AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But I couldn’t get used to it. I had no experience with mature, pissed-off Brody. I’d barely been able to deal with the Brody I used to know. Young, wild, too gorgeous for common sense and angry at theworld.
At all the world… exceptme.
We took a turn to the right, continuing back into the airport, and I struggled to get my bearings; it had been years since I’d been here, but this was definitely not the way to the ferryterminal.
“Where are wegoing?”
“To your brother’swedding.”
“But… I’m supposed to meet Roni at theferry.”
He shot me a look that could only be described as scathing. Come to think of it, it was the first time he’d looked at me since I got in the truck. “And I’m supposed to trust you not to skip out on the dinner tonight, or the wedding tomorrow? You’re already missing therehearsal.”
Oh.
Jesus.
That’swhat this wasabout?
He didn’t pick me up at the airport because he wanted to seeme?
I studied his angry profile and it all became soclear.
No. He didn’t want to seeme.
He’d only come to get me because my brother, the big rock star, had asked him to drive out here in the rain and deal with me. Brody was one of my brother’s best friends, so why not? Worse; Brody managed my brother’s mega-successful rock band, Dirty, so this was probably some sort of business deal. Like somewhere in his contract, my brother had snuck in a clause that it was Brody’s responsibility to deal with all the most tedious bullshit in his life, up to and including escorting his little sister to his wedding so she wouldn’tbail.
Definitely something my brother woulddo.
Well, if they had a contract. In their many years of working together, Brody and the band had never had a written contract between them. Because that’s just the kind of friends they were. A verbal deal,then.
You deal with Jessa. I’ll owe you onelater.
“It’s really none of your business,” I told him, “if I go to my brother’s wedding or not.” And it wasn’t. Brody wasn’tmymanager—much as he’d wanted to be, back when I was writing music with the band… but that was neither here nor there. He wasn’t the boss of me either, any more than my brotherwas.
Yeah, try telling either of themthat.
Whatever. This was ridiculous. Offensive, actually, that they both seemed to think I needed some kind of chaperone for this event. That they were treating me like I was still a fuckingteenager.
Yes, I’d screwed up six-and-a-half years ago—and okay, every day since then—but today was a new day,right?
“Jesseismy business,” Brody ground out. “Literally. If you skip out on his wedding or any of the other romantic bullshit Katie has planned for the next forty-eight hours, that shit will notfly.”
We made a sharp turn into the small parking area in front of the Flying Beaver, a little restaurant and bar on the water where the floatplanes docked, and panic started to rise. This whole thing was spinning way, way out of control. Because apparently I was about to be trapped in a very small plane with a very pissed off Brody for the next couple of hours, andhedidn’t even want to behere.
“I told Jesse I’d take the ferry to the island. He was going to have a car meetme—”
“Yeah, well, you’relate.” He parked us at the curb and cut the engine, popping off hisseatbelt.
“I was at a shoot, Brody. It ran late. I couldn’t just bail in the middleof—”
“Do not say myname.”
I blinked athim.
What?
“Go ahead and say and do whatever the fuck you’re gonna do,” he said, “but you do not get to say my name.” When I just gaped at him, he turned to me and leaned in, so close I could see the silvery-gray flecks around his pupils, and said in a low voice, “You wanted it, I’m giving it to you. Exactly what you’ve been asking for the lastsix-and-a-halfyears with a whole fuckload of silence.Consider me dead toyou.”
