AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And Shane?
I guess I may never find out, and I’ll have to learn to live with that.
I feel like I was in New York City and missed out on half-price Hamilton tickets…
When I look up, Sonya is watching me. She’s the only one here who might actually be able to read my mind, so I look away quickly, hoping my disappointment doesn’t show.
Brody checks in with Rachel then, and we begin the trip back to the dock. When we get there, the women all give me big hugs and tell me how much fun they had and that they’re so glad I invited them to celebrate with me.
My sister and Akemi take off along with most of the others, Rachel scoots back onto the boat to help Brody with cleanup, and I’m left standing on the dock with just Sonya and Hanna.
“You okay?” Sonya asks.
Yep, I was right: she sees all. Her expression is warm as she leans over and bumps her shoulder affectionately against mine.
“Yeah—they’re just really great,” I say.
“They are,” she says, smiling. “I knew you’d like them.”
And then she puts a hand on my shoulder, and I think maybe she knows what I’m thinking, even if neither of us is going to say it out loud.
It chafes more than I was expecting it to—the thought that when Shane and I part ways, I’m probably going to drift away from these women, too.
It was easier the other way, when I didn’t have anything to lose.
25
Shane
“How are the women of LA holding up with the news that if they haven’t yet slept with Shane Hott, they’re shit out of luck?”
That’s Rhys, heckling me from the back of the car.
“No worries,” Pres says. “They interviewed all three of the women for whom that’s true, and they said they’re okay with it.”
“Guys. That’s not nice,” Quinn says.
I turn to look at him in the driver’s seat.
The corner of his mouth turns up. “There were at least six of them,” he deadpans.
It’s a grim day when even your straight-man brother roasts you.
But still, I’m kinda digging it. It’s been years since the five of us hung out like this, and in a lot of ways, nothing has changed since childhood, despite all the time that’s passed and the water under the bridge.
We’re on our way back from a great night. I begged off from my brothers’ first suggestion, a road trip to Seattle to some world-famous pole-dancing club. My brothers were full of snark about how I should love seeing all those women humping poles because spire sex. When I said I’d had enough of naked women and poles to last a lifetime, they started in on me about how my pole sure had seen a lot of use.
It felt good—the roasting and the laughter, the jostling and shoving and teasing.
Instead of a Seattle road trip, Quinn took the reins and booked us what he billed as a “Quinn”-tessential Oregon bachelor experience. After an afternoon of axe throwing in Bend—which I sucked at, despite all my stage-weapons training—my brothers took me to the Flat Gorge Rodeo, where we met up with Easton’s family—the Wilder brothers—and spent the night drinking, eating, and watching grown men risk their lives, which is a hell of a lot more fun than it sounds. The Wilders are funny and down-to-earth, and they could take me and my brothers to school on the giving-each-other-shit front.
Now we’re headed back to Rush Creek—me in the passenger seat, Quinn designated and sober at the wheel, my other three brothers harassing me over my shoulders. Well, maybe not so much Tuck, who’s quiet as usual lately. Rhys is definitely the ringleader.
“Seriously, Shane, are you sure about this sex with only one woman for the rest of your life thing?”
Rhys is, of course, fucking with me. Having dragged us all into this plausible-deniability situation, he’s entertaining himself by trying to trip me up and make me say out loud that the thing with Ivy is just an act. He’s been at me all evening in this same vein—niggling, nudging, teasing, trying to open a crack that will lead to me destroying plausible deniability.
“Completely fucking sure,” I say.
