Chapter 9
Beck~
Everything in me had wanted to take Thandie home with me last night, but when we had exited the room to go cancel the participation room, Sherman Randall had come racing out through The Bachelor Pad door, looking green as hell.
One of the strippers had stepped on a broken champagne bottle, and blood had been flowing everywhere, changing the night’s entire vibe.
On instinct, I’d automatically gone into doctor-mode, my plans to take Thandie home ruined for the night.
Instead of taking her to my place, finding some rope or cords in the garage, then tying her down to violate her twenty different ways from Sunday, I’d had a hysterical stripper on my hands, and Sherman hadn’t been lying about the amount of blood that had coated the floor.
At the end of it all, I had managed to patch her up with the very impressive first-aid kit that the club manager had provided, but because of the amount of blood that’d been lost, I’d chosen to call for an ambulance anyway, and because I was a thorough doctor, I had walked Thandie to her car, sent her home, then had followed the ambulance to the hospital, and the poor girl had ended up leaving there with twelve goddamn stitches along the bottom of her foot, which wouldn’t be a good time for anyone.
To add to the mess of last night, instead of calling Thandie this morning to ask her if we could pick up from where we’d left off, I’d gotten a call from Kelly, and she’d been a crying mess.
She’d been blabbering about how she was a horrible person and how Brodrick could do so much better.
So, because I really did love my sister, instead of being balls-deep in Thandie Ames, I was pulling into Kelly’s driveway, parking my car behind hers.
Good times.
It wasn’t until I was making my way to the front door that I noticed Thandie’s car parked near the curb of the front house, and I must have really been distracted not to have noticed it earlier.
Granted, I wasn’t surprised to see her car here since they were best friends, but if she had Thandie here, then I wasn’t exactly sure why Kelly had called me.
Like most men, I wasn’t good with girl stuff, something that I could readily admit.
I knocked on the front door, and when it swung open, it was Thandie standing in front of me, and she looked as tired as I felt, but I was hoping that it was from missing me all night long, but I seriously doubted that it was.
“Hey, baby,” I greeted quietly, and the panicked look on her face was not going to work for me. Last night hadn’t been a one-night stand, and if she thought that I was going to keep her as my dirty little secret, then she was very wrong.
“Kelly’s a mess, so maybe we should...should tone it down a bit right now,” she suggested, and it was clear that I was in over my head with Thandie when her words were bothering me more than my sister’s theatrics.
However, before I could say anything more, Thandie was stepping back to allow me inside my sister’s house.
As soon as she shut the door behind me, Kelly was leaping from the couch, and when she threw her arms around me, I dutifully hugged her back.
Whatever was going on, it was obvious that my sister needed some serious comforting.
“Hey, hey,” I said soothingly. “Whatever it is, it’s okay, Kells.”
When she pulled out of my arms, she looked up at me, saying, “No, it’s not.”
I glanced over at Thandie, and leaving me on my own, she just gestured towards the couch, recommending that I get comfortable for whatever this was. So, since she knew more about what was going on than I did, I followed her suggestion, ushering my sister back to the couch.
Once we were seated, I said, “Okay, tell me what’s going on?”
“Brodrick is mad at me,” she sobbed. “And...and I think that he’s going to call off the wedding.”
“Why is he mad at you?”
Kelly let out another Broadway-worthy wail, making me look over at Thandie, and luckily, she took pity on me. “They got in an argument over the invitation style, and when Brodrick said that he couldn’t care less about the wedding, Kelly accused him of not loving her.”
Jesus Christ.
“I mean, how can he not care about our wedding?” Kelly cried out. “It’s going to be the most important day of our lives.”
“Kells, most men don’t care about the wedding details,” I informed her as kindly as I could. “That’s a girl thing. Most men only care about the getting married part.”
The same blue eyes that I had widened with theatrical outrage. “How can you not care about your wedding day?”
“Because I’m a man?” I hedged. “C’mon, Kells-”
“Oh, that’s easy for you to say,” she snapped. “You don’t even have a girlfriend.”
Yeah...so...
“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” I informed her. “I do have a girlfriend, and when the time comes for us to get married, I seriously doubt that I’m going to care about the calligraphy font on the invitations, Kells.”
Her tears immediately dried up. “What? What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
“What?”
“Since when do you have a girlfriend?” she asked, quickly distracted from her personal drama.
“Since last night,” I answered honestly. “Now, let’s get back to you and Brod-”
“Oh, no,” she quickly objected, interrupting me. “You’re not going to lay that kind of news on me without details.”
Since I could feel Thandie’s gaze like the incineration of a fire-breathing dragon, I said, “That can wait, Kelly. Let’s get back to you and-”
“No way,” she argued. “Plus, if you have a girlfriend now, then we’re going to have to revisit the seating plans. Oh, my God...how could you not tell me that you have a girlfriend, Beck?”
“Because we only became serious last night,” I repeated. “Now, let’s get back-”
“Who is she?” she asked, and it was in moments like this one when I had to remind myself just how much I loved my sister. “Where did you meet her? When do we get to meet her?”
“Kelly, stop it,” I ordered. “Now, you called us here for a reason, and my new girlfriend is not that reason.” She opened her mouth to argue some more, but I put my hand up to stop her. “That’s enough. Tell us what is going on with Brodrick, then we can discuss...uh, other things later.”
“He hurt my feelings,” she pouted like a child, and when I glanced over at Thandie, I caught her closing her eyes, a small prayer on her lips.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I almost snapped. “We’re here because Brodrick hurt your feelings? Jesus Christ, Kells.”
“Do I need to remind you that he said that he didn’t care about our wedding?” she harrumphed.
“You’re either completely obtuse or purposely looking for drama,” I told her, and when her blue eyes widened with offense, I threw my hand up again.
“Since all the pomp and circumstance are usually only for the bride, it’s not that Brodrick doesn’t care about the wedding, it’s that he doesn’t care about the details, Kelly.
Whatever you want is fine with him because all he wants to do is marry you. ”
“That’s such a man thing to say,” she huffed.
That’s when I looked over at Thandie. “Can you help me out here?”
“Why?” she quipped. “You’re drowning all by yourself just fine.”
I shot her a look. “Really?”
After letting out a deep sigh, Thandie turned to give Kelly her full attention. “Kelly, do you want a wedding or do you want to get married?”
“What kind of question is that?” she asked warily.
“People that just want to be married to one another will race to the courthouse without all the extras,” Thandie explained. “People who want a wedding will insist on all the ceremonial fluff.”
“Why can’t I want both?” Kelly asked. “Why is it bad that I want a wedding?”
“It’s not,” Thandie quickly assured her. “But you’re driving us fucking nuts with the demand for perfection, and I’m not going to lie and say that it’s not driving me to drink.”
“Finally,” I rushed out. “Christ, I was wondering how long before one of us cracked.”
Kelly let out her best theatrical gasp to date. “What?”
“You’re driving us crazy,” I told her, backing Thandie. “You’re driving us all certifiably insane, and I say that as a doctor.”
Stubborn as the day was long, she said, “That’s because you guys have never had to plan a wedding before. Just wait until you have to decide between baby lace and delicate lace.”
“Yeah, no,” I snorted. “Thandie and I are not going down that crazy road of madness. After the things that I’ve seen, we’re eloping.”
“Uhm, I’m sorry...you and who?” Kelly asked, looking at me pointedly.
So much for a peaceful Sunday morning.