Page 90 of Bridesmaid for Hire
He swallows and nods. “Yeah, I think I need some alcohol and when I say some…I mean a lot.” He presses his hand on top of mine. “Will you join me?”
When he looks at me with those pleading, soulful eyes, it feels like I have no other option. I find myself nodding. “I shall join you in getting drunk.”
“And here I was calling you a wench…when right now, that is the answer of an angel.”
Man, did that mai tai work quickly if he’s calling me an angel.
Either way, I’ll take it.
“We are doing this slow,” I say as Brody grabs us another mai tai. He starts slurping his down and I pull it away. “Did you hear me? Slow. And only a buzz. The last thing I need is to get drunk and wind up face-first in your crotch again.”
He smirks. “Hey, I’ve had worse.”
I push at his shoulders. “You haven’t had better, that’s for damn sure.”
“Yeah, not in a while,” he says as he picks up one of the egg rolls, one of the many appetizers we ordered to balance out the alcohol in our stomachs.
“Oh?” I ask. “Care to share more about that?”
He lifts one of his thick brows at me. “You want to know about my sex life?”
“Not really, but I also find it interesting that you mentioned not having sex in a while. With your confidence, I’d think that you’re having better luck in that department.”
“Just haven’t had time. Work has consumed me, you know that.”
“All too well,” I say. I pick up an egg roll as well and take a bite before setting it on my plate. “In all honesty, you called it earlier this week. I came on this vacation with one thing on my mind. To get laid.”
He dips his egg roll in a bowl of sauce. “If you were at a different resort, like I said, you would have had better luck.”
“Different resortandif I hadn’t attached myself to you.”
“Which still boggles my mind,” he says with a shake of his head. “You’ve always been daring. You just waltzed up without a thought or care and stated that you were my girlfriend in front of one of the richest men in the country. Not sure I’d ever do something like that.”
“What do you mean I’ve always been daring?”
He wipes his hand with his napkin and looks me in the eyes. “For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve taken chances, and every time, it feels like you don’t even bat an eyelash. You told Gary you were going to start an event planning business. The next day, you had an LLC, a website in progress, and you were on your way to opening a business bank account.”
“That’s just good business sense.”
“You decided that you wanted to make a big move for your career, so you sent a handwritten note to Lady Garmen, asking if you could have a meeting with her to discuss the details of her wedding and included a portfolio and mood board of what you thought her wedding could look like. It was your first notable wedding in the industry. She’s fucking British nobility and you just went for it—that’s ballsy.”
I tilt my head to the side. “How do you know that?”
He shrugs. “Gary talks about you.”
“He does?” I ask.
Brody nods. “He’s proud of you. Might not seem like it, but he is. He talks about your accomplishments.”
“Oh, I didn’t know,” I say, feeling bad that I’m not more aware of whatmy brother thinks of me. And that I haven’t always said the best things about him.
“And on your twenty-first birthday,” Brody continues as he picks up a carrot and dips it in some hummus. “You had no problem jumping up on the bar counter, taking the soda gun from the bartender, and shooting everyone with Sprite.”
“You were there for that?”
“I was at your party, Maggie.”
“I know that,” I say, straining to remember, “But I thought you’d left by then.”
