Badd Motherf*cker(81)

We’d blocked off the entire street around the bar, and the catering company had set up a buffet of food outside and a bunch of white-cloth-covered tables in the street and on the docks. Canaan and Corin had a stage off to one side and planned to play all night long, taking breaks for food and booze, of course.

The twins, being the twins, could play covers of just about anything, plus their catalog of a hundred or so original songs—including dozens of songs they’d written while touring but had never got into the studio to record. They’d never told their old record label about them, and there were only the twelve songs from their debut album that they weren’t allowed to play without permission.

The whole wedding was open to the public, with the interior of the bar open for business as usual, the wedding and reception all taking place outside. We’d hired temporary staff in addition to the catering staff to run the bar for the evening so all of us could hang out and party all night.

There were something like two hundred people gathered already, more in the bar, and yet more streaming in from all directions. Might have been Canaan and Corin’s rambunctious cover of “Stairway to Heaven” they were currently playing, or it could have been the lights and the crowd and the smell of food…or just the air of a rippin’ party that had infused this entire section of Ketchikan.

In the four months since Dru had drunkenly crash-landed in Badd’s Bar and Grill, things had gotten a little crazy. Word had spread that all eight of us Badd brothers were back in town, and that we all were around in the bar on a regular basis, which had brought in the ladies in droves…and their boyfriends and husbands had stuck around because of the kickass music provided on a nightly basis by the twins and the stiff drinks poured by Bast and Bax. Business had turned around, you might say. Xavier had proven to be as talented a chef as he was at anything else, which meant we had a killer menu, and Dru provided a smiling, beautiful, happy face for the crowds which pushed in to max capacity every night. That’s right, the chick had torn up her law degree to play hostess at a dive bar…and seemed well and truly happy with the decision.

Lucian, Brock, and I took turns helping out as needed in the kitchen, behind the bar, and on the floor, and Xavier took it upon himself to take care of the books, since he could do the requisite math in his head blind-drunk. Things were…amazing. We were busier than ever, and all of us were pretty content with the way things were.

I hadn’t shot a gun in months, which was the longest I’d gone without spending hours on the firing range or in combat since I was eighteen.

Not all of us fit in the apartment above the bar, obviously, so some of us brothers had pitched in funds to buy and renovate an old storefront and the apartment above it a block away from the bar. The storefront had been turned into a recording studio for the twins, and the apartment above provided living space for them, Lucian, Brock, and Bax, while Xavier and I had the other two bedrooms above Badd’s. None of us spent much time in any of the bedrooms except to sleep, so it didn’t really matter, as we all tended to spend every waking moment at the bar either working or drinking.

With Dru and Bax making their circuit around the block, it was time for me to take my place beside Sebastian at the altar—which was a microphone stand and a rented white archway decorated with roses—with the brothers lined up on either side. Since Dru didn’t have any real girlfriends and no family except her dad—who was performing the ceremony—the brothers had taken it upon themselves to be her “bridesmen” as well as Sebastian’s groomsmen. Lucian, Xavier, Bax, and Brock were her bridesmen, and the twins and I were Bast’s groomsmen. Technically I was the best man, but that just meant I was tasked with carrying the rings.

Sebastian, standing next to Drew, seemed more nervous than I’d ever seen him.

I nudged him. “You’re not nervous are you?”

He scowled at me. “Fuck yeah I am. Gettin’ married, man. Of course I’m nervous.”

“It’s not like she’s gonna back out or anything, you know that, right?”

He snorted. “Well, fuck, dude, I hope not, but that ain’t why I’m nervous.”

“Then what is it? Never seen you look so green around the gills about anything.”

He shifted his weight from foot to foot, peering over the heads of the crowd, watching for Dru’s approach. “My vows. I wrote ’em myself, but…” He shrugged uncomfortably. “Putting what’s in my head into words ain’t ever been my strongest suit.”

I struggled for something useful to say. “I’m not much better at it than you, bro. But just…be you, I guess. That’s what she loves, and she’ll be happy with it.”