He threw back another shot of whiskey, luxuriating in the discomfort that came with the drink he’d taken. A rush of blistering hot fire flared to life before burning a path down his esophagus then settling in his empty stomach, leaving a searing heat in its wake.
“Another,” Shane shouted at the bartender who was filling the drink of another patron. The burly, long-haired man shot him a warning look, but he didn’t listen because he didn’t give a fuck about anything. All he cared about was something to numb his shredded heart. “Get me another goddamn drink.”
“No.”
Without turning around, Shane knew that voice—his backstabbing foster brother, Deke Andrews.
“You need to slow down.”
Yet again, Shane didn’t have to look at the person behind the voice. It was his almost brother-in-law, Adam Stanton, the double-crossing bastard.
Hanging his head, Shane refused to acknowledge either of them. Instead, he stared at his snazzy black dress shoes. Before long, he grew bored and had to search for something else to stare at. Since he was looking down, the only other thing to see was the oak hardwood flooring or the legs of the stool he sat on.
That isn’t going to work.
Closing his eyes, Shane tried to forget what he’d seen. He attempted to will away the memories of Katie-Anne wrapped in Landon’s arms as he kissed her in a surprisingly tender display.
“You do know that you’re a jealous jackass,” Adam informed him, “and that you don’t deserve them after all of the shit you said in the chapel.”
God, he knew. Oh, boy, did he know. The things he’d said, the accusations he’d made, they were all inexcusable. Every vile word, every dirty look, they were wrong. Even though he’d been livid, he shouldn’t have responded the way he had. And the pain that seared his soul didn’t give him the right to launch an all-out attack against either of them. But he had. And now he was suffering the consequences—in a bottle of Jack.
Recalling that he’d run out of his whiskey, he hollered, “Where’s my drink?”
“You aren’t getting one,” Deke said coldly as he sat down to Shane’s left. “You don’t need it and, in the morning, you’ll regret it if we allow David to give it to you. So I’m just going to save all of us the trouble.”
On Shane’s other side, Adam took a seat. “Before you go fucking crazy, you need to listen to us.”
Shane snorted. “Why the hell should I? You were the fucking witnesses to the wedding of my best friend and my woman.”
“Yes we were,” Deke concurred, “but they didn’t get married, Shane. We knew that they wouldn’t. Otherwise, we would not have helped them. You know that.”
“What?” Shane asked.
“They couldn’t marry each other,” Adam explained, “because they couldn’t marry you, too.”
“You have to be lying.”
God please let them be lying to me because if they aren’t, I’m quite possibly the biggest douchebag in existence.
“You know we aren’t,” Deke countered as he snatched up the empty glasses on the table and handed them off to the waitress without saying a word to her. “You just don’t want to admit it because you have too damn much pride.”
Shane raised his head. Glaring at his brother, he growled. “Takes one to fucking know one, asshole.”
Deke crossed his arms. “Don’t be childish, Shane. It’s unbecoming. You need to get your ass back down to the chapel and fix this. For some crazy reason, they still want you—even after all you said and did. They want you, and they love you.”
“I don’t get it at all,” Adam muttered. “I would have told you to take a flying leap into the Ninth Circle of Hell. After that little show of yours, you deserve it.”
Rotating his head to the side, Shane ignored the teeter-tottering room, and stared at Adam. “I know I do.”
And he did. The accusation he’d spewed ranged from lies to betrayals to cheating. The infidelity allegations had been outrageous, considering the fact that they weren’t in a committed relationship. Shit, they’d been laughable in a twisted, fucked up kind of way. And Landon had told him so.
Deke scoffed. “Stop being stupid and prideful, Shane. Leave this bar and your fucking pity party behind. Go after them before it’s too late.”
Shane wanted to. He really did. However, he couldn’t. His fears held him paralyzed. And the liquor wasn’t helping him at all. With his dulled senses and swimming head, he didn’t think he could make it there if he tried.
