Try Again, Baby (The Wells Brothers #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Mazzy

Five Years Ago

This was the first time I’d ever wanted to throw in the towel.

Lie on the floor and let myself be absorbed into the earth. Though the tiles and layers of concrete might have gotten in the way of that.

Drat. I couldn’t even mentally fall apart without overthinking it.

If only I’d overthought Daniel.

Then I wouldn’t have been in New Zealand, stranded at the airport, trying as hard as I could not to cry in front of strangers. And there were a lot of them—in line behind me, on either side of me, checking in for their flights.

Focusing on something other than the myriad ways Daniel had screwed me, I quickly did mental math, calculating New Zealand dollars into American…

“Two thousand dollars?” Oh, the tears were coming. My poor bank account was already weeping.

The ticket agent stared back at me impassively. Something told me she didn’t get paid enough to feel sorry for me.

Still, I had to try. “Is there no other flight? Anything…cheaper? I—” I had to swallow around the lump in my throat. “I just found out my boyfriend has been cheating on me with his ex for our entire relationship, and I really need to get home to my dad.”

She blinked, then proceeded to tap on her keyboard, all while shaking her head.

“You see, I didn’t even want to come to New Zealand.

” Her typing paused, so I rushed to add, “Not that it’s not a beautiful country.

It is. Well, I assume it is. We only made it as far as baggage claim before I found the messages between him and his ex.

He told her he was here with his sister and he’d see her as soon as he got home. He told her he loves her.”

The ticket agent looked up for a moment, narrowed her eyes, and sighed before going back to typing.

I carried on. “He flew me here on a friends-and-family pass. His dad’s a pilot.

Do you know the statistics of pilots who cheat?

I don’t know the exact percentage, but it’s high.

I thought his dad was a nice guy. Then again, I thought Daniel was too.

Like father, like son, I guess. Not that I know his father cheats, but he probably does, with a son like that.

Daniel tried to convince me to stay and talk it out, but I couldn’t even bear to look at him.

And I’m so tired. I haven’t slept in…well, I don’t know what time it is.

To be honest, I’m feeling a bit delirious.

But I can’t stay here, right? I have to go back. ”

My stomach lurched. This wasn’t going to turn out how I’d been hoping, but I refused to cry. Not yet. These tears were waiting to be shed in my father’s arms.

The ticket agent looked up again. “There’s nothing I can do.

” At least she’d said it in her lovely New Zealand accent, somewhat softening the blow of having to spend almost the entirety of my bank account on a flight home.

At this point, I might have sold a kidney—anything to end this trip from hell.

“Okay. Well…thank you for checking.” I passed her my debit card, which was already shriveling into a raisin from being sucked dry. “Maybe I can sue my ex for emotional damage,” I muttered.

The guy at the counter beside me chuckled, and I looked over—and up, up, up.

He was so tall, I had to crane my neck to see his face, and oh, what a face it was.

Of course he was gorgeous, with an impossibly square jaw and lively brown eyes.

And grinning right at me, showing off absolutely perfect teeth, not hiding the fact he’d been listening to my breakdown.

“I’m a mess,” I explained unnecessarily.

“Seems like it,” he agreed, reaching down to grab his leather carry-on. Upright, he strolled past me, pausing to wink. “A cute mess, though.”

I watched him go. At least a head taller than everyone else, his curly brown hair stood out, making it take a while for him to disappear into the crowd.

When I turned back, my ticket agent was in conference with the agent beside her. They waved in the direction the handsome giant had gone then at me, shaking their heads. The neighboring agent smiled pityingly at me, and I took it. Normally, I didn’t like to be pitied, but I could use it right now.

My agent returned and smiled, sliding my debit card across the desk to me. “No worries, love, your ticket has been taken care of.”

My brows rose in slow motion. “What do you mean?”

She got to typing again. “It’s been paid for. You don’t owe anything.”

I was too exhausted to wrap my head around what she was saying. I looked at my debit card. It was intact, but that didn’t mean my bank account hadn’t been sucked dry.

“Paid for…by me?”

She laughed and bustled around behind her desk, printing a boarding pass and sliding it into an envelope. Then she showed it to me, told me my gate and boarding time, and wished me a nice flight. All without explaining what she meant.

It was a testament to how sleep-deprived I was that it took me as long as it did to understand what had happened. I was at my gate, staring at the paper in my hand and the nonsensical seating assignment, when it hit me.

“Wait, 4B?” I whispered. “That’s…”

Oh, holy hell. Was that first class? Business class? I wasn’t familiar with how these things worked, but I’d flown enough to know I was not on a front-of-the-plane budget.

The ticket agent definitely hadn’t felt sorry enough for me to stick me in first class. And my bank account didn’t have any charges besides the pack of gum I’d bought from the convenience shop after passing through security.

It couldn’t have been…

Surely not…

The tall guy? Could he have bought my ticket?

I took my glasses off and scrubbed my eyes, rubbing harder than was advisable to stop fresh tears from falling. Was this real life?

I looked around the seating area, but he was nowhere in sight. Even if he was, what would I have said? If he had been the one to buy my ticket, I might’ve ended up clinging to him like a spider monkey while sobbing my eyes out, making both of us feel awkward.

Since I’d humiliated myself enough for one day, it was better for everyone he wasn’t around.

So, this is business class?

A plush seat in my own little pod. The flight attendant informed me my seat would transform into a bed if I wished, and oh, did I wish. Then again, I almost didn’t want to miss a second of this experience. Heaven knew I wouldn’t be flying in this style again.

