Page 46 of Anger Bang
Lakin made a squeaky huff and continued, “The working conditions are ridiculous, and I am going to have to burn my clothes because there’s no way the stench from that river is ever going to come out of it.”
The other bridesmaid perked up at this. “Can I have your Birkin, if you’re just going to light it on fire?”
“Piper,” Lakin said with an eye roll. “No one trashes a Birkin. Stop being such a blonde stereotype.”
The other woman blinked her large green eyes. “My hair’s black.”
“And if anyone’s being a stock character, it’s you playing the mean girl,” Jackie said as she stepped between the bridesmaids. “Take a breath. Enjoy life for thirty seconds. Reevaluate your need to be competitive about everything all the time.” She picked up a bowl of chocolate-drizzled popcorn balls from a nearby table. “Take one. They’re gluten-free and packed with chia seeds. You’ll feel better.”
Lakin looked skeptical but exhaled in a huff. “Fine.”
She took a bite-size lumpy ball, popped it in her mouth, and her whole body visibly relaxed as she closed her eyes and let out a soft moan of pleasure. Everyone watched in silence as she finished the popcorn ball. Thea rooted for the salty-sweet treat to do its job. Finally, Lakin swallowed the last bite and looked over to Thea.
“I’ve been such a bitch since I stopped vaping, and I took my withdrawal out on you,” she said, sounding sincere in a way that went beyond the possibility of acting. Lakin’s cheeks turned pink as she gave Thea an apologetic smile. “I was being awful. I’m sorry.”
Thea returned her hesitant smile, not because she had to in order to get her panicked nerves to stop jangling but because she wanted to. It was kind of freeing.
“It’s okay,” she said.
The production assistant let out a disappointed sigh at her response, but everyone in the bridal party ignored her. Lakin, Piper, and her mom all sat back down at the tables where their Cabbage Patch dolls were waiting, yarn hair going every which way. Thea hung back, not sure where to sit or what to do. Awkward? Oh yes. Her pulse kicked up along with her breathing when she realized Jackie was heading right for her.
Shit. Shit. Shit. She really did not want to deal with her sister’s mood. She was confrontationed out.
“Here, sit by me and I’ll catch you up.” Jackie linked her arm through Thea’s. “This challenge is intense. We have to get the doll’s hair to look like that.” She pointed to the large photos of dolls with elaborate updos and lowered her volume so only Thea could hear. “It’s likeNailed Itbut with Cabbage Patch dolls—both are sponsors.”
Thea took in the waves and curls and pinned perfection of the dolls’ hair in the photographs. “That does not look remotely possible.”
“Well,” Jackie said with a tired sigh, “I guess the fun for some people is watching others fail.”
Fail?Jackie had never failed at anything. She wasn’t an A-lister, but she’d made the transition from kid actor to adult actress in a cutthroat business that left 99 percent of people wondering what bus had just run them over and left them broken on the side of the road. Her sister wasn’t a failure. She was a tough-as-acrylic-nails badass.
That was true, but there was no denying her too-tight shoulders, the way she squinted even though she wasn’t looking into the sun, or the fact that she was doing that middle-finger-to-thumb tapping thing she’d done whenever something was really bothering her since she was a kid.
Jackie might be—okay, was—a total pain in the ass, and yes, Thea was still totally pissed off at her, but she was also still her sister.
“Nah,” Thea said, pulling up from her reserves to disagree with her sister instead of just letting Jackie think her pronouncement was the end all, be all. “I think what people like is experiencing the joy of watching someone try and have fun no matter the outcome.”
One side of Jackie’s mouth curled upward in her actual off-duty smile—the one that her first agent had told her never to do on camera because it made her look deranged. “Don’t you sound enlightened.”
“Therapy,” Thea said with a wry chuckle.
“I might need your therapist’s number,” her sister said as they walked over to the tables and got to work on their dolls’ hair.
A half hour later, Thea looked over the results of the Cabbage Patch hair challenge. The results were as much of a nightmare as she’d expected. Still, she placed her doll with its monstrosity of a French twist next to the others and laughed along with everyone else. Then, after a group photo that would be all over the wedding social media streams within minutes, Jackie and her mom left to go meet with the minister and the other bridesmaids went back to their trailers for some mani/pedi time.
Thea was on her own again, but for the first time since she’d gotten to Colter’s Hell, she felt like this week wasn’t going to be a total disaster. That’s when she spotted Kade coming straight at her, looking like he was pissed off enough to crush boulders with his bare hands.
Chapter Twenty
The sun beat down on Kade as he parked his motorcycle back at the resort, in the exact same spot it had been before he’d left—like someone had saved it for him because they’d known he’d be back.
Just like you knew you would, St. James.
Shut up, asshole.
Great. Now he was not only talking shit to himself but he was responding, too. Usually, he only did that when he had five chapters to go in a book and was writing pretty much twenty-four seven because the words were just flowing in a rush to the final scene. But he wasn’t writing. He was back at the resort in the middle of nowhere Wyoming, walking somewhere, but God knew where. He sure as fuck didn’t.
His brain had all but checked out for the moment as he strode down the path, not headed to anywhere in particular but knowing he had to move or he just might explode.
