Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
boston
I don’t know how I survived multiple days at a lake house with Ariana Forkerro in the world’s hottest bikinis, but I did.
Each day, she would put on a new one, enter the room, and meet my eyes.
She'd do a little turn while everyone’s backs were to us and then raise her brows, as if she was asking for my opinion.
I’d shoot her a look, and my dick would shoot to attention.
I’m getting confused, clearly. So is he.
Being so close to her with nowhere else to go is painful.
I’m forced to look at her, to listen to her speak, to listen to her laugh.
She’s beautiful, she’s witty, and she’d have already been in my bed if she wasn’t Forker’s sister. I’ve come to peace with that fact.
On the last night at the lake, I got up in the middle of the night to take a piss, and she opened the bathroom door as I reached for it.
Another test from the devil, I’m sure. With her blonde hair in a long, perfect ponytail, and a bit of toothpaste on the corner of her mouth, her eyes widened at the sight of me. She froze in the doorway.
Me and her. In a pitch-black house while everyone else slept. In the threshold of a room with a lock on the door.
Never seen her speechless before.
Would have been the perfect time to cross the line.
She leaned against the door, closing it behind her, and smiled up at me in the dark.
It wasn’t going to happen.
I reached forward, grabbing her by her hips before she could say a single word to entice me—hating the way her breath hitched as I did—and slid her out of the way.
“Good night, sweetheart,” is all I said, my voice thick with sleep. I didn’t look back to clock her expression, I knew I wouldn’t have survived it. I just pushed myself into the bathroom and shut the door behind me, flicking the lock.
If she entered the bathroom and locked us both inside, I wasn’t sure what restraint I’d have left. Something would happen. What? I’m not sure—but something.
And now we’re back in this fucking vehicle, heading to the city and right back to that hotel where she will be across the hall from me again.
We have the rehearsal dinner tonight, tomorrow is the big day, and then—finally—the day-after party.
Three more nights of having her within reaching distance.
I can survive three more. I survived three days spent with her in next to no clothing, begging me to flirt with her, finding any excuse to come and speak to me.
I can survive three more days with two doors and a hallway between us.
I can do this. She’ll be clothed this time.
When we pull into the parking lot of the hotel, a familiar face is waiting by the doors, barking demands into a phone.
A smile touches my lips at the sight of her.
Lemmy.
As if feeling her stare, I glance in the rearview mirror.
Ariana’s eyes are already burning into mine. Her brow furrows at whatever she sees on my face, so I wipe the smile from my mouth altogether. Lemmy is one of my nearest and dearest. Yeah, we’ve seen each other naked, but it’s not like that. I don’t want Ari thinking it is, either.
I try to tell her that with my eyes as we pull into the parking spot, but she’s suddenly glaring out the window and refusing to look at me.
This should feel like a win, but it doesn’t.
We climb out of the car and I raise my hand, grabbing Lem’s attention. She nods, speaking quickly into the phone, and then hangs up—a smile pulling on her mouth. She crosses the parking lot toward us, dressed more casually than I’ve ever seen her.
“How was the beach?” she greets us. Unsurprisingly, she reaches for me first. I feel the burn from Ari’s eyes on my back the entire time. I hug her like I always do, because again, she’s my friend. “A tan looks good on you, Boston.”
I run a hand over my jaw as she greets the girls. Ari stares at me as Lemmy speaks, her face unreadable, but she plasters a blinding smile on her face when Lemmy looks her way.
I need a stiff drink.
We all separate to go to our rooms, and I immediately jump right into the shower to cool off. I’m uncomfortable with how much I’m watching Ari, judging her reactions, ensuring she isn’t pissed at me—that small part of me hoping that she is.
Why?
Seriously, what is wrong with me?
I can’t give a fuck about that. Just like I can’t give a fuck about how good she looked in her bathing suits, or how I’m slowly starting to give her more rather than less.
I’m not stupid. I’ve noticed that she’s worn pink more often after the comment I made on the beach.
I know what I’m fucking doing and I keep doing it.
It only takes about two minutes before I’m fisting my cock under the stream of water.
Needing to get this out of my system. Needing to calm myself down.
For a brief moment, I wonder if having sex with Lemmy this weekend would have enough power to put Ari off me altogether.
To make her tired of this game. It only takes a second of thinking about it for me to decide against it.
