Forever Lucy (The Lucy & Harris Novella Series Book 5) by Terri Anne Browning
“Santana tells me everything. The girls talk.” He nodded his head in my direction. “Right, Harris?”
“Yeah, man. Kin tells Lucy everything, and they don’t even try to hide what they’re talking about from me. She didn’t think it at first. For months, she tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. But you not talking to her has made her unable to assume anything but that you’re cheating.”
“But she hasn’t said anything to me…” He glared down at his phone. “She hasn’t said a single word.”
“Probably because you haven’t said much either,” Cash said with a shrug. “Do you two even talk these days? Or do you just sit around glaring off into space?”
“Screw you, Cash,” he snapped. “You don’t know shit.”
“You’re right. I don’t know anything. None of us fucking does, especially not Kin who deserves to know everything going on in your life.”
“She does know everything.” But even as drunk as we were, we could still hear the lie.
“Sure, she does,” Sin said with a nod. “Just like she knows that’s a chick who keeps calling from that 786 area code. So who is this girl you’re risking losing your girlfriend over?”
“None of your fucking business,” he snapped. “How do you even know it’s a chick?”
“Well, 786 is a Miami area code,” Sin told Cash. “Pretty sure that’s when he started acting like he’d been abducted by aliens and became another person.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Cash agreed.
“Saw Jace here having a heated conversation with some blond chick at that Petrova party we all had to suffer through,” Sin went on, talking only to Cash, ignoring the sudden dangerous tension that was filling Jace. I listened to Sin’s words, but I kept my eyes on my friend. “I didn’t think much of it at the time. Jace, with some random slut? Cheating on Kin when he acted like his world was falling apart at his feet when he had to leave her at home? Nah, man. I didn’t even think that. But there was something about the girl that didn’t make sense to me then.”
“What was that?”
“I could have sworn she was Kassa’s twin. Not like an identical twin, the hair was different, the skin tone off. And she didn’t have those sweet, kind eyes like our Kassa. But from behind, they could have passed for sisters.” Jace’s face twisted in what to my drunk eyes looked like disgust…and guilt. “I’d have put her at six, maybe eight years older than Kassa.”
“I don’t remember her,” Cash said with a frown. “Was she with someone?”
“I think one of the guys handing out the coke and Molly like it was candy.”
“Fuck, you hooked up with a drug dealer’s girlfriend?” Kale shouted. “Are you out of your fucking mind? Why would you turn your back on a girl as good as Kin for a bitch like that?”
“I didn’t turn my back on Kin!” he roared. “And don’t talk about Eden like that. Leave her out of this.”
“Eden? So that’s her name.” Sin nodded. “Suits her, I guess. Kassa’s hotter, though.”
Jace jerked to his feet, nearly knocking over his chair in the process. “Shut the fuck up, Sin. Leave my sister alone. If Gray were here, he would have already knocked your ass out.”
“For saying she’s hot? Nah, man, he knows she’s smokin’. He was smart enough to put a ring on her finger too. Something you should have done already with Kin.”
“Fuck off, Sin,” Jace snarled and walked away. The sound of one of the bedroom doors slamming told us he was most likely done for the night. Meaning more beer for the rest of us.
“Where is Gray anyway?” Kale asked me. “Wasn’t he supposed to come tonight?”
I shrugged and gathered all the cards to shuffle. “Jace only told me he was taking a later flight. Maybe he’s coming tomorrow.”
“Is Caleb coming out tomorrow too?” Cash asked.
“That’s what Lu told me.” I pulled my phone from my jeans pocket. The last text she had sent was letting me know she was at her hotel and was about to go out with the girls. I had no idea where she was, but I knew Marcus would watch out for her. I sent her a heart-eyed emoji and one blowing a kiss.
“Let’s go out tomorrow,” Kale suggested. “I know a place where we’ll have a good time.”
