Page 59 of Anger Bang
Fuck. He’d been so distracted by the series of Xs and Os in Thea’s note, along with the promise that she’d come back, that he had totally blanked on the time. He was supposed to go give his baby brother advice about love and marriage. As if he knew a damn thing about any of that.
DEX:Asswipe, are you alive? If so, I’m gonna kill you if you don’t get here ASAP.
KADE:On my way.
He took a quick shower and got dressed according to the production crew’s detailed wardrobe plan for each day. Since it was the day before the wedding, they’d kicked up the requirements from T-shirts and stuff that sorta looked like it came from this century to full-on eighties crap. Grumbling to himself, he put on a pair of acid-washed jeans and two pastel golf shirts (one on top of the other), popping the collars of them both. He glanced at himself in the mirror and grimaced. He looked like some dipshit from an old movie—and not even a cool one likeThe Goonies.
He was three-fourths of the way to a full-on snarl when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Thea’s note. He was smiling again before he realized it and way before he had enough time not to catch his goofy-ass grin in the mirror.
“Fuck,” he said in the world’s worst attempt to get back to his usual salty self.
The smile remained.
What in the hell was he going to do now? Thea was more than clear last night. She only wanted an anger bang. He’d practically had to get her dick drunk to agree that they were friends. Getting her to see they could be something more? Not a snowflake’s chance in Scottsdale.
Nowthatbrought back his scowl.
He stomped out of the RV and headed over to the outdoor pavilion where the bachelorette party had been last night. The camera crew was still setting up, and Dex stood off to the side in a grassy area, tossing a baseball into the air and catching it with a glove bearing the logo of one of the reality TV wedding’s sponsors.
“Think fast,” Dex yelled as soon as he spotted him.
Kade caught the ball with ease. It had been years since they’d tossed the ball in the backyard, but some things came back without any effort.
“About time you got here, asshole,” Dex said.
“Did you spend the last half hour trying to think up that insult?” Kade asked before putting his little brother in a headlock and giving him a noogie.
Really, there weren’t a ton of benefits to being the oldest brother, but being able to do that for pretty much forever was definitely one of them. Dex shoved him away and then flipped him off.
“I’m a Hollywood star,” his brother said with a smirk. “I had some writers come up with it.”
Kade’s laugh boomed out of him with enough gusto that his little brother gave him a weird look. Yeah, the joke wasn’tthatfunny. Hell, it wasn’t really funny at all, but Kade was just in that much of a good mood. Shit, it had been like that for him ever since he’d read Thea’s note.
“Oh good,” Justine the producer said, walking up on them and looking from one St. James brother to the other. “So you and Dex will have a little man-to-man pre-wedding chat out here while tossing the ball back and forth. I’m not telling youwhatto say, but if you can bring the convo around to any concerns you may have about whether the wedding will last, what kind of a wife Jackie will make, or anything else, that would be great.”
A few days ago, he would have seen the direction as the last opportunity he may have to save his brother from a massive mistake. But something had changed over the past few days. Maybe it was Thea’s influence. Maybe it was last night’s talk with his brother. Maybe it was him feeling like all he wanted was to spend time with Thea (preferably naked) that had him thinking maybe Dex wasn’t twelve anymore and if he wanted to make a huge mistake then it was his right to make it.
“Before we get to that, though,” Justine went on, “we need to take care of Dex’s pre-wedding interview.”
“Please tell me I don’t have to be a part of hearing him talk some shit about the universe finding a way and soulmates and whatever other bullshit you came up with for him to say.”
“Stellar attitude,” Justine said, blasting him with the fakest of smiles. “Let me just walk you over to the waiting area. That way you’re close by when he’s done. Come on.”
She led him over to the covered section of the pavilion, where there were two picnic tables. The first one was covered with the crew’s equipment. The second was empty—except for his mom. She had her hair pulled back into a long braid that went down her back like she used to when he was growing up, and the way the late-morning sun was coming in reminded him of the good mornings growing up. That was when he and Dex would come downstairs and find her and dozens of pancakes that they’d all scarf down.
All of a sudden, he was a boy again—the nostalgia of those mornings, the casual ease of it, the settled belief that this time would be different, that this time would work crashed into him with such a force he nearly stumbled back on his heels. Then he remembered where and when he was. His pulse shot off like a rocket, adrenaline rushing through him and making his whole body tight until he was at the breaking point.
His first instinct was to turn around and leave, walk away without ever looking back. He almost gave in to the urge, but then he remembered that first night with Thea and her talking to him about the challenge her therapist had given her. What if he tried that? He’d already chosen flight. He’d tried out fight. And freeze had done shit all. But fawn? What did he have to lose?
“Hello, Mom,” he said, sitting down across from her at the table. “What are you doing here?”
She braced her shoulders and looked him square in the eyes. “I wanted to talk to you. Alone. No Dex. No cameras.”
Uncertainty made his gut twist. “Why?”
His mom let out a little huff of a breath and clasped her hands together on the table. “Because it’s apparent that you have things you need to work through, and you’re not going to do it by yourself.”
The laugh that came out of him this time was nothing like before with Dex. It was cold, unbelieving, mocking. “And my long-lost mother is the one who is supposed to guide me through it all?”
