Forty-Three
Reece
“When are we meeting the girls?” Brayden hiccups, stumbling forward and catching himself on the high-top table we’re at.
Frankly, I’m not so sure if Brayden needs to go to any other bars tonight but, hell, it’s not my bachelor party.
My brother leans back in his barstool, twirling his empty beer bottle between his fingers.
His eyes are drooping slightly, his face flushed thanks to the bucket of beer he just put down with Nigel at some country music bar that we’re at.
The day of golf and beer was a hit, all the guys congratulating me on planning such a badass party, but all I’ve wanted since noon is to be back with Stacy.
Especially after that godforsaken lunch that Tashia asked me to go to.
God, that threw a wrench in my plans. It was hard to act normal this afternoon, to celebrate my brother after the conversation I had with his fiancée a couple hours prior, but what was I supposed to do? I can’t tell him, I can’t hurt him. Not now, not on his bachelor trip.
I do need to tell Stacy, though. It’s a conversation I’m dreading but certainly one that needs to be had soon before shit gets out of hand.
Vance, another one of Evan’s fraternity brothers, checks the time on his phone. “It’s eight. Didn’t the girls say they’d be on Broadway by nine?”
Miles snorts. “Which means ten in girl language.”
“I hear that,” Nigel agrees, lifting his Bud Light bottle.
Jesus, another two hours? I don’t want to wait two hours. I want to be with Stacy now.
It sounds pathetic, I know. I’ve turned into a disgusting, lovesick sap who mopes around at a bachelor party because he misses his girlfriend. All I want is to be around Stacy. To be in her presence, to have a hand on her back, to smell the comforting scent of peaches and know that she’s with me.
The guys have delved into nonsensical and honestly offensive chatter as I sip on the beer I’m nursing.
I feel a little uptight, the lack of Stacy making me feel uneasy.
We’ll be together soon enough and I’ll loosen up, be the fun Reece that everyone expects me to be, but the way I’m starting to need Stacy Dunn is nearly laughable.
It’ll be a good night. We’ll end the year on a high note and go into next year with resolutions and promises, goals and plans, and Stacy and I will tackle it all together. Side by side.
The way a real couple should.
Brayden tells a crass joke that pulls me out of my train of thought. I open my mouth to jump into the conversation before my phone vibrates in my pocket and stops me. Pulling it out, I see an incoming call from Mae on the screen.
Mae?
I tap accept and hold the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Where are you?” she asks, straining her voice to yell over what sounds like a very noisy bar scene .
What the hell are they doing at a bar already?
“Um.” I glance around. “I don’t know. Somewhere with a lot of guitars on the walls. I think the word ‘honky tonk’ is in the title. Everyone’s wearing cowboy boots and I’m scared, Mae.”
Mae huffs out a frustrated breath on the other line, clearly not in the mood for jokes. “We’re at Outlaw’s Den . The bar we were at last night with the really good green tea shots. I need you to get over here.”
My stomach twists at the urgency in her voice, the blood starting to drain from my face. “Is everything okay? Where’s Stacy? I thought you girls weren’t coming out until nine?”
“Oh, Stacy’s here. She’s… alright, but, uh, I really need your help.”
I feel the bile rising in my throat. “Goddammit, Mae, is she oka—”
“She’s fine,” Mae bites. “But she’s really drunk and she won’t listen to me so I desperately need you to come help me. Any more stupid questions or are you going to get your ass over here?”
The knot in my stomach loosens slightly as I hear that Stacy’s alright. I can handle a drunk Stacy — I never have before but I’ve handled drunk women in general.
“I’ll be there in five,” I tell her, already striding over to the bar to close out my tab.
“Okay. Oh, and Reece?” Mae says right before I’m about to hang up.
“Yeah?”
“After you help me with Stacy, it’ll probably be in your dick’s best interest to leave her the fuck alone.”
The line goes dead and my hand freezes on the pen I’m using the sign my name.
Jesus Christ.
Seems like, just maybe, shit has gotten out of hand anyway.