“I can’t,” Shane muttered, feeling his embarrassment seeping into his nearly numb cheeks. “I’d probably break my neck or kill myself if I tried to get down that steep hill right now. I think I had too much to drink.”
“Of course you can. We’ll help you,” Adam declared.
Shane smiled. Or he felt as though he were smiling. With the warm, tingling sensation in his face, he couldn’t be sure. Standing up, he stumbled slightly but, as his brother and Adam said, they were there to help him.
Ushering him out of the bar then out of the building, they helped him down to the chapel at the bottom of the hill. When they got there, the two men left him at the door, murmuring their goodbyes and well wishes.
Inhaling through his clenched teeth, Shane opened the door and made his way inside, tripping more than once as he did. His impaired eyesight made it hard to see where he was going, but he muddled along. And his heavy limbs slowed him down, but he still got to where he wanted—inside the chapel.
Scanning the sanctuary, Shane searched for Katie-Anne and Landon. Much to his shock and dismay, they were apart—far, far apart. On the left side of the flower petal covered aisle, Katie-Anne sat, hunched over with her shoulders shaking. Her hiccupping sobs were appallingly loud in the otherwise silent room. Continuing his search, Shane found Landon on the steps in front of the altar with his head in his hands.
I’m a real bastard
. Clearing his throat, Shane attempted to garner their attention. When neither of them seemed to notice his presence, he mumbled, “I’m sorry.”
Immediately, they both reacted. Landon’s head came up at the same time as Katie-Anne’s swung to the side. Their shocked faces were eerily similar, and their gasps were oddly identical.
Recovering first, Landon surged to his feet and stormed straight for Shane. “You bastard,” he spat as he grabbed Shane by the collar of his dress shirt and shook him gently. “You have a lot of nerve to come back in here and apologize to us.” His face seemed to unexpectedly fall, a hurt expression drifting across his face then disappearing as fast as it came. “How could you believe those things of us? We are not the type of people who would hurt someone we care about. We would never lie or cheat. Yes, we went about this the wrong way, but we never once lied to you about it. If you’d asked me, I would have told you.”
Shane nodded. “I know, Landon. I overreacted.”
Katie-Anne got to her feet unsteadily and wiped away the evidence of her tears. She seemed to erase every ounce of emotion from her face as quickly as she had the moisture. With a stoic, impenetrable mask firmly in place, she strode over to them and swatted Landon’s arm. “Let him go. He isn’t worth it,” she declared.
Without questioning her or commenting, Landon released his death grip on Shane’s shirt and let him fall to the floor. In his intoxicated state, Shane wobbled a bit before catching himself. “I’m not worth it,” he agreed.
“Damn it,” she cursed, rounding on him. She moved into his personal space, going face-to-face and toe-to-toe with him. “Why do you have to be this way?”
Huh? What way?
Cocking his head to the side, Shane frowned. “What way?” he asked, at a complete lost as to what she meant. “What are you talking about?”
She put her hands on her slender hips, unintentionally drawing his attention to the graceful curve which led his gaze down her long, lush legs. Returning his eyes to her hips, he found himself drifting upward and ogling her pert breasts before moving to her gently curved neck and ending at her lovely face. “I’m talking about you being nice and apologetic,” she said. “You’re supposed to be an asshole so I can hate you.”
By the time she stopped speaking, fresh tears were leaking from her eyes and trickling down her colorless face. Wiping at them harshly with her hands, she whirled around and gave him her back. “I have to hate you so I can walk away.”
Glaring at Landon with one of his ‘Dom’ stares, Shane silently demanded that he back the fuck off—which he inevitably did. As soon as Landon moved aside, Shane grabbed Katie-Anne. Swinging her around, he pulled her flush against his body. “Please don’t leave,” he pleaded without shame. “Please don’t walk away. Stay with me.” He peered over at Landon uneasily, meeting his pained blue eyes. “Stay with us.”
Katie-Anne froze, her tears abating in the face of his request. Scrutinizing him with eagle-eyes, she asked, “Why should I?”
