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“No, but she said it will piss off the gossip sites who want more dirt. Zac is so apologetic, I think he’d say anything to make up for this, but it’s too late. Mari said she would stand by me, which means a lot, but some of the other influencers that I’ve been working with have dropped me.”
Iris was a popular influencer who had started a blog in college and transitioned it to a chronicle of being a single-girl-in-the-city as she’d left, growing her audience and her influence. She had hired Zac to pose as her boyfriend because her fiancé had dumped her before the wedding and she had a collab with a couples brand for the weekend.
Quinn got up to hug her friend. This was the reality of the 24/7 lifestyle they were all living. For herself, Quinn knew she was outside the spotlight but still close enough that she was on the radar for some of the paparazzi because they knew she had friendships with Iris and Adler. This weekend was going to shine the spotlight on everyone and the only way she would survive it was to be strong for her friends and to stay away from Logan.
He was in the middle of the spectacle, which he hated. But she knew he’d manage, and it didn’t matter if he hated it or not, because he wasn’t her man. He was a guy she’d hooked up with for old times’ sake. That was all.
Really.
And she wasn’t going to let it be more than that. She couldn’t. Because if she did, she might end up like her best friends. And really who wanted to feel like that?
Logan waited until Nick was paired up with one of his groomsmen before he walked into the clubhouse to be paired for the golf scramble. His mother stood to one side, looking elegant and smiling like her world wasn’t falling apart.
“Mom, do you have a partner yet?”
“No, honey, I don’t. What about you?” she asked.
He’d been planning to find Quinn and pair up with her, but she was busy with her film crew. He had a new respect for Quinn and the job she did. She’d been running around since they’d all gotten here and one of her crew had let it slip that she’d been working since seven this morning. Given how he’d felt when he’d woken up and slipped out of her rented house this morning, he really admired that.
“I don’t. Want to join me and we can kick some butt?” he asked her.
“Whose butt?” Leo asked, coming over to stand next to them. “I don’t have a partner yet. Are we making it interesting?”
“I’m game,” Logan said. “Let’s play for bragging rights and, let’s say, ten voting shares in the company.”
“Boys,” Mom cautioned.
“I like it,” Leo said.
“I don’t. Never wager the company,” Mom said. “Pick something else.”
“Okay. Once Leo gets his partner, we’ll decide. You know Mom and I won the Bridgehampton Scramble for the last three years.”
“I do,” Leo said. “But I suspect that’s because I wasn’t competing. And Mom has been carrying you for a while.”
“Boys,” Mom said, putting her arms around them both and hugging them, “it’s because we are Bissets that we win.”
“Exactly,” Leo said. “Let me go get partnered up and then we can make a wager.”
Leo walked away and Logan turned to his mom. She was smiling after his younger brother. “Leo’s such a suck-up.”
“Because he said I was carrying you?” she asked. “He knows it’s not true. He just thinks it’s funny. Your dad likes to needle you the same way.”
“He does. Has it ever occurred to you that Dare and I are the most like you?” Logan asked.
Her smile dipped for a moment and then she nodded. “You are both a lot like your father too.”
“Yeah, but you have a subtlety that he lacks and that I think I inherited.”
“You and Leo are determined to make me blush today,” she said.
“We just want you to know how much we love you,” Logan said.
“Oh, boyo,” she said, using her childhood nickname for him and hugging him close. “I love you so very much too.”
Logan hugged her back, holding her longer than he needed to because he sensed that this latest thing with his dad was hurting her more than she let on. He knew how he’d feel if he and Quinn were a couple and some dude showed up saying she was his. And that wasn’t even half of what his mom was dealing with.
And he wasn’t a couple with Quinn, he reminded himself firmly.
