: Chapter 6

“Fuck it,” I mumbled to myself and closed the PDF.

Wednesday afternoon, back at my flat in London, I was supposed to be reading a thirty-two-page contract—one of the dozens of things I should’ve been doing today since I’d been out of the office for a week. But instead, I clicked back over to the email Dad’s assistant had sent this morning. This time, when the photos opened, I saved them to my hard drive, telling myself I might need them someday. For what? I had no stinking idea. But rather than trying to come up with an excuse other than I’m obsessed with a certain woman who tasted like cupcake, I used the time in a more productive manner: obsessing.

Sloane Carrick was a goddamn knockout—auburn hair, warm skin, green eyes, and a banging body, even under that hideous purple dress she’d had on. She might’ve run into me in that hallway, but I was the one who’d had the air knocked from my lungs. I flipped through the photos, looking for one where she wasn’t dressed like Barney, and stopped when I reached a closeup of her face. She was hamming it up, looking right at the camera, holding a shot glass in one hand and giving the finger with the other. Her fiery attitude made my dick twitch in my pants. I liked the photo so much that I tagged it with a little heart, so it would join the folder of my favorites.

Eventually, I tore my eyes from Sloane’s face and flipped through another hundred photos. The ones she wasn’t in, I glossed over. The ones of the bride, I couldn’t flip past fast enough. Toward the end of the collection, I paused at a group photo. It had been taken from above, so it took me a few seconds to figure out what I was looking at. The photographer must’ve been standing on a balcony or a second-floor deck, and the bridal party stood on the grass below, holding their flowers up in the air. It was an artsy shot, but my gaze snagged on Sloane’s cleavage, and I zoomed in for a better look. Two creamy mounds filled my screen just as my little brother, Lucas, wandered into my office. He parked himself on a chair and leaned forward to check out my monitor.

“Nice rack,” he said.

“Don’t be disrespectful, you little shit.”

I did realize the hypocrisy, as I sat at my computer ogling a woman, one door lock away from jacking off to these damn photos. But hey, I was the adult here, and it was my responsibility to teach my little brother some manners. I clicked the X in the top left corner and closed out of the photos.

“Who you wanking off to?” he asked.

“I’m not wanking off to anyone. I was doing some work.”

“What is it you do again? Because that’s what I’m going to college for.”

I shook my head. Me helping raise a fifteen-year-old hadn’t been on my or Lucas’s Christmas list, yet here we were. I leaned back in my chair, giving him my full attention. “How was school? What are you up to this afternoon?”

“Wesley is coming over. We’re figuring out what I’m going to do for my date tonight.”

I side-eyed him. “Come again?”

Lucas kicked his feet up onto my desk. “I have a date tonight.”

I smacked his sneakers off. “Who said you could start dating?”

“Dad and Brenda.”

I wasn’t sure that was true, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was. Lucas and I had different fathers, and his made mine look like father of the year. I’d never understood what Mom had seen in Lorenzo, Lucas’s dad, other than he’d once played guitar in a rock band. The guy was a bum, if you asked me, and now he was Lucas’s sole parent. My brother spent more time at my place than his home, especially now that Lorenzo had remarried. Brenda was younger than me. She was also a hippie who didn’t believe in rules or punishments, which had been one thing when Lucas was nine and ten, but now he’d learned to manipulate the situation.

“I think you’re too young to go out with girls.”

“How old were you when you started?” he countered.

My inner soundtrack played a big whomp whomp. Apparently hypocrisy was a large part of raising kids. But I wasn’t about to share that I’d been getting head at fourteen, and the best fifteenth-birthday present I’d received was seventeen-year-old Stacey Donovan letting me bury myself inside her. I was starting to realize there was a fine line between earning a teenager’s trust with honesty and steering them in the right direction. I decided to shift the focus back to him.

“What’s this bird’s name you want to go out with?”

“Kate.”

“Okay. Tell me why you want to take Kate out?”

Lucas shrugged. “I don’t know. Everyone’s doing it.”

I pointed. “Wrong answer. I don’t give two shits what everyone else is doing, and you shouldn’t, either. A man should act with purpose. If you want to take this Kate out, it should be because you like her, and you should be able to state the reasons why you like her—not that other blokes are all into girls.”

Lucas frowned. “You’re really annoying.”

“I’ll tell you what, I’ll meet you halfway. This Kate can come over here, if I speak to her parent first and it’s okay with them. But you’re hanging out in the living room, not going up to your room or doing dodgy shit. And you keep your hands to yourself.”

He seemed to consider that for a moment, but then lifted his chin to my computer monitor. “Who was the woman on your screen when I walked in?”

“Someone I met at a friend’s wedding in New York last weekend. Her name is Sloane. Why?”

He grinned and cupped his hands at his chest—the universal sign language for boobs. “I figured out why I like Kate. I think it’s the same reason you like Sloane.”

I chuckled and shook my head. “Get the hell out of my office, you knucklehead.”

Lucas disappeared, so I forced myself to call up the contract I was supposed to be reading. But two paragraphs in, I found myself scrolling over to my photo library again. I managed to stop before clicking into the folder, but after few more pages of the boring contract, I somehow wound up on the Hayes Media website. Dad owned a shit ton of magazines and newspapers, and I knew the corporate website had links to all the different lines of business. Finding the Bride magazine tab, I got a little too excited when I discovered a page labeled Meet the Team. Four people down, there was a photo of Sloane Carrick.

The photo was nice, a typical professional headshot, but it didn’t capture her personality like the ones from the wedding did. Underneath, I read her bio.