Sliding his eyes closed, Shane sighed and gave her the God’s honest truth. “Because I love you, and I want to marry you. Because I want to make babies with you and grow old with you,” he admitted.
There I said it. And it felt pretty damn good.
His chest loosened, a feeling of unanticipated freedom swooping over him and curling around him. Divulging that bit of honesty led him to push the envelope one step further. Snapping his eyes open, Shane peered at his best friend. “And because I love Landon—as much as you do. I want to do those things with him, too.”
Landon sucked in a noisy breath of air then let it go. “You do?”
Unwilling to release Katie-Anne, he nodded. “Yes I do. I’ve always loved you. I just couldn’t stand the thought of losing you if it didn’t work out.”
Landon held Shane’s gaze as he stepped around Katie-Anne’s body, trapping her between the two of them. “What makes you think it will work out now?”
“I don’t know,” Shane answered with a shrug. “I just have a feeling that we can do this. I have no doubt that getting married will be a hard road because we still have things to work out. And I know that I can be a hardass who will piss you both off as often as I make you happy, but I have faith in all of us.”
“I do, too,” Katie-Anne whispered, snuggling into both of their embraces. “We can do this. I know we can.”
Landon obviously hesitated. Averting his eyes, he stood there without speaking. Finally, he nodded his head. “Let’s do this. Let’s get married.”
Present day, mid-December…
Landon reclined lazily on the couch in the Blakemore’s den with everyone in their inner circle of friends, excluding the two that mattered the most to him—Shane and Katie-Anne. Or, at least, he feigned repose.
Right now, he was too on edge to relax. Being so close to Shane was bad enough, but worrying about the missing-in-action Katie-Anne made his evening into a night of fucking perfection. It was quite possibly the best night he’d had in years.
Not.
And, to top it off, he was starving.
“Do you guys have anything to eat?” Landon asked quietly, praying they had something for him to munch on. Otherwise, he would have to call the pizza man for a late-night delivery. And Joe wasn’t a big fan of that. He’d probably make him pay twice as much as normal. Not that he gave a flying fuck tonight.
“Sure,” Jared piped up, keeping the two hosts from responding. He glanced over at his lover, Shannon, who had just walked in the door. His eyes softened appreciably as he asked, “Princess, do you mind grabbing the bag of potato chips from the kitchen?”
Shannon shot Jared a naughty grin. “Why don’t you come and help me? I’m sure they have more than one kind.” She licked her lips seductively. “You know how indecisive I am.”
“Nope,” Jaycee interjected gleefully, grinning from ear-to-ear. “We only have one kind.”
Shannon gave Jaycee a gentle shove on her shoulder. “I want the special kind.”
Comprehension dawned on Landon, and he felt like an idiot. He’d overheard Shannon telling Jaycee and Katie-Anne how she’d told the triplets that fucking was like potato chips. It had become a dirty inside joke that they hammed up all the time. Yet most people had no clue what they were talking about.
“Oh,” Jaycee said with overexaggerated innocence. “Jared, she wants the
special
kind. You know which ones I’m talking about, right?” She winked at Shannon. “I mean the ones that involve you eating and her coming.”
“Jaycee, shut up,” Shannon growled.
Jared, Drew, and Randy groaned simultaneously.
“You did
not,
” Drew snarled, “tell our sister about one of our favorite potato chips.”
Jaycee snorted, but Shannon’s gasp cut her off. “Did you just say ‘one of’? I better be your fucking favorite, asshole!”
Drew stood to his full height which would intimidate most, but not Shannon. She just flashed a come-hither smile to her men then ran. All three brothers took off after her, nearly knocking over a pale Katie-Anne as she entered the room.
“Hey, watch it, guys,” Katie-Anne said, not sounding angry in the least, only sad. She ambled over to Jaycee and hugged her close. “I’m not feeling well, J. I think I’m going to head home.”
Jaycee hugged Katie-Anne back, the two women looking far more emotional than they sounded. “Okay, I understand. We’ll talk tomorrow, right?”
“Um,” Katie-Anne hesitated.