“Let’s go to a strip club,” Sin told him. “I’m tired of looking at your ugly faces. I want to see some pussy tomorrow night.”
“I’d rather just gamble and drink,” I told him honestly.
“Ah, come on, man. You don’t want to get married without one last hurrah, do you?” Kale asked with a frown. “I mean, are you ready to see Lucy’s pussy and only Lucy’s pussy for the rest of your life?”
“Stop talking ’bout my girl’s pussy,” I growled. “And yeah. I am in love with that fuckin’ pussy. I don’t need to see any other pussy ever again.”
“Good answer,” Cash chuckled. “But she’s not here right now, man. You can be honest with us. We’re your boys. We’ve got your back.”
Even as drunk as I was, I was telling them the God’s honest truth. Cash didn’t understand that, though. He didn’t know what it meant to love someone the way I loved Lucy.
“We playing poker or gossiping like little girls?” I drained the last of my beer. “Whose turn is it to get refills?”
Kale groaned as he got to his feet unsteadily. “Fuck, I’m a lightweight these days. Haven’t drunk this much since I met Santana.”
“Whipped,” Sin laughed. “She’s got you so pussified.”
“Damn right,” Kale barked out a laugh. “That girl is worth it too.”
As he placed fresh beers in front of us all, my phone vibrated with an incoming test. Opening it, I found a picture of Lucy in a tiara that read “Bride.” Kin was kissing one cheek, with Jenna kissing the other. Lu’s lips were puckered up, blowing the camera a kiss. Another text popped up.
Miss you! Hope you’re having as much fun as I am. Can’t wait to see you soon.
--
The next morning I woke up with the mother of all hangovers. Groaning, I turned over in the bed and searched blindly for the bottle of water and the two aspirin I had put there before falling on my face into bed. Drunk me had been smart and considerate of hangover me, at least.
Once I had the aspirin down and swallowed the entire bottle of water, I half crawled to the bathroom and into a steaming shower. I debated staying there for the next few hours, just letting the limitless hot water wash away the toxins I’d ingested the night before, but Jace pounded on the bathroom door, forcing me out.
“We ordered breakfast. Hurry the fuck up in there before it gets cold. We’ve got plans for the rest of the day, you lazy fucker.”
Not even bothering to hide my curses at him, I turned off the water and toweled myself dry. I threw on a pair of basketball shorts and walked out into the living room where an entire buffet of food was set up. My stomach growled hungrily, and I grabbed a plate, piling it high with French toast, sausage, and scrambled eggs. I smothered the entire plate in fresh, hot syrup and parked my ass on one of the couches where the others were already eating and watching a basketball game.
It was only when I was halfway through my meal that I even noticed Caleb’s huge body on the other side of the room sitting beside Gray. “When did you get here?”
“About two hours ago,” he said with a shrug of his massive shoulders. “Gray picked me up from the airport.”
“What, did you drive?” Jace asked his roommate.
“Yeah, missed my plane,” was all Gray said as he stuffed his mouth full of food.
“What’s on the agenda for the day?” Cash asked, rubbing his hands together. “We seeing any shows?”
“Today is going to be kick-ass.” Jace pulled out his phone. “First up, we’re going to a paintball park and having a war. Losers pay for the first drinks tonight. Then tonight, we’re going to zip-line Superman-style down Fremont Street. After that, we’re doing a whiskey tasting at this sick-ass bar I found online.”
&nb
“Is it a strip club?” Cash and Sin asked, practically in unison.
“Yeah, but it’s a classy joint. Not sleazy like some of those places can be.”
Jace hesitated, shooting me a look. “I don’t know…”
“Ah, come on.” Gray groaned. “I get not wanting to upset the girls, but they know we’ll be going. It’s tradition. We gotta at least go for a little while.”
“Fine,” I muttered, giving in because, apparently, I was still susceptible to peer pressure. “But if Lucy gets pissed at me, you’re the ones who’re going to get kicked in the balls. Not me.”
