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“Okay, good, because I asked Louisa to do our hair and Carmen is doing the cake.”
This time I flipped my hands up in the air rolling my eyes at her. “And you’re doing what? Just casually creating opportunities for them to be together? You do know that weddings make terrible reality TV episodes. Can you please stick to flipping houses?” I begged her to be reasonable.
My bestie smiled a little diabolically, holding her hands up in mock innocence. “Hey, I can’t stand in the way of love. If it’s there, it’s there.” Her shoulders rolled back and I used the moment to take a cleansing breath. She was exasperating. Now I knew Hunter had to be a saint of some kind to take her on.
“Why does this feel like I’m watching you do your love-juju?” My happily ever after was tired up in an impossible situation I didn’t see any hope for, except self-destruction. Taylor and Hunter would be married soon, and Louisa was going to work her magic on Carmen.
“I just want my friends to be happy. That means you too, Kristen.” Her hand squeezed mine and I pulled away, thinking.
“Sometimes I wonder if I really know you at all.” I cynically respond. Acid bubbled in my stomach ruining the cake thinking about Demon.
“Kristen.” She chided.
“You know, their lives are not like that movie Water for Chocolate.”
“Of course not. Carmen left Connecticut so she wouldn’t have to conform to some conservative agenda even if she thought dating men would get her parents off her back. She’s not crying in the cake batter, she’s heart-sore.”
“Then we should probably get back out there with some coffee, because we have a lot of cake to try this afternoon.” I didn’t want to talk about it further or have any part in Taylor’s arrangement. Bad enough I had to walk down the aisle with Demon, doing my best to not beat him with a bouquet of flowers. It made me wonder what other things she might be arranging behind the scenes, and I looked at her a bit more critically.
4
Damien
“Thanks for taking the drive up here with me.” Hunter kept his gaze on the road, passing a minivan that was drifting back and forth on Route 84 North slower than molasses. The sun was shining and we had finished our work estimate in Kingston pretty quickly—an office demo for a merging group of accountants. Nothing crazy, thank God, except for the permits we needed to upgrade the electrical and plumbing in the hundred-year-old building. Although I was beginning to think that arranging permits for historical buildings was Hunter’s new special superpower, since he’d flipped Taylor’s house recently.
“No problem. It was better than making you drive all the way back to drop me off at my house.” I shrugged adjusting my jeans as I sat in the truck looking out the window. I missed driving my own vehicle.
“Damien, this isn’t forever.” Hunter was referring to my sentence for the incident with Cop Fuck-face last week. In reality I got off pretty easy. I knew I had to own up to some consequences, but it still rubbed me the wrong way.
“Yeah, I know, but still. It’s going to be a real pain in the ass.” I said.
“You tell me when that group starts and I’ll take you and pick you up,” he offered. Hunter slipped into the dad role a little too well, and it was grating on my nerves that day. I sincerely hoped he wasn’t practicing on me for when he had kids of his own. Hell, that reminded me I wasn’t ready to be an uncle just yet.
Ever the perfect guy, doing the right thing all the time. I husked with frustration. “Okay, can we not discuss this with the ’rents?”
He brushed it off. “Your mom and dad already know.” Of course they did; I just didn’t need Taylor’s dad knowing. It was shitty enough.
My mom clucked at me disappointed when she heard it from Noah’s mom at the grocery store the day after. My dad called me right away to confirm and then remind me I still owed him twenty bucks from a hockey bet, because you know being responsible and taking care of debts was important as a man. I was pretty sure it was Hunter who owed him the twenty bucks and a beer, but I didn’t clarify. It seemed pointless when I could hear the censure in his voice that weighed on me the heaviest.
My defense was to bite back, but this wasn’t anyone’s fault but my own. “I meant TJ’s dad, unless it comes up.”
“Of course,” Hunter agreed, and we pulled into Hudson Glen Rehab Center just after lunch. It was a pretty swanky facility, with manicured grounds that would be a landscaper’s wet dream. I knew Hunter was paying for this out of the insurance money he had left from his parents’ accident and his own savings while he and Taylor worked on their new joint business venture. Hunter did the construction and Taylor did the de
signing, and I knew there was some television deal in the works that had my cousin itching from the viral exposure. I guess we all had our demons to deal with, but the deal would make them a pretty penny and I was already hired to be their general plumbing contractor. I’d take any bonus I could right then to pay off the driving-under-the-influence fines and court crap. As long as this didn’t turn into some housewife drama survivalist show I could deal with just about any other indignity right now.
We found Mr. Bryant in the waiting area, all packed and ready to go. He was shooing a middle-aged nurse away who had been holding a wheelchair for him.
The nurse regarded us looking red-faced and flustered, pointing to the chair. “Mr. Bryant, this is a facility policy.”
Considering Mr. Bryant was holding his own, I knew there was no way this man was going to get into that chair for the hundred-foot or so walk to the truck outside.
“Hey, Mr. B.” I gave him a handshake and was surprised when he pulled me in for a hug. I hadn’t been able to get up there since he went into rehab, but I knew the girls and Hunter made regular trips to visit.
“Long time no see, Damien. Hope you’re staying out of trouble.” If he only knew, and I sheepishly smiled, keeping my mouth shut and waiting for Hunter to get this rolling so we could get out of there.
“We got this, ma’am, promise.” Hunter put his hand over hers, flashing some deep-eyed smile that probably had her panties dropping as she tittered off, leaving us with our charge.
“I really appreciate you boys coming to pick me up.” Alan Bryant, Taylor’s dad, was a force to be reckoned with; a stroke later and a month in rehab for physical and occupational therapy, and he looked better than most men his age. He leaned on both of us instead of using the nurse-approved wheelchair or the cane they were discharging him with to ambulate down the sidewalk. We both carried a duffle bag of his belongings to the truck.
