“How selfless of you to care.”
Mac smirked. “I honestly don’t. Like I said, I just don’t want to deal with a lecture.”
I shook my head in wonder. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I’m honest.” Then he chuckled, the irritation in his face replaced by a teasing smile. “But I’d also hate to see you throw Mariana under the bus like that. It takes a tough woman to resist my charms.”
I gave him the blankest look I could muster. “You poor man. How do you get through life with women just constantly throwing themselves at you?” I asked, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “It’s amazing you can walk down Fifth Avenue without causing pile-ups.”
“Don’t be jealous ‘cause you can’t do any better than a Ivy League Ken doll,” he said. “I hear them make ‘em in a factory out in Connecticut. Is that where you go for the latest model? Or do you pick them off a tree in Murray Hill?”
I rolled my eyes. “Go fuck yourself, Mac. And kindly stay out of my way this week. I don’t want to go mad with lust and pull a muscle. Now get out of here. I need to pee.”
He looked down at his erection and then back up at me, a mocking gleam in his eye. “Would you compromise and pull an organ? I can’t walk around like this.”
“Get out!” I shouted.
“Fine, fine,” he muttered, grabbing his shirt off the sink and stalking past me. “Remember,” he said, pointing one thick finger in my face, “not a word about Mariana.”
I scoffed and pushed it away before stomping to the stall and slamming the door shut.
I peed angrily in an aggressive stream. What was this guy’s problem? I listed Mac Walsh’s sins off in my mind. Completely unashamed by his idiotic behavior. Selfish — didn’t care about Mariana only about one of his friends finding out. Crude. Disgusting. Whorish. (Did that word apply to men? Whatever. It stood.) Doubly selfish because he knew, but didn’t seem to care about how all of this would affect the wedding.
In a small, strange, twisted way, I was glad I’d walked in on them. It completely justified my opinion of Mac Walsh and, doubly, gave me something to focus on. I needed to keep a close eye on Sam’s spastic groomsman lest he do something irreversible. Everything had been going too smoothly up until this point. It was time for a wrench to be thrown in and, as Maid of Honor, I was ready to rise to the challenge.
As I left the bathroom, I tried really hard to ignore Mac’s final sin — that he hadn’t remembered me at all.
5
Mac
Alice Rhodes.
I asked and the universe gave. Now I had something to hate even more than watching Sam and Beck sit with their shoulders touching.
The time by the pool was filled with new faces. Beck’s bridesmaids turned out to be another girl from the city, one farm chick who was going to be spending the entire week throwing up in the bathroom, and Keegan’s girlfriend, who was just hot enough that I’d give him a pass for putting a label on it.
The girls all seemed nice enough, the city friend familiar in that half-recollected way known mostly by drunks and the brain-damaged. Now that Alice had mentioned it, the specific circumstances of that night were returning, albeit with the clarity of a television with poor reception. Fights and boozy flirtations happened often enough that ordinarily the evening could have joined any number of wild nights with the guys. But usually those altercations belonged to the deep part of the night, when we’d been out for hours, all of us in a similar state.
That night, there had been a reason I’d gotten so spectacularly trashed while all the others stayed more or less sober. I’d received a bit of news from the old country and had spent most of the afternoon trying to drown my sorrows.
I’d been drunk for so long, that I’m pretty sure I came out of a black out mid-fight with that punk Alice was dating. I wasn’t even sure why I was angry at him, only that I was. And because I’d been wanting to hit something all evening, when he popped me across the face, I was ready and willing.
Too bad the fight wasn’t anything to write home about. If I did miss anything about Dublin, it was that the neighborhood boys were a tougher bunch than these white-collar pissants that populated so much of NYC. Over there, if you came to blows, you got a fight. That night in the Black Shade, Dave, or whatever the hell his name was, had been out on the first punch. The second was just a tap to tip him over. Talk about a pussy. If that was the type of guy Alice Rhodes dated, there had to be something wrong with her. It wasn’t like she couldn’t attract a higher caliber.
Over that afternoon by the pool, I wondered and simultaneously tried not to care too much about finding out. But, like I said, she was a nice distraction from Sam and Beck.
I watched her through my sunglasses, swimming lazily with some of the girls in a teal blue suit that showed off her tits and the curve of her ass nicely. She was gorgeous — I’d admit it. Big eyes, brown which people never appreciated as an eye color until they see someone who really pulls it off. They were the color of teakwood — tawny, a light mix of brown and orange that matched her auburn hair which was a few shades darker. Long, thick lashes and expressive, though when they were turned toward me, they pulsed with irritation.
Yes, Alice was attractive, hot even, but after the way she’d come after me in that bathroom, it was obvious my efforts would be better spent tracking down that blonde from the tiki bar.
And anyway I had no interest in being on any list that included that prick from last year.
I couldn’t completely ignore Alice though. I’d dodged a bullet with her not immediately ratting me out to Beck, but it was still in the cards. I wouldn’t put it past her to hold it over my head. But I was pretty sure I could call her bluff if it came down to it. I gathered, sitting and listening to the chatter, that Alice was the Maid of Honor, and, apparently, she took her job pretty damn seriously. Another glaring difference between the both of us. She was all in on this wedding and that pretty much made her the enemy.
The afternoon by the pool passed without much event. Plans were laid for the evening — hit the bars, the nightly party on the beach, find fun and stay out of trouble. I could do all that.
Except maybe the last part.
Tuzas Suns was generally a family-friendly resort with a few exceptions. Once the sun went down and the kiddies went to bed, the beach front around The Sunset Lagoon turned into an all-night hotspot for drinks, dancing, and live music. As New Yorkers, we weren’t prepared to start and end the night in the same location, but there were plenty of restaurants and bars scattered around the property to hit up ahead of time.
After getting a dark tan snoozing by the pool while the others talked and swam, I headed back to the hotel with Sam and Henry to start getting ready for the night.
“Are you sure you don’t want to walk back as a group?” Sam asked the girls.
Beck looked hesitant, like she didn’t want Sam to leave her sight for even a moment (which, blech), but the short brunette girl, Kylie, pulled on her arm, physically drawing her eyes away from her beloved.
“We were going to check out the Lagoon, get a good idea of where we’re headed tonight,” she reminded her.