I wanted to come somewhere different tonight. Not our usual bars or clubs where I could see people I know.
“This place have good whiskey?” Tanner asks as we stretch back in a VIP booth near the dancefloor.
“Drink the proper shit,” Dax pipes up, smirking at Tanner as Drew laughs.
Dax drinks Aunt Iris’s gin when we’re out. It’s like the fucker doesn’t get enough when he produces it every day at his distillery. Either that, or it’s a marketing ploy so he’s only seen drinking his bestselling line.
The three of them order from the waitress, then relax into a chatter as I slump back in my seat.
“Rachel let you out for the night to play then, Tan?” Drew’s eyes light up.
Tanner shakes his head. “I swear my dick’s in real danger of falling off.”
Dax hoots with laughter, clapping Tanner on the back as Drew looks at him in envy.
“It’s not funny,” Tanner says. “You wait until Rose is pregnant. Then you’ll know what it’s like. She wakes me up twice a night for it. And it’s not like lazy sex is good enough. She wants me at full power at three in the goddamn morning.”
Even I manage a small smile at that. But Dax just shakes his head, stretching his arms above his head, the dark ink of his tattoos creeping up and over his neck from beneath his shirt.
“I love when Rose wakes me up in the night. Three o’clock, four o’clock. Who fucking cares? I’d happily never sleep in exchange for those wakeup calls.”
Tanner looks at Dax, deadpan. “Try operating on three hours sleep a night, having one child with a bug that includes them throwing up down your back twice in one hour and another who then wakes from a nightmare because a giant smurf was chasing them. Then tell me what having a horny, pregnant wife who expects you to fuck her like it’s a Magic Mike stage show when you finally collapse back into bed sounds?”
Dax throws his head back and laughs, joined by Drew.
“Hey.” Drew nudges my leg with a wide grin. “See what you’ve got to look forward to?”
“Fuck off,” I mutter.
He wraps an arm around my shoulders pulling me up from my slouch. “Come on. We’re out to cheer you up. Nothing’s ever that bad.”
“You think?”
I smile gratefully at the waitress as she returns to our table and places two bottles and four glasses down.
Drew pours me a whiskey, ignoring Dax’s snort as he reaches for the gin bottle.
“I know.” Drew hands me the glass, then pours himself one. “Just look around this table if you want to feel better about shit.” He picks up his glass and points it in Dax’s direction. “We’ve got one fucker who went to jail and was almost killed. And he likes to cover himself in a fucking jungle.”
Dax curses at Drew with a chuckle, the vines, flowers, and bird tattoo on his neck rippling as he knocks his drink back.
“Then you’ve got this one.” Drew motions to Tanner. “Poor fucker’s dick’s about to fall off. It’s probably been ground down to something resembling a match by now. Bump into him and it’ll snap like a little twig.”
Tanner mutters something into his whiskey with an exhausted smile.
“And then you’ve got me. Perfect as friends go, I must say.” Drew puffs his chest out. “But I still can’t get the hottest fucking woman I’ve ever met to look at me for more than two seconds, unless it’s to threaten me with a restraining order. Oh, and my cheating fucker of a father hates me. So there’s that. Feel better?”
Drew clinks his glass against mine as I give him a slow nod.
“I’m part of the fucked asshole gang. Yeah, comfort in company, I guess.”
“That’s the spirit.” He pours more whiskey into my glass and I down half of it in one.
“You’ll find a way.” Tanner meets my eyes across the table, injecting some seriousness into the conversation.
“Unless you’re coming around to the idea of marriage, pregnancy, and married sex,” Drew muses.
I shake my head. “Fuck no. Nothing against Gabrielle. But this is messed up.”
All evening, I’ve repeated her and Dad’s words again and again in my head. I stayed in the hotel bar after she left, drinking alone, my gut getting heavier and heavier. I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do. I can’t marry her.
“Is there someone you love that you’d be giving up?”
I didn’t lie. I don’t have a girlfriend. How can you give up someone who was never yours in the first place? Someone who insists she hates you. When each time you hear her say it, it only acts as another force pushing you to prove her wrong. To make her scream out your name in pleasure instead of hate.
And fuck I love the way she sounds when it’s my name she screams.
I knock back the rest of my drink, sliding my glass onto the table. Drew dutifully fills it up. He wants to get me wasted. He knows I need it. Drink first and blow off some steam, then hunker the shit down and fix it. It’s what we do. All of us. It’s why we’re all friends. Why we’re all successful at what we do. We don’t give up. We find a way. Like Dad always used to say before this knocked him on his ass.
The Riches always find a way.
“We’ll think of something.” Drew claps his hand on my back in a show of solidarity that has never wavered over years of friendship.
I look sideways at him as he drinks. He has no idea what I’ve been doing behind his back. What kind of friend am I? Here he is, trying to console me on what has to be one of the most epically shit days of my life bar the day he got shipped off to the juvenile detention center. And all this time, I’ve been banging his sister like I can’t fucking control myself.
Maybe because I can’t fucking control myself around Maddy.
She’s right. I’m an asshole. And a shit friend. And now I’m going to be a shit son when I tell Dad I can’t marry Gabrielle. He’s going to lose everything he’s ever worked for. And so is Mum. She doesn’t deserve this.
I push my finger and thumb into my eye sockets as I hang my head. The guys are right. I need a drink tonight. Fuck, I need a whole bottle. Then tomorrow, I’ll start searching for ways to get out of this shit. Maybe I can talk to Spencer, reason with him. Ask Gabrielle to do the same. Fuck knows, but I have to do something. I can’t be responsible for people I care about losing everything. Not again. It’s a disease that will grow and poison everything. Look what it did to Maddy.
Maddy.
She blamed me for losing Drew. She hates me. She fucking hates me. She let me inside her body, while keeping me firmly out of her heart, walking away when we got back from Italy like she said she would.
And it hurt. Just like I told her it would. But it only hurt me. Not her.
“Rachel loves this song.” Tanner’s tired eyes light up.
“So does Rose,” Dax adds.
Drew looks at me, and I smirk. Yeah, no sympathy for either of them. The fuckers have it good and they know it.
Drew’s phone vibrates in his pocket, and he pulls it out. “Just got to take this.” He stands and heads toward the exit, lifting his phone to his ear.
I sit back and look at the quickly emptying whiskey bottle.
“Let’s get another,” I announce.