I was looking through the bag of amenities while sipping a mimosa when the passenger on the other side of the divider between our seats arrived. If he’d been shorter, I probably wouldn’t have noticed him, but his curly hair and extreme height gave him away.

My heart in my throat, I pressed my back against my seat like I could hide. Why? I had no clue. Only now that he was here, I was deeply embarrassed for having accepted this extreme act of kindness. Not to mention, I was already scarfing down warm nuts and champagne.

My heart tried to break free when the divider began lowering, revealing lively eyes and perfect teeth.

“Hi,” I squeaked.

“Hey.” His eyes crinkled. “Would you rather, every time you sneezed, that water gushed from your nose like a firehose, or you shot ten pretzel rods from each nostril?”

I froze, scrambling to understand what he’d just asked. Then I made an inhuman noise mixing between a laugh, a snort, and a death rattle.

“Is death an option?” I asked.

“Nope. You must choose one.”

“Pretzel rods, then. Everyone likes pretzels.”

He nodded. “That’s my answer too. Though I was thinking of the cleanup, not how popular nose pretzels would make me.”

I scrunched my nose, not sure I wasn’t dreaming this conversation. “True. Gushing gallons of water would be inconvenient, especially with my allergies.”

“Pollen is devil dust, right?”

I made another sound, this one closer to an actual laugh. “That’s an apt description, for sure.”

He stuck his hand out. “I’m Ben.”

His hand was bigger than my head. Maybe bigger than any hand in the history of hands. I slipped mine into it, and it was portaled into another dimension where everything was warm and comfy.

“Hi, Ben. I’m Mazzy.”

He didn’t let go of my hand right away. “Mazzy? Is that a nickname?”

“Yes. The name on my birth certificate is Masha, but only because my papa convinced my dad I needed a name to fall back on in case I got tired of explaining Mazzy to every new person I met. No one has ever called me anything other than Mazzy, though. Well…except on the first day of school. I often forget about Masha.”

He blinked a few times, then one corner of his mouth hitched into a terribly charming crooked grin.

“I like the way you talk. I bet you tell good stories.” One corresponding eyebrow rose. “Was your dad a Mazzy Star fanatic?”

“Fanatic is a stretch, but he’s a fan.”

“Tell me your middle name is Star.”

“Sorry to disappoint you. It’s Belle, named after my papa’s favorite Disney princess.”

Ben leaned forward, close enough for me to see the spray of freckles across his nose, which looked like it had been broken at least once. The bump and slightly off-kilter alignment only made him more handsome.

“You have two dads?”

I nodded. “I did. My papa died when I was little, though. It's been just Dad and me for a long time.”

His face crumpled like he personally knew our family. “Fuck, I’m sorry about that. My dad died a few years ago, but he wasn’t the type to have a favorite Disney princess. No warm fuzzies there.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I said the first thing that popped into my head. Considering my head was a hot mess of exhaustion, anger, and despair, I wasn’t my smoothest.

“Did you pay for my plane ticket?”

Ben’s smile widened. “I did. You seem like you’re going through it. I thought I could lighten your load a little.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, steadying my dizzy heart. “Thank you, Ben,” I nearly whimpered. “But it’s too much. I can’t even imagine what this seat must have cost you.”

“Don’t worry about it. I fly a lot and have a shitload of points. Makes it easy to do a good deed.” He squeezed my hand he was still holding. “I’d offer to put a hit out on your ex, but I don’t really know any hit men, and my brothers wouldn’t approve.”

“Are you always this nice to strangers?”

“Not this nice.” He rolled his lips over his teeth, like he was working hard to hold back a laugh.

“You seemed like you needed a break, and since it was easy for me to give you one, why not? I promise I have no ulterior motives. If you want to raise the divider and ignore me for the rest of the flight, you won’t hurt my feelings. ”

“I don’t want to do that.” My hand twitched in his. “But I’m probably going to fall asleep. I’ve been awake a long time.”

“I’m not a big sleeper, so I’ll guard you.”

Why did that make my lungs feel like bursting? “Do I need a guard?”

He looked around at the other passengers, his eyes narrowed. “I don’t know, Mazzy. Some of these people look a little hinky. I’ll keep an eye out.”

I finally let out a normal-sounding laugh, though I was feeling everything but normal. “Thank you so much. That’s really kind of you.”

I finally slipped my hand from his. Only because I wasn’t sure if he was holding on or I was, not because I wasn’t thoroughly enjoying holding hands with this perfect stranger.

After the doors closed and the flight attendants went over safety instructions, Ben got my attention again.

“Hey, Mazzy.”

“Yes, Ben?”

“Would you rather, for one day a year, be able to jump from cloud to cloud in the sky or grow gills and swim like a fish in the ocean?”

I puffed up my cheeks and blew out a breath. “Gills, I think. I’ve flown enough times for the sky not to be super exciting. Now, if you’d said jump from star to star, that might’ve changed my answer.”

He tapped his temple. “Yes. I am a big fan of the way you think. Jumping from star to star would be incredible. Like, space, what’s even out there? Barring that choice, I’m gonna go with you to the ocean. I have a burning need to find out if mermaids are real.”

“I hope you’re a good swimmer. If I only have one day to see everything, I’m not letting you slow me down.”

He pressed a hand to his chest. “You’d leave me alone in the ocean?”

“We could meet again on land when it’s over.”

“I guess going separate ways for one day a year is acceptable,” he conceded.

“Think of all we’d have to talk about when we find each other again.”

“Endless,” he said, nodding. “Glad we worked out a plan.”

“Me too.”

I leaned back in my seat with a smile.

Not exactly happy, but for the moment, I was okay.