“Agreed.”
--
After the adrenaline rush of zip-lining down Fremont Street, we were all in need of drinks. And because my team of Jace, Caleb, and Cash had lost at paintball, we were paying for the other three’s first drinks of the night. That Gray, Kale, and Sin had won didn’t surprise me. They had been playing wars together like the one we’d fought earlier that day for most of their lives. Even though we’d had the most people, they had still kicked our asses, but not before I’d gotten Kale and Caleb had shot up Sin, making most of his chest a wildly neon yellow that probably would have glowed in the dark.
After the whiskey tasting, we took the limo that had picked us up after we’d showered off all the paint back at the hotel, and we went straight to the club that most of the guys seemed hell-bent on checking out. That Gray wanted to go and seemed completely at ease threw me for a moment. As obsessed as he was with Kassa and making her happy, it seemed weird to me that he had been all for us going to a strip club. I didn’t know the girl all that well, but Kassa didn’t seem like the type of female who would appreciate her fiancé tossing bills at women to get them to take off their clothes.
But then again, Gray was a bastard on the best of days. Still, his goal in life seemed to be to make Kassa smile, so he couldn’t have been all bad.
Or so I had reminded myself repeatedly over the years since I had first met him. The truth was, other than Kassa, he didn’t give a single damn about anyone else in the universe. His heart was encased in steel against the rest of the world, and he didn’t care if he treated people like they were dirt or not.
One of the guys had called ahead and gotten us one of the VIP boxes, which included our own personal shows. There was a huge round couch in one corner of the boxed-in room with a small stage and dance pole where one stripper was already dancing for us when we walked in. But we could still see the crowd below and the three different stages where others were getting into the show before them.
I sat down on the couch with Jace to my left and Kale to my right. Instead of watching the chick dance on our personal little stage, I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket and texted Lucy. But after several minutes when she hadn’t texted me back, I gave up. She was probably having a blast with her friends and had her phone on silent, I tried to soothe myself. Marcus was with her, along with Angie, who might have been more vicious to deal with than the bodyguard. Neither one of them was going to let anything happen to my favorite person.
“Dude, relax,” Jace commanded as he sat back and watched the girl dance around the stage in only a tiny pink thong. “Lucy is having the time of her life.”
“Yeah, but is she having that time of her life with some motherfucker’s dick in her face?” I grabbed one of the beers from the tub behind us that two waitresses had brought in. Twisting off the top, I tipped it back and chugged, needing to get the buzz back I had lost on the limo ride from the whiskey bar to the club.
“I’m bored,” I complained ten minutes later.
There was a new girl on our stage now, but she was mostly skin and bones and so tall she would have been on a more even height with me in her bare feet. She was blond and beautiful with the way her makeup was contoured, but I would have bet good money that when she washed her face at the end of the night, she would look like an entirely different person. She was the polar opposite of Lucy, who didn’t need a speck of makeup and was so short she got a neck ache every time she had to look up at me for more than a few seconds.
I missed my tiny little goddess. Last night had been the first night we’d spent away from each other since she’d moved in with me. If I hadn’t been so drunk when I’d fallen into bed, I probably never would have been able to sleep.
“Dude,” Gray called out as he finished speaking to the waitress who had brought more booze. “I just got you a private dance. If you’re still bored after that, we’ll go.”
“I don’t want a fucking private dance,” I groaned. “I don’t even want to be here.”
Kale pushed my shoulder. “Ah, come on, man. It’s just a dance. Not like you’re going to fuck the chick. Do this and we’ll grab steaks on the way back to the hotel, and you can kick our asses at poker over and over again all night long.”
“Jace, I’m ready to leave,” I said, but my friend was fucking around on his phone. When I glanced over to see what exactly he was doing instead of saving me from his bandmates, I saw he was texting someone. The name at the top of the text wasn’t Kin, just that damn 786 area code number.
