Deal Makers (Dealing with Love 3)
Page 2
Hunk of Burning Love Wedding Chapel
Las Vegas, Nevada
Taped to the back is a folded piece of paper. I open it with trembling hands, hoping and praying that I did not do what I think I did last night. I squeeze my eyes shut when I catch a glimpse, willing the words on the paper to change. I open my eyes and look again, but no such luck. I’ve officially become a cliché.
“What in the ever-loving fuck happened last night?!” I shout.
The hulking man groans again from beneath his pillow. I go to rip it off his face, but pause when the sunlight catches the little gold band wrapped around my finger. More specifically, the fourth finger on my left hand. When did that get there? Oh yeah, it must’ve been when I got freaking MARRIED!
I grab the pillow and begin whacking my apparent husba
nd in the face repeatedly.
“Ow! What the fuck?” he screams.
I throw the pillow across the room. “‘What the fuck?!’ What the fuck, is right! This has to be your fault, you stupid asshole!”
“Charlee?” He blinks his eyes rapidly, clearing the sleep fog. “Why in the hell are you in my room? And why are you beating the shit out of me?”
“That’s a great question, Drew! Why the fuck am I in your hotel room?”
The big oaf grins widely as he takes me in. It’s pretty obvious that I’m wearing a walk-of-shame dress. I’m sure my wild hair isn’t helping matters either.
“Did we hook up last night? Damn, I really wish I could remember that.”
The picture frame bounces off his beefy chest when I chuck it at him. “Oh, we did a helluva lot more than that, you idiot!”
He scrubs a hand over his face before picking up the evidence of my living nightmare. It takes a few seconds for it to register, but once he too realizes what we did, his eyes widen and his jaw slackens.
“Holy shit.”
Yeah, holy shit, indeed.
I just married my brother’s best friend.
CHAPTER TWO
3 Months Earlier
Seattle
DREW
I am so fucked.
Like royally, epically fucked. Why, you ask? Two words for you: Bro Code.
Don’t know what Bro Code is? Well, simply put, it’s kind of like the Ten Commandments...but for dudes. It’s a credo that we live by, helping any ordinary guy be the best bro he can be. Containing approximately 150 unspoken rules, this code of conduct can range from the simple, like never drinking the last beer without verbal permission, to the complex, like helping your buddy figure out where a woman stands on the hot-to-crazy matrix before sleeping with her.
Oh, don’t roll your eyes at me on that last bit; I’m not the one who invented it.
Anyway, back to the lesson at hand. Bro Code can be fluid; certain rules are subject to interpretation and modification. That said, there are a handful of laws that are chiseled into that proverbial stone tablet so deeply, that only a special kind of asshole would consider breaking one.
The first is that you never sleep with a bro’s ex.
Rule número dos, if your bro needs a wingman, you be the wingman.
Three, you never chase after another bro’s woman or one that he’s called dibs on, even if you saw her first.