Page 70 of Anger Bang
Jackie smiled and shook her head because of course her sister knew exactly what she was doing. “I know the lead singer, and Stankville Stink refuses to give permission for their music to be used in shows, so if I play this, production can’t use any of the sound.”
“So everything we say stays with us?” Thea asked, her panic edging upward into the stratosphere as she mentally reviewed all of the things they’d both just spilled.
“Well, they still have the recording, but they can’t release it.” Jackie tilted her head so her mouth was close to the mic hidden in all of the fluff of her right sleeve. “Hiya, Chuckie.”
“Stankville Stink is my new favorite band.” Thea took a hard look at her sister, who was still doing the post-crying sniffle thing. “You are full of advice for me, but the person who should be taking your advice is you.”
Jackie got that look she always did when she was ready to go toe to toe—the one where her eyes narrowed, her nostrils flared, and she pressed her lips together hard enough that a white line appeared around them. She opened her mouth, and Thea braced for whatever was coming next. But then her sister closed mouth, then opened it again before throwing her arms up in the air and letting loose with a groan loud enough and melodramatic enough to have been written into the script for one of her shows. It was the kind of outpouring of frustration that was usually accompanied on-screen by moody lighting and rain as well as the character dropping to their knees and screaming at the sky.
“You’re right,” Jackie said with a harumph. “I hate it when you’re right, but you always are.”
Swallowing the urge to I-told-you-so her sister (some things never went away with age), Thea asked, “So what are you going to do about it?”
Jackie lifted a brow in challenge. “I’ll tell you if you tell me what you’re going to do about Kade.”
Thea fell back into the grass with a groan of her own. “I have no idea.”
Jackie laughed and stood up. “This is why real life should come with scriptwriters.”
“Or at least more greasy hamburgers,” Thea said after her stomach growled.
Planting her hands on her hips, her sister shot her a look that always meant trouble. “I’m the bridezilla who is actually getting married in hell. I can demand that cheeseburger.”
“Really?” Thea asked, practically jumping up from the grass in her excitement.
“If I can’t use my bridezilla powers to help my sister, what good are they?”
Thea had nothing to say to that, so instead she hugged her sister. A big hug. The kind of hug someone gave when they needed to tell them all of the millions of ways they loved them but couldn’t get the words out.
“Don’t you dare make me cry again,” Jackie said, sounding like it was already too late. “No matter what happens next, I’m going to have to go on camera, and now there will be pics of me after I’ve ugly cried going viral.”
“A fate worse than death,” Thea said into her sister’s puffed sleeve.
Jackie laughed out loud. It was her real laugh, a big, booming sound that the directors of the kids’ shows they were in always said was too over-the-top. “You’re a pain in my ass.”
“I love you, too,” Thea said.
“Come on. Let’s go cure that hangover of yours.” Jackie stepped out of the hug and then hooked her arm through Thea’s before marching them both back toward the resort. “I’m getting married today, remember?”
Thea was all in favor of that, but she couldn’t get rid of the feeling that she already knew what she had to do next, and she was not going to enjoy it.
Chapter Thirty-One
Somewhere between Jackie in all of her badass-bride glory demanding a cheeseburger for Thea immediately and Thea’s devouring of said cheeseburger (made with a poppyseed bun and the delicious, never-found-in-nature bright-yellow French’s mustard), she’d lost her sister. Well, not just Thea. The entire crew had lost Jackie. She’d just gonepoofand disappeared like she had her own VFX crew.
Her wedding dress was a giant pile of white silk and ivory lace on the floor of her RV.
Her mic pack was abandoned in the middle of the bed.
Her phone was sitting on the counter in the RV’s mini kitchen next to a blueberry muffin missing its crumbly, sugary top.
“I swear you two are just peas in a pod,” her mom said as she did a one-eighty in the middle of the RV’s living room area, scanning the place as if Jackie was just hiding behind a couch cushion. “If one of you up and disappears in the middle of a reality TV wedding that took more work than you could ever imagine to put together, then the other one has to do it, too.”
“Jackie wouldn’t do that,” Thea said. Her sisteralwayshonored her work obligations. She’d once gone to work with two broken fingers and filmed an action sequence.
“And yet, here we are.” Mom let out a huff of frustration and shook her head. “I swear, even when you were kids, she just wanted to follow in your footsteps. Why, her first audition only happened because she tagged along with you on yours.” Her mom started walking around the RV’s tiny living room, straightening the couch pillows and refolding the blanket as she continued. “Do you remember the mac ’n’ cheese commercial? Remember that one? I had you wear the gingham dress that matched the box the mac ’n’ cheese came in?”
Thea winced as all of the anxiety from trying out for parts came flooding back. “You dragged me to a million commercial auditions, and I’ve done my best over the years to block out the vast majority of them.”