Because I’d never use Lemmy as a pawn like that, and unfortunately, I don’t want Ariana to start looking at me differently, anyway. I don’t know what that says about me, but I know it’s probably that I’m a piece of shit.
I come with a muffled groan, not thinking about her pink bathing suit or her pink mouth, but thinking about the way her eyes lit the fuck up when I finally started playing her game on that beach.
The rehearsal goes by swimmingly. Typical wedding stuff. Ari stayed back and had a bubble bath while the rest of us headed to the venue. She made sure I heard that part, and it’s all I thought about for the next fucking hour, just like she intended.
I’m walking down the aisle with Penny’s sister, Aura, who is an older, quieter version of Penny. She’s got the same blonde hair, but it’s poker straight and shorter. They have the same smile, though. She’s a nice girl.
When I meet up with the rest of them for dinner, I don’t miss how Ariana avoids me and how Lemmy seeks me out. Lemmy and I have been doing this song and dance for years. We’re close. We tackle events like this together, always have, and it’s never been weird because we’re friends.
But there has never been an Ariana in the middle of that before.
Lemmy sits next to me, Forker on my other side. Ariana is directly across the table, chatting with everyone besides me, and it becomes strikingly clear that she’s done playing her games while Eleanor Lemon is around.
I might as well not be in the room.
Hate that.
Lemmy leans in close to update me on the Irina situation. She tells me that she has an undisclosed source who is sorting through the direct messages of the media company who interviewed Irina last year—and that she’s hopeful she’ll have some names in a week or so.
I lean my body away from Forker as Lemmy talks into my ear, ensuring he can’t hear. Both of us agreed not to bother him with this until we know for certain who has been behind it.
My eyes flicker across the table. Ari is finally looking at me, her eyes burning into mine as she slides the pick full of olives into her mouth and pulls it back clean.
Dear god.
Fuck her for that one.
I nod as Lemmy speaks, but my eyes are glued to Ariana’s face. She doesn’t look away, though there’s a cold edge to her expression now, one that makes me feel like I’m two feet tall and I have something to hide.
I don’t announce my sexual history because I’m polite and respectful, and what Lemmy and I do, or have done, is nobody’s business. But I feel like I need to confess everything to the girl across the table. Like I owe her something.
I don’t.
I need her out of my head.
Ari chooses to go back to the hotel in a separate car, and I climb into a rideshare with Forker, Arden, Lemmy, Lauren, and her husband. When I get back up to my room, her door is shut and there is a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the handle that wasn’t there before.
I stare at it and swallow.
Don’t knock. It doesn’t matter if she’s mad at you. You did nothing wrong. You have been clear that this will never go anywhere with her. Do not fucking knock.
I storm into my own room before I can change my mind.
The wedding is tomorrow, and it will force me to be away from her for most of the day. She’ll be at a separate table, maybe seated next to a stranger who will entertain her for the night. Maybe she’ll leave with him.
My stomach lurches at the idea of her being with someone else, just across the hall.
It would be for the best, truly. Best case scenario.
I hope to god that it doesn’t happen.
Forker knocks on my door around eight in the morning and together, we head up to Lowesy’s suite. The girls stayed in one of the other suites last night—Arden included, so that Lowesy and Penny didn’t share a bed the night before the wedding.
Again, Lowesy and his superstitions.
We walk into his suite to an array of food, fresh coffee—and Declan Lowes sitting at the kitchen island, shirtless and white as a ghost.
We both slow, risking a glance at each other. Not good.
“Lowesy,” Forker says, chipper as ever, but there is an edge of worry in his voice.
Caulfield waltzes in from one of the other rooms, coffee in hand. He nods at us. “Give him a second. He just spewed up his dinner.”
My brows hit my hairline. I round the opposite side of the island from Lowesy and Fork takes the barstool beside him, planting a sturdy hand on his shoulder.
Declan doesn’t look up. Not once. Says nothing to us, either.
“Here,” Seth says gently, emerging from the same room that Caulfield just came from. He slides a bottle of water and some anti-nausea tablets in front of Declan. When he still doesn’t move, Seth bends down to try and get a glimpse of his face. “Dec, man. You’ve got this.”
Lowesy just shakes his head, saying nothing.
I don’t like what this might insinuate. What the hell happened between last night and this morning?
Fork looks terrified. He pats Dec’s shoulder. “What’s going on, buddy?”