“Well,” Henry said to me, “see ya in a bit.”
He left and I checked my key again. I could never remember which room was mine. 7605. I walked down the hall to the number, repeating it in my head to try to retain it. Then I opened the door and started in surprise.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked Mariana. She rose from the couch and walked to stand across the room from me, an unreadable expression on her face. I raised an eyebrow. “Did you want to finish what we started?”
She flushed. “No! We never should have done that in the first place.”
“Hey love, you were just as eager. Hell, it wasn’t my idea to do it in a public bathroom.”
“You were supposed to lock the door!”
“Then it looks like mistakes were made all around. Why are you here?” I asked, trying to get to the point. Mariana was supposed to take my mind off my problems, not give me a new one.
“Did Alice tell Beck?” Mariana’s pretty face was taut with anxiety.
“She said she wouldn’t. But she might anyway.” I shrugged and threw my towel over the back of a chair, peeling my shirt off. “Shouldn’t you be talking to her about this?”
Mariana looked away.
“You’re embarrassed, aren’t you?” I asked with a chuckle.
“Are you not?” she asked, looking aghast.
“Not particularly,” I said. I smirked. “I don’t really have anything to be embarrassed by.”
She rolled her eyes. Apparently I was overestimating her capacity for banter. Oh well.
“Is that all you wanted?” I asked. “Because I need to take a shower and unless you want to be a part of that, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
She ignored me. “Do you think I should quit?” she asked, starting to pace, practically wringing her hands. “If Beck and Sam find out about this, they’re going to fire me.”
“They aren’t going to find out,” I repeated. “And what’s the difference between quitting and getting fired anyway? At least one isn’t a guarantee.”
She put her hands on her hips. “It’s less humiliating,” she said. “I can’t believe you didn’t lock the door! Literally the only thing you had to do.”
I went into the bathroom while she talked, flipping the light on and admiring the shower and jacuzzi. “You gotta stop living in the past, love,” I called out to her. “It’s over and, if you want some advice, I’d suggest not regretting it too much. It was fun up until the end.” I peaked my head around the corner. “You sure you don’t want to….”
She rolled her eyes again and stormed from the room, slamming the door behind her. I shook my head and retreated into the marble bathroom. A pity, but not much of a waste. Screwing the wedding planner was supposed to be my very subtle ‘screw you’ to this entire disaster, but the noise echoed louder than I’d wished. Just about the only good thing that’d come out of it was the look on Alice’s face when she’d made eye contact with my dick.
I chuckled to myself as I stepped under the shower. A few more moments like that and I just might be able to survive this week.
6
Alice
Our small group walked around the beach and resort grounds until six o’clock. By then we had our fill of scouting for the evening and went back to the room to get ready for the fun.
Beck and Sarah led the way talking excitedly about plans and first drinks. Keegan and Jules walked a bit behind them, hand-in-hand, looking tall and rich and beautiful.
That left Mason and me to bring up the rear. We walked in silence, mostly because Mason and I were distracted by Kylie.
Kylie was texting, expertly dodging obstacles as she walked with her face in her phone, typing fifty words a minute without a care for her surroundings. Mason looked at her questioningly and then to me for some sort of explanation. I couldn’t give one. The only possibilities that came to mind were that she finally got the inspiration to draft her novel or the governor urgently needed a speech and for some reason she was the only one available. We watched, dumbfounded, as Kylie headed directly for a column and then, at the last moment, side-stepped it, immediately stopping short to let two kids run by before speeding up to catch up with our friends, all without skipping a beat.
“I think she might be able to teach me how to be more productive,” Mason observed. He said it dryly, which seemed to be his default setting. Keegan, Henry, and Sam bit and snapped at each other playfully like a pack of dogs, switching between sarcasm, good humor, and borderline hostility so fast and frequently that, as an observer, it was hard to keep up. Comparatively, Mason at first glance, seemed as gray as his eyes and hair. It took a bit of observation to see his role in the dynamic. He was the steady presence, muting the harshness of the others. He reminded me of Beck in my own friend group, the practical, realistic one, the one everyone went to when real shit was going down.
That wasn’t to say that he didn’t fit in though. Mason had a biting wit, a piercing tongue that shot comebacks and bards just as surely as Henry’s did, all in that same dry tone.
I was sure that, under normal circumstances, Mac was in there with them, a bulldog contrasting Mason with his abrasive temper and crude remarks. Instead, the entire time at the pool, he sat kicked back in a chair under the sun with his sunglasses on and his shirt off, his powerful chest darkening as the hours ticked by. It was hard to tell if he was sleeping or listening in on the conversations. Occasionally, in the pool, I thought I could feel his eyes on me.
I had blamed his silence on the incident in the bathroom, but now, as I walked back to the room, I wasn’t quite sure. Mac hadn’t seemed embarrassed at all completely naked. Surprised, yes, but he hadn’t even made a move to cover himself.
On the other hand, it didn’t seem to mesh with what I knew of his personality for him to become withdrawn around other people. But, the other Knights didn’t seem to notice or care that he wasn’t joining in on the fun. Maybe there was something else going on with him. Not that I cared, of course.
Any questions I’d had about Mac’s personality on the plane had disappeared. He was a dick, an asshole, a selfish bastard. Who the hell slept with the wedding planner days before the wedding in an unlocked public bathroom? Nobody would give a shit if he was kicked out, but we needed Mariana! I needed Mariana if Beck was to have any fun at all this week.
She was supposed to be in control and I was seriously doubting her capabilities after this incident. It was too late to fire her though; she knew too much. And by too much, I meant she knew everything. Everything about the wedding and how it would function and when the band was arriving and who sat next to who and which people to talk to at the resort for which problems. The woman was fantastic at her job, obviously, but apparently not so great at resisting Mac fucking Walsh.
Can you blame her? The question hijacked my thought process and I glowered as if Mac had personally implanted it himself, Inception-style. Yes, I could blame her and I would. But what I wouldn’t do was tell Beck about it. All that would do would make things awkward and awful, putting unneeded strain on the wedding. And as much as I hated helping Mac get away with something, it was really only Beck who mattered.