One Last Time (Loveless Brothers 5)

I put my hands over hers and force myself not to laugh at my little sister, because even if she’s pretty drunk and a little bit bratty, I think Ava has the purest heart of anyone I’ve ever met.

“Thank you,” I say. “Let’s get going before I turn into a pumpkin.”Ava runs the last five steps to the brewery, grabs the door, then pulls it open triumphantly and gestures to the big room inside.

“Ta-da!” she shouts, holding both arms up and spinning in a circle. “See? No Seth!”

I have never wanted to muzzle my little sister more than I do right now.

“Okay,” I say, like she’s an insane person, which she kind of is.

“I told you!” she chirps. “It’s totally fine and safe and free and you don’t have to be all —”

She’s cut off by the sound of many voices squealing in unison. We all turn to see a cadre of young women descend on my little sister.

“It’s my girls!” she shouts, and then she’s giggling and hugging at least five of them at once, jumping up and down, a white sash settling over her shoulders as they bear her away.

Georgia, Wyatt, and I look at each other.

“Is that a sorority?” Georgia whispers.

“I think it’s the Borg,” whispers back Wyatt. “Except, you know, blonde?”

“Dork.”

“It seems kind of nice,” I say, still watching the giggling mass that enveloped Ava. “I mean, they’re happy for her, right?”

“That’s how they get you,” Georgia says very, very seriously.

As we’re contemplating beers at the bar, my sister Winona floats over. It takes me precisely one look at her to realize that she’s also had a lot of wine.

“Guess who’s got two thumbs and opened a tab with Mom and Dad’s card?” she asks, grinning and jerking her thumbs at herself.

With that, my normally-very-proper sister spins and drifts away, leaving Wyatt, Georgia and I to look at each other.

“That was an invitation, not just a brag, right?” Wyatt asks, one eyebrow raised.

“It was now,” I tell him, gesturing expansively at the chalkboard beer list over the bar. “Go hog wild. Get you the fanciest beer on tap.”

Beers in hand, we find spots at the end of a long wooden table. A few minutes later, I wave over Lainey when she comes in.

“Harold Radcliffe’s tab,” I tell her. “And you know Wyatt and Georgia, right?”

“Yeah, we met at Vera’s July Fourth shindig,” she says, still standing, shaking hands with the two of them, her shoulder-length locs falling over her shoulders as she leans in. “You’re the guy who thought it was okay to put cream cheese in guacamole.”

Wyatt grins.

“I stand by that,” he says. “It’s delicious. You can’t argue with delicious.”

“It’s an abomination,” says Lainey, though she’s also grinning.

“Two sentences and I’m already under attack,” Wyatt says, taking a sip of his beer and looking at Georgia and me. “You’re seeing this, right? She’s out to get me.”

“This isn’t an attack, this is a conversation,” Lainey says. “Hold on, I need a beer.”

She walks off toward the bar, and Wyatt’s eyes follow her.

Lainey comes back a few minutes later, and we all drink beers while she tells us about her roller derby match, complete with a track diagram on a napkin. Her team — The Beasts of the Blue Ridge — lost, but only by a few points.

“Their track was too slippery,” she says, taking a sip from her half-full beer. “We kept falling down.”

“I’m sure that was it,” Wyatt deadpans, but Lainey just laughs.

From there, we move on to whether rollerblading is still cool, then skateboarding. Wyatt says he can do a couple tricks, but no one believes him, and that leads to Georgia telling us a story about the time that my dad apparently pushed theirs into a pool and nearly drowned him, or so he claims.

After a bit, Wyatt and Georgia get up to grab more beers.

The moment they’re out of earshot, Lainey glances around skeptically, then turns to me.

“Not to question a free beer, but what exactly am I doing here?” she asks.

“Are you not enjoying the after party to my little sister’s rehearsal dinner?” I say, gesturing vaguely at the rest of the brewery. “Is this not your preferred way of spending a Friday night?”

“Ava’s never contacted me before in her life, and suddenly it sounds like if I don’t meet you at a bar someone’s gonna die?”

“She’s drunk,” I say. “She’s been drunk since about five-thirty, I think.”

“Please tell me she doesn’t have a hostage.”

“We’re all hostages to the bride.”

Lainey snorts.

“Sorry about her,” I say. “I don’t even know where she got your — what am I saying, I’m sure she got it from my phone during dinner when I went to pee or something, because Ava doesn’t know what the word boundary means.”

“You have to passcode that thing,” she says.