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By the time I return, the story will have circulated around the ballroom. Brandon’s pathetic widow. Poor heartbroken Hope.
The worst part is, I should be relieved it’s the only story that’ll circulate.
There are worse stories that could be told. Ones that are known only to Brandon and me. Ones about just how guilty I am.
2
WILL
“That’s not how you make a cosmo, dude.” Adam, one of the new hires, brushes past me, peering at the gin in my hand. “You need vodka.”
I glance down at the bottle. It is, in fact, gin. Not even the good gin. “Who moved the vodka?”
“Not me.” He pours another shot for the group of displaced frat boys and leans in to take the drink order of an attractive woman flashing him a flirty smile. Her dark eyes and high cheekbones remind me a little bit of the ex I broke up with last year, and I almost warn him to stay away. I don’t. He’ll have to learn the hard way like the rest of us.
I put down the gin and grab the vodka, which is where the rum always was. The woman I’m making the drink for has crossed her arms over her chest. She’s glaring at me like she’s going to ask to speak to my manager. I almost hope she does—it’ll be the highlight of my night to see her expression when I tell her I’m the manager.
Manager, proprietor, owner of the Kingsette Inn ... all thanks to a late-night phone call from my mother’s lawyer.
I finish the cosmo and slide the martini glass across the bar. The woman takes it with a muttered “finally,” and I remember why I specifically hate tending bar at weddings. Everyone expects the night to be made of true love and magic. But it’s so rarely that. Usually, it’s just cheesy music and gin where the vodka should be. Inevitably, guests are disappointed—and cranky.
I scan the ballroom for the woman who looked as desperate to flee as I am. She could probably use another drink by now.
She’s not at her table, and the older woman who ambushed her has now cornered a pregnant woman.
“Hey, Will.” Another of the new hires, whose name I can’t remember, appears in the doorway leading from the kitchen. “There’s ... uh ... a situation in here. We need you to come.”
I blow out a sigh and glance at the line forming by the bar. “Can it wait?”
“Not really,” he says, glancing behind him as if thesituationback there might soon come up here.
“Sure, I’ll be right there. Just give me a second.”
Adam sighs with relief when I tell him I’m stepping away. I follow the new guy into the kitchen, trying to decide why Adam’s reaction bothers me. It shouldn’t.
It won’t,I decide,once I’m back in LA.
My brother’s slurred words reach me before I turn the corner into the kitchen. The new hire—Jeremy? Jarred?—glances over his shoulder with a sheepish grimace. “We asked him to leave, but he insisted he wouldn’t until he spoke to you. I’m so sorry.”
“No worries. I’ll handle him.” I brush past Jeremy-slash-Jarred and head into the kitchen, where the staff has stopped working and is staring at Darren as if he’s walked in with a bomb strapped to his chest.
“Darren,” I say, and the brother I haven’t seen in ten years stops pacing, raises his gaze to me. “What are you doing here?”
When we were growing up, people who didn’t know us thought we were twins—same jet-black hair, same hawkish nose, same dark-brown eyes. By the time I was twelve, we were the same height, and even teachers began to confuse us.
No one would confuse us now. Darren’s complexion is sallow. There’s a nasty bruise on his cheek, and his lip is split. The skin on his arms is paper thin. He looks like the future I escaped when I left Kingsette the first time.
“The prodigal son returns,” Darren says, an unfamiliar viciousness deepening his voice. The kitchen staff shifts its attention toward me as one. Spectators at a tennis match, though neither Darren nor I is worthy of a fan base.
“Let’s go chat in the office. Let these people get back to work.”
Darren sucks his teeth, considering. The silence is interrupted only by the pasta boiling over. One of the cooks mutters a curse under his breath and lowers the flame.
“Nah, let’s talk here. If you wanted privacy, you would have answered my calls. You left me no choice.”
“Fair enough,” I say, putting my hands up like a cop on TV proving he’s unarmed. “But these people need to get entrées out to the ballroom, or the guests are going to start getting fussy.”
Darren lifts one shoulder. “Not really my problem, little brother.” His voice rises. He stumbles toward me, and the alcohol on his breath makes my vision hazy. “You’re the one they called to save the day. Not me.”