I didn’t read the messages already there, but from the looks of it, he had been texting her all day. Whoever the fuck this Eden chick was, she was bad news, and I didn’t know if I could keep that shit to myself. If Jace was cheating on Kin and Lucy found out I knew about it, she would go ballistic. Kin didn’t deserve to be treated like this, with Jace sneaking around with this girl.
“Put the goddamn phone down and do your job as my best man,” I bit out in a low voice so the others didn’t hear.
Jace lifted his gaze from his phone’s screen. “What?”
“Gray just bought our boy here a private dance,” Kale informed him, slapping a hand on my back. “Tell him to go get it done, and then we’ll go.”
“I don’t want the fucking dance,” I half snarled. “Get me the fuck out of here.”
Jace shook his head. “Nah, man. Just get it done like Kale said, and we’ll go. One lap dance isn’t going to kill you.”
“I won’t forget this, motherfucker,” I threw at him as I gave in and stood.
The waitress who had stuck around led me from the room and down a wide corridor to a set of doors where different music could be heard coming from each one. At the end of the row of doors, she stopped and unlocked one.
“Just have a seat,” she instructed in a husky voice. “Your dancer will come out shortly.” With a wink, she turned and left me standing there, calling over her shoulder, “Have fun!”
“Fun? Yeah, sure,” I muttered to myself as I closed the door and dropped my tall frame down onto the low chair. “Fuck,” I groaned and scrubbed a hand over my face. I sent another text to Lucy.
Love you, sweetness. Wish I was with you.
Like it had before, the text went unread, and I leaned my head back against the chair to glare up at the bright lights hanging over the tiny stage. “Fuck,” I groaned again. “She’s going to kill me.”
Whether Lu was going to chop off my balls or not was all I could think about until the lights overhead suddenly dimmed and the first strings of Demi Lovato’s “Wildfire” flowed from the speakers on the walls. The singer’s sultry voice stroked over me just as I noticed the dancer who was now standing in the center of the micro stage.
Ah, fucking hell.
Chapter 12
Lucy
As soon as the front door of our apartment was slammed shut, I couldn’t hold back the giggles any longer. Harris had been seconds away from begging to stay home. I saw it in his eyes as he’d stood there watching me pack his case.
There weren’t many men in the world who would willingly give up their bachelor party. Especially not one that was taking place in Sin City. But then again, I knew I had won the lottery when Harris Cutter had fallen in love with me.
That rea
I rushed to get packed for my own sinful weekend with my friends. I didn’t even bother to fold the majority of the things I threw in. I’d waited until the last minute because I figured Harris would have gotten curious and started looking through my things in an attempt to guess where Kin had planned my bachelorette party.
By the time I was done, everyone who was going with us was already waiting in the living room. Instead of flying, we were taking two vehicles. Marcus was driving my Range Rover, while Gray drove his own vehicle. Counting the two men, both of them our bodyguards for the evening as Gray wasn’t about to leave Kassa for even a night, there were eight of us. Six chicks with luggage meant space was still tight even though we were taking two vehicles.
The drive to Vegas was long, but that was the way we wanted it. If we arrived before Harris and Jace, then the jig was up. Harris wouldn’t enjoy his bachelor party if he knew we were in the same city as him. As Marcus pulled to a stop in front of the hotel, I texted Harris to find out if he was already at his hotel and if he was having a good time. Once he told me was in for the night and he and the guys were going to be playing poker in their suite all night, I knew we were safe.
No one was going to suddenly appear and crash my party, but even if there was a chance they would, Kale knew to keep Harris distracted so he wouldn’t see us.
Kin’s idea to stay in the same hotel as the guys, to do everything in the background while they were doing their own thing, had made me laugh the first time she’d told me. But the more she’d explained her vision of our weekend, the more I had loved the idea. Harris had been so worried about me, but once he realized he’d been within shouting distance the entire weekend, he would think this whole thing was just as funny as I did.