig.”
He grins. “That’s the spirit. You in? Or are you gonna let Emma freak out when there’s no food for her guests in an hour?”
When he puts it that way, is there any other choice for a solution?
I fling my arms around him and impulsively kiss his cheek. “Are you kidding? You know I’m in. Let’s do this.”