Sloane Carrick is an associate editor. Her career with Bride magazine began with an internship in her junior year of college, and she has been an integral part of the team ever since. She pens the monthly featured wedding column and is the mastermind behind the uber successful Knot so Seriously YouTube channel where she hosts a weekly Q&A focused on bridal bliss and bloopers. She is a graduate of Binghamton University’s School of Journalism.

Sloane has three obsessions: spaghetti carbonara, cupcakes, and weddings. She began dreaming about her own big day at the age of seven and is currently planning her happily ever after with the love of her life on New Year’s Eve.

What the fuck? She’s engaged? My stomach twisted into a knot, and anger heated my cheeks. We’d sucked face in the coat closet, and I’d felt her up. It was through her clothes, but still, it counted. I stared at the photo, at the sweet smile on her face. Apparently that innocent look was the mask of a cheater.

Underneath her bio was a link and the YouTube logo.

Join Knot so Seriously weekly on Thursdays at 9 p.m. Eastern.

I looked at my watch. Nine there was three in the morning here. I’d be fast asleep by then. I tapped my pen on the desk as I gritted my teeth.

Engaged. The best kiss of my life is freaking engaged.

I’d wasted an entire morning stalking photos of a woman who was off-limits. A woman who was a cheat. The only thing I hated more than a cheater was one who pretended she wasn’t a cheater.

I sat at my desk, stewing, for a long-ass time. Eventually, I told myself it was just as well. I didn’t need to waste my days pining over a woman who worked for my father and lived thirty-five hundred miles away. In fact, what I needed was convenience at this point of my life. Convenient like Melanie Harper, who lived two blocks away and wanted nothing more from me than my dick. I’d spent a few fun nights at her place, and never once did I stalk the website of the company she worked for to read her damn bio. In fact, I wasn’t even sure where the hell she worked. Or what she did for a living, for that matter. Graphic designer? Or maybe it was guidance counselor. I was pretty sure it started with a g. Game developer? It didn’t matter. What mattered was convenience. So I picked up my phone and shot off a text to Melanie.

I felt better after I hit send.

For … about two seconds.

Then I was pissed off at how pissed off I still felt. But rather than sit here and let shit gnaw at me, I decided to make good use of the anger and get a workout in. I wasn’t accomplishing shit this afternoon anyway. Plus, there was a gym in my building, so it was convenient—my word of the day. Bonus, it would stop me from clicking around this stupid computer anymore.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. Rolling over, I punched my pillow and stared at my cell on the nightstand. It had to be around four.

Maybe I’ll just check out her show for a minute.

It was probably almost over anyway.

See how dumb it is.

I’d had a decent amount of liquor Saturday night. I bet the woman wasn’t half as interesting as I remembered. And she wouldn’t even know I was there.

I chewed my bottom lip for a while, ultimately deciding if I didn’t check out the stupid YouTube show, I’d never get any sleep. And I had work to do tomorrow. So I gave in, got up, and clicked.

The screen immediately filled with Sloane’s face. She was covering her mouth, laughing. And I couldn’t help it, I smiled at the damn screen. But then, my eyes moved to her hand, her left hand. No ring. No engagement ring. Just like the night of the wedding.

“Okay, everyone,” she said. “We have about fifteen minutes left, so we’re going to open up the Q&A. You can ask any question you want about weddings. Nothing is off-limits, and there’s no such thing as a dumb question.” She pointed down. “Just type ’em in below, and I’ll pick a few to answer.”

The blank panel on the bottom half of the screen began to fill with questions. Sloane’s eyes moved back and forth for a minute before she read one aloud.

“Okay, first question is from Tatiana. ‘How do I gracefully tell the best man I don’t want him to give a speech? Ours is loud and crude, and I’m afraid he’ll offend my guests.’” Sloane looked at the camera. “Well, Tatiana, I’m not sure there is a gracious way, but if you’re not having any other speeches, you could simply tell him you’ve chosen not to include speeches as part of your wedding because you think it puts too much pressure on the speaker. Or, you might say speeches about you make you uncomfortable, so you’ve chosen to forego them.” She paused, and her eyes went back and forth over the laptop screen again before she smiled. “This next one is a great question. Lily asks, ‘Is it bad form to hook up with another member of the bridal party?’” Sloane grinned and looked back up at the camera. “Assuming you’re not talking about the bride or groom, I think a hookup between two consenting adults is okay, fun even. As long as you’re both clear on what it is.”

Hooking up at a wedding gave me an idea. I moved my cursor over to the Q&A box and typed.

Why don’t you wear your engagement ring when you’re hosting a show about weddings?

There must’ve been a delay, because it took a minute or two for my question to pop up on the screen. When it did, I watched Sloane’s face as she read it. She frowned. “NumberSeventeen asked why I don’t wear my engagement ring when I’m doing this show. Well, NumberSeventeen, that would be because I’m not engaged. I was, but things didn’t work out.”

My heart beat faster. She’s not engaged.

Screw it. I needed to know if I was the only one obsessing over the kiss last Saturday night. So I typed again:

Have you ever gone to a wedding and made out with a stranger? I almost hit enter, but then decided to make the question a two-parter. If so, how was it?

I tapped my fingers on the desk as I waited. Other questions scrolled past, so I wasn’t sure she would answer mine again. But when it came on the screen, a sly smile crept over her face.

“NumberSeventeen has another question. She wants to know if I’ve ever made out with a stranger.” Sloane looked into the camera. “In fact I have. Recently, too. And I highly recommend it.”

My chest puffed with pride. Generally speaking, I didn’t love weddings. An invitation in the mail was about as welcome as a speeding ticket. At least with those you could write a check and be done with it. But suddenly, I was back to looking forward to the next nuptials I had to attend—in three weeks.