Lucky Baby (Crescent Cove 11)

Stubborn pain in my ass.

When I got into my truck, Butch gazed up at me with adoring eyes. At least one female in my life looked at me as if I was her favorite.

As if I had a purpose besides dispensing orgasms and doing favors for people who didn’t even appreciate them.

And this time, I was the one who took off.

Eighteen

So, it turned out excellent sex with an entirely too sweet man with a massive…thruster turned me into a shrew.

Who knew?

It wasn’t entirely my fault. I refused to accept all responsibility. I had my brother to worry about and my family’s upcoming visit, and most tragically of all, I had been yanked into a wedding party against my will.

Who could blame me for snapping at Lucky? Besides, I sort of was learning to trust the guy. I knew he could take my spewing.

Or maybe not, since he’d bolted. But he was probably overdue.

In any case, even if I’d been wrong to lash out at him, this was still partly Blondie’s fault.

From the moment I’d received the pretty invitation with fancy lettering and rows of pine trees stamped on the bottom, I’d known I was fucked.

I didn’t know how fucked, exactly, until I was in my bedroom trying to shimmy into something called a shaper so that I could fit into the bridesmaid dress I’d been fitted for just last week.

Bridesmaid material? Me? Let’s be real. I was hardly the type to be a wedding guest, never mind in the party. I found ways to skip weddings whenever possible. My friends were dudes. Pre-Crescent Cove, I hadn’t had many girlfriends at all.

Fine, none.

Somehow Luna and I had become friends, I supposed. But I hadn’t expected her to ask me to not only come to her shindig, but to be part of it.

The dress I’d been fitted for was nice enough. It was a long column of deep wine red and flowed down into a slight flare around my calves. The plunging bodice was just a shade away from scandalous, even more so with the current condition of my tits. I’d never been an overly endowed chick, but this shaper was making me look like a porn star-in-training.

And the worst part? As I skimmed a hand down the side of my rebellious breasts, my first thought was that Thor would just love this getup on me—assuming we could have a civil conversation. He would’ve come in handy right about now as I reached back to tug up the dress’s zipper.

I was far more winded than I should’ve been. Jeez, it was winter, and I always tended to put on a few pounds watching my guilty pleasure Christmas movies on cable, but never this early. We hadn’t even reached the holidays yet. This was not a good sign for slipping back into my leathers once the weather turned enough for me to go riding again.

In like half a year or so. Gotta love upstate New York.

I’d managed to yank up my zipper and huff my still partially wet hair out of my face when my phone started bleating like the National Weather Alert system. I’d never heard so many frantic buzzes at one time.

I dug it out from where I’d tossed it in my tangled sheets and scowled at the readout. Now what? Wasn’t I already doing my civic duty by shimmying into this dress?

And there were heels to go with it. Not flats. Oh, no. Just because the bride was a shorty, she wanted the entire bridal party to teeter around on matching stilts. Hadn’t she gotten the memo that I would loom over almost all the women and a good segment of the men?

At least Lucky held up his end of the bargain there. I almost felt small around him.

Why did I keep thinking about him? So what if I’d be seeing him soon? I saw him all the time. He was my contractor. He went in and out of my house more often even than the mice he’d hired an exterminator to shoo out into the cold.

Cute little things. Old house. Stuff happened.

I hadn’t tucked one into my hoodie pocket after one particularly active construction day while they leveled the cement floors. No proper lady would do such a thing.

I snorted. Proper was definitely not the word for me. But I hadn’t kept the little dude, adorable as he was. He was probably outside casing the joint at this very moment, trying to find his way back in.

A quick swipe of my thumb over my phone, and Blondie’s tear-filled bluebell eyes filled my screen. I started to ask her what her damage was when an ear-splitting screech pierced my eardrums.

“Damn, look at those knockers! Go Tish!”