“Don’t worry. I’ll help you out. Don’t I always help you out?”
“I’m not so sure, given that this was your idea, and now I’m having some serious regrets.”
“Hey.” Dean places a comforting hand on my shoulder. Somehow, he’s not even the least bit clammy, even though I feel drenched in sweat. “Don’t worry. I’ve got your back. I always have your back.”
“I know.” I do know. I don’t doubt Dean’s love and care for me. I never had a brother, but Dean goes above and beyond that. He might have got me into some seriously dumb shit in the past, but he’s also bailed me out more times than I can count.
“This isn’t any different. And what guy wouldn’t want two thousand dollars for like four days of doing nothing?”
“Uh, plenty. It’s not a whole lot of money.” Even though it was all that I could spare at the moment.
“I’ll pitch in some if I have to,” Dean assures me.
I sigh so hard that my lungs nearly give way. “I don’t want you to have to do that. This is my problem, not yours.”
“Your problems are always my problems. I love you; you know that. I want you to be happy. I know your parents are hard on you, and I know you’re tired of it. I know you just want to be left alone, but you can’t actually force them to leave you alone because you love them too much, and you’re too sweet to tell them to stop badgering you about getting laid, married, and popping out kids left and right.”
“Thanks.” The dry tone in my voice rivals dry ice. Or gin. Overcooked meat, maybe? Something dry, at any rate.
“Well, that’s how it goes, but anyway, don’t worry. We’ll find someone. You’ll go to your sister’s wedding. I’ll go to your sister’s wedding. Everyone will go. You’ll rock it, and I’ll have your back at the wedding. But for now, we’ll find a nice guy who wants to make two grand doing nothing, and your parents will stop hassling you for at least a few months since you won’t have to put in an appearance until then, and when it happens, you can say you broke up. It buys you a good chunk of time.”
“Yes, but I have to lie to everyone. I’m not a good liar.”
“You’re a great liar. You’re an interior designer. You lie all the time.”
“Sugarcoating the truth for people about the current state of their houses isn’t a lie. It’s a way to actually help them bring things up to par.”
“Same difference.”
I roll my eyes. Despite everything, I do feel slightly better. The very least that could happen is this plan backfires, we don’t find someone, and I go home and put up with an insane amount of worry, questions, and nagging from my parents. Oh, and my sister being mildly annoyed at me for stealing her spotlight on the parents' front. I really, really don’t want to do that to Susan. She already holds it against me that I got to be named after our favorite grandma while she had to be named after the great aunt she ended up detesting because the great aunt was mean and hated everyone under the age of eighty.
My dad’s mom is named Brunhilda, and he said that no matter how much he loves his mom, he wasn’t giving any of his daughters her name. Even his mom hates her name. But Grandma Bruny is a great lady, and I would have gladly taken her name if given a choice. She’s funny, and she pokes fun at herself all the time, at least where her name is concerned. She still jokes about all the funny nicknames people gave her over the years, even though some of them were downright mean.
“So? You ready to do this?” Dean, being Dean, hurtles out of the car before I can respond. He’s not going to give me a chance to say I’m not. Or back out.
In a week, my sister might be saying for better or for worse, but tonight, I feel like it’s my motto. Except this plan is probably for worse or for worse.
I take a deep breath, open my door, and peel my sassy ass off the slightly slick leather. I guess if this counts as ready, I’m all in.
CHAPTER 2
Gabriel
This isn’t my scene. And no, not because I’m not gay. I’m here because my brother dragged me out. He says I don’t have any fun, and he’s right. At least when it comes to nightlife and dating and whatnot. I’ve never liked clubs or bars. As for dating, when I have a few billion dollars tied up in companies, stocks, shares, investments, and such, I have to be careful. Not that many people know who I actually am. I’ll much rather stay under the radar than show off my wealth. And to most people, I just look like the typical nine-to-five, corporate, suit-wearing guy.
However, get close to someone, and they start to figure things out. It’s happened once. I paid, literally, for that mistake. Since then, I’ve kept things low key. I’m single and happy not to mingle. Have fun? I can have fun. It’s called math. Math is fun. Math can be tons of fun. Coding. Software. It’s how I have my fun. It might also be how I made a freak ton of money a couple of years ago, selling programs to a few big names out there, but same difference, right?
You know how it goes. If it makes you happy, you should go for it.
What does not make me happy is pretending I’m having a good time. Sebastien knows me better than I know myself, so he can tell I’m edgy. That I’ve been edgy since he told me he was dragging me out of my house because I’m alone too much, and it’s not healthy. He wants me to meet someone, have some fun. Just for the night. He says there are lots of single women who aren’t gay who do still go to gay bars.
He probably just wanted a DD since I hate having more than a casual beer here and there. I never did like the taste. Might have something to do with the fact that our father was a raging alcoholic who liked to beat the shit out of my mom before he did us all a favor and left for good when I was four. Still, those four years imprinted themselves on me in a big way. Thank god Sebastien wasn’t born then. After my real dad left, my mom worked hard to provide for us. She ended up working at a diner as a waitress, and she met the cook there. Ted is a good guy. He didn’t just fall in love with my mom. He fell in love with me too. He might officially be my stepdad on the books, but I don’t think of him that way. To me, he’s just dad, and as for Sebastien, we’re close-knit brothers even if we don’t share the same father.
“Hey, I know you think I just want you to drive my drunk ass home, but that’s not why I dragged you out. Seriously. You have no fun, and your eyes are going to pop out of your head if you keep staring at computers all day. You’re thirty-two. It’s time you do some actual living. Have fun just for a night.”
“And make sure you get home safe and sound and don’t take anyone inappropriate back?”
“Define inappropriate.”
I roll my eyes. Sebastien is six years younger than me, and he’s far from ready to settle down. He goes out fairly regularly, and he has dated, or I guess I should say, had a few one-night stands where the guys were questionable at best. He’s actually had shit stolen from his house. One time, it was just the cash out of his wallet. The other time, it was his whole wallet. And a few times, it was random shit like DVDs or a fucking game console. Who steals a game console? There was one guy who refused to leave after Sebastien sobered up and decided he wasn’t in the mood, and he had to lock himself in the bathroom and call the cops when the guy got violent about it. My brother is an adult, certainly, but I do feel, as the older brother, that I should protect him. When I hear those stories, it makes me furious. Furious that people used my brother. Stole from him. Threatened to hurt him. Seriously. Who the fuck does that?