Conveniently, he’s also one hell of a bartender.
I clip along on high-heeled booties toward the gleaming bar that extends the length of the broad open space, headed for where Kevin is standing. I step up and have to perch on the footrail to reach him for a quick hug and a peck on his bristly cheek. We pull apart and he looks over his shoulder. “Aren’t you missing someone?”
Flashes of the men I left in Nashville burn behind my eyeballs. “Hell no,” I tell him. “These days I need a man like I need a burr in my ass.”
He barks out a laugh, raising two beefy hands, and without another word, he gets to work making me a cocktail. It’s easy to like this mountain of a man.
Truthfully, I’ve been too busy to worry about things like dating. I’ve gone so far as to download a dating app onto my phone, but not far enough to register and come up with a password. I’ve got a music career to reinvent after abject humiliation and unanimous public outcry. Do you realize how impossible it is to become a famous country starlet one time, let alone twice? I’d have better odds inhabiting Mars on some billionaire’s dick rocket.
I don’t say any of this to my bartender, though. I can’t. Everyone here is solidly Team Boseman and they haven’t even tried to be subtle about it. Especially after he came to my rescue with the whole rental thing. Truthfully, I get it. The man’s so fucking perfect he’s ruining my edgy comeback vibes and making me all soft and mushy in the middle. Thank Jesus for Drake and his complete lack of self-awareness or I’d be stuck writing sappy ballads (as it stands, this morning’s debacle proved just the thing).
Reading my mind like the stellar bartender he is, Kevin passes me a blackberry gin fizz and motions toward the private back room. “I’m ducking out in a few, but we’re locking the doors and Beth will be on the bar the rest of the night if you ladies need anything else.” Everyone in Le Croix, Michigan, has always treated Cam and Shelby well, rarely making a thing out of their celebrity. But the increase of attention around us in the last few years means we’re extra careful with our privacy, especially leading up to the wedding. Thus the extra exclusive bachelorette party.
“Thanks, Kev.”
Half a moment later, I’m being lovingly strangled and smothered by my two closest female friends in the entire world: Shelby Springfield and Maren Laughlin. Shelby and I met outside a therapist’s office more than five years ago. She was nursing a Hollywood pop princess meltdown and I was grieving the abrupt cancellation of my country music career.
The therapist didn’t last, but our friendship did. Maren grew up with Shelby and is the seductive mythological mix of park ranger meets beauty queen. Her fame is limited to a since-retired YouTube channel where she paid her way through college with endorsements earned off footage from her guided musky fishing tours. Honestly, if we went off recognition, Maren might have Shelb and me beat. Not a day went by back when I lived near them that some frat boy or another wasn’t stopping Mare and asking for her autograph. We all want to think those boys were learning about jigging techniques, but the honest truth is Mare’s a babe and fishing was her very memorable brand of “hot girl shit.”
I choke on Shelby’s shoulder-length blond waves and step back, dislodging myself from their arms. Kevin’s wife, Beth, interrupts our squealing, carrying in a tray of tapas. She looks to me, points to the dishes, and says, “Designated fryer,” before turning to Shelby, pointing to the pitcher of iced lemonade and assuring her it’s nonalcoholic. We shuffle to the table to help her and then we all settle in. My understanding was that Cameron was having a whole backyard barbecue at his and Shelby’s place tonight, but because the press can be dicks in their portrayal of women, Shelby decided to keep her “bachelorette party” to the four of us.
She spends the next hour filling us in on wedding details and last-minute Lyle drama (her idiot showrunner/ ex-boyfriend wanted HomeMade cameras there to capture the ceremony; Cam told him to fuck off), and Ada Mae drama (Shelby’s attention-seeking mom told some gossip rag that she hadn’t been invited, when obviously she had, but declined the invite on her own), and honeymoon details (of which Shelby had none because Cameron used to work as a documentarian with National Geographic and has planned their month-long getaway in secret).
I knew I liked that man.
Beth makes me another gin fizz and it’s even better than her husband’s. And by better, I mean stronger. All this talk about how amazing Cameron is has me sucking my drink through a straw, which everyone knows is the quickest, most polite way to get sauced. It’s not that I’m jealous. At least not in a negative kind of way. I’m so fucking happy for my friends, I could burst. No one on earth deserves more than those two. I just wish my own love life wasn’t such a disaster. God, was it only this morning my ex-fiancé was at my door all eager and buffed up and ready for a weekend as my wedding date?
A pained groan escapes the back of my throat at the memory. Shelby arches a recently shaped brow in my direction. “Something to share with the class, Ms. Jones?”
I make a face. “Ugh. I really don’t want to put the bad vibes out into the universe or whatever, but Drake showed up at my front door this morning, all packed and ready to be my date for this weekend.” Shelby splutters and Maren tsks in sympathy.
“Wait. Drake as in Drake Colter?” Beth asks, her hand frozen midway to dipping a still-warm-from-the-fryer tortilla chip into a bowl of freshly made guacamole. “As in your ex?”
“That’s the one.” I drop my forehead to the table with a soft thud. “The self-absorbed jackhole assumed I wouldn’t have a date and figured now was as good a time as any to reunite. Even booked two first-class tickets. Clearly for show, because it’s not like I wouldn’t have already gotten my own ticket.”
“Unreal,” Maren says softly. “The idiot.”
“Total idiot.”
“He just … showed up with tickets? That’s bold, even for him.”
I grimaced. “He may have spent the morning texting me and posting shit on social media, but I’ve been busy pretending he doesn’t exist.”
Maren pulls out her phone and after a second, flips it around to where Drake’s post about going to a wedding this weekend is still up. “Guess he doesn’t actually have to go as long as he says he went on his Instagram. Kind of a ‘tree falling in the forest’ sitch,” Maren points out.
“But you asked Craig to be your date, right?” Shelby asks, butting in.
I blink at her, bemused and, let’s face it, a little sluggish from the gin fizz. “I did not.”
“Wait, why? You mean he’s really not here?”