Page 8 of Anger Bang
He and Dex glared at each other, neither even thinking about backing down. They never did. They’d spent the past few years arguing about their mom, with Dex wanting Kade to give her a second chance. Yeah, it wasn’t going to happen. Kade would do just about anything for his younger brother—except talk to their mother.
Not now.
Not ever.
Dex let out a tired sigh as he flopped back down onto the couch. “Kade—”
“I’ll be your best man,” he said, cutting him off. “I’ll bite my tongue around the bride. I won’t even try to talk sense into you about this absolutely fucked-up reality TV wedding that’s going to leave you real-life married. What I won’t do, though, is talk to the woman who gave birth to us. You got that?”
Dex mumbled a string of curses under his breath but nodded. Kade opened the RV door, needing to get out into the wide-open spaces of Wyoming to shake off the itch of unease scratching against every part of him.
“But what if not talking to her is a mistake?” Dex asked.
Kade barely paused halfway out the door. “It’s not.”
Then he walked away. That was the one lesson his mom had taught him that he’d never forget.
Chapter Four
Someone in production was deep in their eighties nostalgia at the first night’s live-streamed wedding party cocktail hour, and Thea didn’t think it was possible to be more sick of a decade she hadn’t even been alive for.
Fine, her mood was sour after spending the entirety of the bridesmaid dress fitting being told that she could double up on Spanx or asked if she could suck in her gut and hold her breath each time the camera was on her.
So much for Hollywood being all about body positivity. Where were her apple-shaped sisters with solid, muscular legs to hang out with in solidarity? No doubt they were waiting outside of casting offices being told they just weren’t right for the part. Right about now she was more than ready to band together with them and burn the whole system down.
Wow. All of that Mountain Dew she’d guzzled fifteen minutes ago after tossing the hoop skirt across the room when she’d finally gotten to change out of the bridesmaid dress must have just kicked in. Her fellow scientists may have proven that there was no such thing as a sugar rush, but she sure felt like she was dancing on the thin string of an adrenaline-spiked high-wire. It was like her whole body was telling her it was go time.
Except she wasn’t a go time kind of woman. She was a melt-into-the-background-and-avoid-the-cameras-at-all-costs kind of woman. Too bad she stuck out like a sore thumb in her flowery cotton skirt and white tank top, with her hair pulled back into a simple ponytail. She’d thought tonight’s event at the resort’s barn was a relaxed meet-and-greet type of first night get-together.
Yeah. Not even close.
Somehow she’d missed the memo that the entire week leading up to the wedding was eighties cosplay, each evening being a party-like-it’s-1982 event. The barn had been decorated like the originalFootlooseprom and everyone was in their Madonna, Springsteen, or Prince and the Revolution best. Seriously, how did the others manage to get their hair that high? One of the bridesmaids had bangs that stood half a foot straight up from her forehead.
Thankfully, the producer, a perpetually stressed out–looking woman named Justine Cummings, was ignoring Thea’s obvious misstep for bigger game—Jackie, who’d gone AWOL.
Sorta.
As far as the TV crew knew, the bride had absconded. In reality, though, Jackie was hiding behind a humongous bronze statue of mountain man John Colter after he’d left the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The artist had created a haggard, snarly, fuck-you-and-your-horse statue, so basically Colter looked exactly like someone who’d have a hell named after him.
“Are you sure they’re not heading this way?” Jackie asked, her voice barely louder than the A Flock of Seagulls song “I Ran (So Far Away)” blasting out of the speakers surrounding the dance floor.
Thea scanned the crowd, her gaze stopping on the flask-carrying mystery man. He was in a black T-shirt and jeans that were worn but definitely not acid-washed (thank you, Baby Jesus). At least she wasn’t the only one who missed the eighties cosplay memo.
“Hello, earth to Thea,” Jackie said, her tone taking on the Valley Girl sound that was totally eighties. “Can I do this or not?”
“Yeah, you’re good,” she said without bothering to peel her attention away from Mr. Cool Drink of Sprite.
“Thank fuck,” Jackie muttered before taking a shot.
It wasn’t that the alcohol wasn’t flowing around them, but her sister was taking shots of tequila when a vodka company had sponsored the wedding. Justine had threatened everyone with a painful death via being drowned in the Stinkingwater River if they even accidentally got any non-branded alcohol on camera during the live streams. Of course, Jackie hated vodka, and the rules weren’t ever really meant for the family princess.
What kind of alcohol Jackie was tossing back was the last thing occupying Thea’s mind, though. She couldn’t look away from her mystery guy over by the bar, but she must have made a sound—please God not a moan—because Jackie peeked around the statue.
“Who are you even looking at?” her sister asked.
Thea squeezed her eyes shut. Fuckity, fuck, fuck. Why did she have to be such an open book?
“The guy from this afternoon,” she said before she could think of something other than the truth.
