Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
“Got caught with a runaway bride whose groom is petty, and when I defended her right to tell him to fuck off, his daddy locked me up.”
Yeah, Sean would laugh his ass off. And likely hang up, his chuckles still echoing in my ear. And then I’d have to call Mom or AMM, neither of which sounds like a good plan.
“Yep. On your order,” I answer, and she glares at me hard, like she thinks I’m fucking with her. I’m not, this is her shit show. I’m just along for the ride . . . or the drive, in this situation, given that I’m literally her getaway driver. Go ahead and call me Clyde.
“Wait . . . wait . . .” She holds up her hand in a fist like she’s some military operator in a movie. “Aaaaand . . . go!” she commands, with an authority that makes me want to laugh. But there’s no time for laughter because we’re out the front door of the cottage, down the three steps, and running for the car.
I beep it as she yanks on the handle, and we slide inside.
“Go, go, go!” she shouts. But she’s grinning like a loon, like this is fun for her too. After seeing her question herself last night; the noisy, restless middle-of-the-night “sleep” that had me checking on her; and her nervousness this morning, the brightness in her eyes is a welcome sight. Maybe it’s all from just losing herself in the ridiculous fantasy of acting like we’re in some Reacher-esque spy drama, but it’s good to see on her.
Especially that smile. I would do dangerous things to keep it on her face.
I pull out of the resort parking lot on spinning tires that throw up tiny pebbles behind us. “We clear?” I ask, and she jerks around to look back. You’d think we just robbed a bank or something.
“I think so. Turn right at the stop sign.”
She directs me into town, again telling me places to go, and I follow her every instruction—driving where she tells me to; looking at storefronts; and, once, turning into an alley to avoid a police car she sees ahead.
We pull up to a bland, beige building with reflective windows. “You wanna wait here?” she offers, then bites her lip. She’s nervous about going in, and maybe about seeing her sister too.
“Nah, gotta see this through. Make sure you don’t get forced back to the altar with a shotgun.” I know shotgun weddings aren’t exactly the norm anymore, and certainly not in this situation, but I’m also not leaving her to go inside alone. I’m too curious, too invested.
In the situation. In Hope.
She texts Joy from my phone, and less than a minute later, the door opens and a near-carbon copy of Hope, just one that’s been given a professional-looking makeover, leans out the door and waves us inside. We exit the car and hustle across the lot. Joy scans her sister, looking for obvious signs of damage or harm, but then quickly turns her attention to me. I can feel the threat she’s sending my way with the death-ray laser beams in her eyes. “Who the fuck’re you?”
“Ben. Nice to meet you, Joy.” I’m on alert. Hope might trust her sister enough to come here, but my experience with the press is decidedly different, and I’m treating her like the enemy until proven otherwise.
So far, our onstage disguises have held, and no one’s discovered who me, Sean, or our third bandmate, Trent, are in real life. But we’ve been escorted out the back door of hotels when the paparazzi have gathered at the front, refused interviews because we don’t trust anyone with something to gain by outing us, and had people try to grab our masks, either for a souvenir or to see our faces. Safe to say, me and the press are not friends. Yet here I am, walking into the lion’s den.
“That’s yet to be determined,” she answers, still eyeing me up and down with a curl to her lip. In some ways it’s admirable—she clearly loves and is protective of her sister.
“Joy, be nice,” Hope admonishes her as we walk down a hallway with office doors on either side. It sounds like something she’s said countless times before and she doesn’t expect it to work any better this time than it has all those times in the past. “Ben helped me in a major way yesterday, and I’ve basically commandeered his vacation, so be nice. Please.” She emphasizes the repeated order with a pleading tone, which seems to do the trick, because Joy turns her attention back to her sister.
“Are you wearing his clothes?” Joy’s eyes go wide as she takes her in; Hope is indeed wearing the clothes I gave her, plus her wedding-themed cowgirl boots, in what amounts to a unique look. “Oh my God! Did you fuck him? Holy shit! What’re you doing?”