Tempting the Best Man(35)
Chase scowled. “That makes zero sense.”
“You don’t get it. You’re overthinking this whole thing when you should be doing what your heart is telling you.”
Chase busted into laughter. “Wow, been watching a lot of Oprah reruns?”
“Shut up,” Chad said, stretching his arms over his head. Chase could tell he was uncomfortable as hell in the dress clothes. While Chase favored the nicer stuff, Chad was comfortable only in jeans.
His brother flashed a wild grin. “Okay, how about starting to think with what’s between your legs? Either way, the Mitch thing is bullshit. You know he wouldn’t have a problem with you getting serious about Maddie. Unless you’re only interested in hitting it, and hey, I can understand that; she’s a fine piece of—”
“Finish that sentence and I’ll shove this bottle up your ass,” Chase warned.
Chad tipped his head back and laughed. “Yeah, so like I expected, it’s not a one-night thing, so I doubt Mitch would have a problem with it.”
“Let me ask you a question. If we had a sister, how would you feel if one of our friends was snooping around her skirt?”
“That’s a bad example.” Chad folded his arms, eyes narrowing on one of the pretty bridesmaids. “Our friends suck.”
Chase snorted.
His brother fell silent again, another oddity for Chad. Several seconds passed. “Bro, all of us are a little fucked up.”
“No shit.”
Chad let out a dry laugh. “What we saw our dad do to our mother was messed up. Father was a dick, dead or alive. But you know what the messed-up thing is? That we’re still letting him screw up our lives for us, and he’s not even around.”
Part of Chase wanted to deny it, but he couldn’t lie to his brothers. Of all people, they knew. “I’m just like him.”
“You’re nothing like him,” Chad said heatedly. “But you make yourself like him. I don’t even know why. It’s like some kind of twisted self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“There’s that Oprah shit again.”
“Shut up, asshole. I’m being serious.” Chad placed his hand on Chase’s shoulder. “Out of all of us, you’re the best one and don’t even try to deny it. All your life, you’ve wanted Maddie. She’s been the one thing that kept your ass grounded and for whatever reason, you keep pushing her away.”
This conversation was starting to go into no-man’s-land. Mainly because it was starting to make sense. “Drop it—”
“I’m not finished. Hear me out, bro. You’re not Father. You would never treat Maddie like he treated Mom. Hell, those women you date? You even treat them better. If anything, they prove you’re not like him.”
“What kind of effed-up logic is that?”
Chad shot him a knowing look. “You’re not leading on a single one of them. You haven’t lied to them. You’re not married and flaunting your whores in front of your wife’s face.”
A sharp pang of fear—of actual fear—hit him in the gut. What if he did do that? He could never forgive himself. “I’m not married. That could be the reason.”
“You’d never do that to Maddie,” his brother said. “You know why?”
“I bet you’re going to tell me.”
Chad took a long swig of his beer, finishing it off. “Because you have something that Father never had—the capacity to love. And you love Maddie too much to do that to her.”
Chase opened his mouth to deny it, but damn if the words weren’t there.
His brother started to back away, brows raised. “You aren’t going to taint her, bro. You aren’t going to screw her up. I think the problem here is that you’re not giving anyone credit, especially yourself.”
…
Madison had seriously considered camping out on the floor of her parents’ cabin, but the whole second-honeymoon thing just grossed her out. Most of the wedding party was paired up with the exception of Sasha, who was Lissa’s friend from Maryland, but it looked like she’d be entertaining Chad for the evening.
That left her great aunt Bertha, and yeah, that was so not happening.
Besides, she told herself as she entered the dark, empty cabin, I’m not a teenager anymore. She wouldn’t run from Chase. It didn’t matter that once again she had held her heart in her hands and he’d taken it, dropped it on the floor, and stomped on it. All she needed to do was make it through tonight and tomorrow, and then for the rest of the weekend, she’d have her own cabin.
She changed quickly, grabbing the shirt Chase had dressed her in last night. A pang hit her in the chest when she remembered how sweet he’d been.