Bad Cruz

That was bull, but I wasn’t going to chase her. I had never chased a woman in my life, and I wasn’t about to start with Ms. Sulky Pants.

I took out some clean clothes and trudged into the shower. What kind of water temperature did she shower with? The place looked like a sauna.

When I got out, she was flung over the bed—our bed—FaceTiming with her family. A cheerful smile marred her face—I could tell she was faking it.

There were a million things I wanted to say to her. Somewhere within them was also an apology for being a shithead. But before I could do any of those things, my own cell phone rang. It was Wyatt, my brother.

I picked it up.

“Hey.”

“How’s it going over there?” Wyatt sounded like he was eating something crunchy. “Is the bimbo giving you trouble? You’re sharing a room with her, aren’t you?”

I ground my teeth together. I didn’t like how Wyatt talked about Tennessee, but it wasn’t much different from how anyone else spoke about her.

For years, I’d quietly accepted the verbal assaults because they were not directed at me or my close ones, but the truth of the matter was, Tennessee was a human being, and no human being should be subjected to this kind of treatment. Just because she was an adult didn’t make it right.

I glanced at my roommate from my spot by the vanity, my phone pinned to my ear so she couldn’t hear anything. She was still lying on the bed, looking like a call girl.

Why couldn’t she dress like a normal person?

She’d have attracted so many suiters without all the crap covering her face. I was sure Tennessee thought the prejudice toward her was because of Bear.

Matter of fact, from what I’d heard, Bear was a good kid. He never got into trouble and never found himself on my doctor’s bed with a fracture or broken bone he couldn’t explain.

A lot of water (and scandals) passed under the small-town bridge since she’d had him. Mrs. Kimbrough had a plastic surgery gone wrong, Meghan Harris and John Smith left their spouses for one another, and we were pretty sure our newest resident was under witness protection.

The real reason people looked down on her was because she added gasoline and thick eyeliner to every bad thing people had said about her.

“It’s fine,” I said curtly. “She keeps a low profile.”

About as low as Everest if we’re getting technical here.

“Think you’re going to hit it?” Wyatt popped another crunchy item into his mouth. Nachos? Tacos? His fiancée’s dry p…ersonality?

I dug the heels of my palms into my eye sockets. “Too messy.”

“I was going to say—use two condoms. I don’t want any complications, especially so close to my wedding day. Mom and Dad are uptight as it is.”

“Why do you think?”

I started rummaging through all the crap she’d left on the vanity, which was a lot. Her imprint was all over the room. Her hairspray, stockings, cheap plastic accessories, and gum wrappers.

Messy Nessy indeed.

“They want to make sure it doesn’t end up in a divorce, too,” Wyatt winced.

My older brother was an engineer at a Wilmington-based company. A real catch in Fairhope. Or at least he had been, before he’d married his first wife Valerie.

He’d met Valerie while she waited on him at a titty bar—his words, not mine—and thought it would be a good idea to bring her home and make an honest woman out of her.

Three years, Valerie’s cocaine habit, and an emptied bank account later, Wyatt had been back on the market. This time, he hadn’t wanted stormy and electrifying.

He wanted the dullest version of a woman the world could offer him. Someone who was tame and didn’t need to be constantly watched and entertained and pacified. Sweet, unassuming Trinity Turner was the human equivalent to the color beige.

“I don’t think it will,” I said, putting the mouth of a hairspray bottle to my nose and sniffing. Smelled like an impending accidental fire and a Yankee candle.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Wyatt chuckled. “Anyway, Mom is having a heart attack thinking Messy Nessy is going to seduce you.”