Real Sexy (Real Dirty Duet #2)(8)
Brandy showed up back in Nashville when she was eighteen, saying she needed a place to stay because Aunt Laurelyn kicked her out and told her it was time to make her own way. What could we do but try to help her? She had no support other than Pop and me. She'd work at the bar for a few months until she lost interest, and then she would stop showing up and move in with some boyfriend and do something different for a while. Every damn time, she came back, and Pop always made me give her a job. When we knew he wasn't moving back upstairs after his accident, he told me to let Brandy have the spare room. So I did. Whenever Brandy's life went sideways, I came to the rescue.
And this is how she repays me.
It shouldn't be such a shock. I was the only one expected to put family loyalty at the top of my priority list. But Brandy finally crossed a line that can't be uncrossed, and I'm done.
I hurry through the rest of my shower, not wanting to use all the hot water, and I hear the door shut as Hope returns.
"Rip?"
"I'm almost done." I shut off the water and grab the towel I tossed over the curtain rod.
"You're gonna want to see this."
Her wary tone alerts me to the fact that something is definitely wrong. With water still beaded on my skin and dripping from my hair, I wrap the towel around myself and open the bathroom door.
"What's going on?"
She holds out her phone. The red banner across the top of the screen is the name of a gossip site that wants to be the next TMZ.
I squint and step closer to read the headline of an article posted only a half hour ago.
* * *
Boone Thrasher and Amber Fleet Reunited
* * *
Beneath it is a picture of Amber wrapped around Boone like a spider monkey as she kisses him.
"What the fuck?" I whisper.
6
Boone
An hour earlier
The door to the Escalade slams shut before the vehicle pulls away with Amber and me inside.
Eyeing her like she's a viper poised to strike, I try to figure out what angle she's working. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Amber shifts in her seat to face me, and it stuns the crap out of me that I was planning to ask her to marry me nine days ago. What a dumbass. Now when I look at her, everything comes off as manufactured, from her rhinoplastied nose to her collagen-injected lips.
"Saving your ass. What does it look like?"
"It looks like you're trying to stage some kind of goddamned reconciliation, and you know that shit isn't happening."
She rolls her eyes. "You could be a little more grateful. I just dropped a pile of cash to bail you out of jail."
"You'll get your money back within the hour. Where the fuck did you come from, and where the hell is your husband?" I emphasize the word husband, hoping she realizes just how frigging ridiculous it is that she showed up here.
"I don't have a husband. The marriage has already been dissolved. It was just a big misunderstanding."
Remnants of the anger I felt when I first found out what Amber had done flare up. "A misunderstanding? You call getting married a fucking misunderstanding?"
She waves a hand. "You know I stayed in Vegas the day after my show for a meeting. Well, that meeting was with a big-shot Hollywood producer to talk about my acting career . . . and things got a little crazy."
"Crazy? Yeah, that's exactly what it was when I heard that my goddamned girlfriend was married." My temper kicks up another notch.
"He made promises, Boone! He swore he was going to get me a starring role in the next Ryan Gosling movie he's producing, and that's where things get fuzzy."
"I can't fucking wait to hear this."
To her credit, Amber's cheeks turn pink.
"We went out, had some drinks, did some blow and some pills, and the next thing I know, we're at a wedding chapel and he told me it was my big audition. All I had to do was walk down the aisle and I'd be Hollywood's next big thing. So I did. Then I woke up the next morning with a ring on my finger, lying next to a guy I only vaguely remember-one I never would've touched without being seriously fucked up. I mean, God, you should've seen his receding hairline and tiny dick. The first thing I told him was I wanted the contract for my movie role, and that's when he told me it was already taken and I'd have to build up to something that big. He lied to me!"
And what bothers her the most about this situation is that he lied to her . . . If I'd been carrying a single shred of regret for not trying to patch things up with Amber, it would have died right then. Luckily for me, I've already moved way the fuck on. Hell, I dodged a bullet.