Something dark flitted in her eyes. “I’m not that much older than you.” She nudged me toward the dance floor. “Come on. Just one more dance. Pretty please.” She gripped her hands together and batted her eyelashes as she wheedled. “I love this song.”
“Fine.” I didn’t have it in me to disappoint her. I liked her too much. Actually, out of all of Zach’s sisters, she was my favorite. I didn’t dislike Opal and Pearl. They were in their own little world when we were growing up, though. Ruby wasn’t that much older than us. Sometimes she hung around with us when we were playing pool and screwing around. Most of the time she was desperately trying to fit in with her older, more worldly sisters. Occasionally, however, she relaxed and allowed us to entertain her. That’s when I liked Ruby best.
I still didn’t recognize the song when we started dancing. I pulled her into my arms and looked down at her, grinning at her flushed features. She’d been dancing so hard that she’d pulled all of her dark hair back and sweated through the bulk of her makeup. She was still beautiful. That was one thing the Stone family had going for them, ridiculous genetics.
“Look how happy they are,” Ruby mused, breaking me out of my reverie.
“Hmm?” I dragged my attention in the direction she was looking and found Zach and Livvie pressed together on the dance floor. They were in their own little world. “Yeah, it’s disgusting,” I agreed.
She laughed, catching me off guard. “I think they’re kind of cute.”
“Are you jealous that your brother got married first?” I was honestly curious.
Something dark flashed in the depths of her eyes. “Are you jealous that your sister got married first?”
“No.” I vehemently shook my head. “I’m not ready for ‘until death do us part’ yet. I’m still in the ‘what’s your name again’ phase.”
This time Ruby laughed so hard I thought she might be having some sort of fit. “You’re funny,” she said when she’d recovered.
“I’m being serious. I’m just not ready for …that.” I made a face as I motioned toward my sister and the man I considered a brother. “Do you know they’re talking about kids? They’re not going to do it right away or anything, but they’re talking about it.”
Ruby shrugged. “I always knew Zach would make a great father. Well, as long as he got away from our father. I mean, let’s face it, our father was a terrible role model. Your father, however, was a great role model for Zach.”
My father was the king of fathers. I couldn’t disagree with that. “It’s just weird to me. A few months ago, they were fighting about having to be fake married. Now they’re…” I didn’t know how to finish it out.
“Living happily ever after,” Ruby finished for me.
“Yeah.”
“So gross,” she said after a second, making me laugh. “I’m still in the ‘what’s your name again’ phase too. I had to be in it because of my father. He wanted to marry me off as part of a business deal. That was the only way I could protect myself.”
“And now?” I was honestly curious.
“I’m a work in progress.”
“That’s how I consider myself too.”
She rested her head against my shoulder. “Those pink drinks are going to make me regret my life choices in the morning,” she said out of nowhere.
“It’s not just the pink drinks. I did the same with the bourbon.”
“Is it just me, or do the hangovers hurt more now that we’re in our thirties?”
“It’s not just you.”
3
THREE
When I woke the morning after the engagement party—who has an engagement party when they’re already married for crying out loud?—I felt as if I were crawling through pea soup. Everything hurt. My stomach was a ball of repressed rage that wanted to explode. There was something—it was better to not name it—that was going to happen with my bowels at some point. My head pounded like war drums. Yes, I was regretting my life choices.
Then I realized there was a warm spot in the bed next to me.
It took me way longer than it should have to register that. I had a suite at the hotel—the whole family did—which meant I was used to sleeping in a king-sized bed all by myself. The sheets were normally crisp and cool, which was exactly how I liked it.
So why was there a big warm spot to my right?
Slowly, I opened my eyes. I immediately had to shut them because I’d forgotten to close the blinds when returning to my room the previous evening. That was a blur itself. I remembered laughing—really hard actually—but the walk from the Cosmopolitan to the Stone required navigating a skywalk and a really busy stretch of the Strip.
