Page 79 of For Pleasure Or Worse

“Lethal.” I was being honest. If anything else in my life went wrong I’d likely collapse under the unbearable weight of it all. “I don’t know where my normal thoughts end and my obsessive, intrusive ones begin. Because not everything can be the end of the world, right? I am acutely aware of how much I stress myself out, in comparison to how much stress these things actually put on me, but I’ve yet to find that happy medium.”

“Self-aware king.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What the fuck did you just say?”

Pike’s little smile flatlined and he cleared his throat. “It’s nothing, just a dumb inside joke I have with O.”

“Is this what Colorado is doing to you?” I shook my head. “What happened to the stoic, killer instinct, badass Delta fighter pilot I used to get in firefights with in the desert?”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw him shrug nonchalantly.

“You became a self-aware king?” I tossed back. “Man, what are these women doing to us?”

“Yours convinced you to fuck her in cosplay on camera.”

We continued watching Mia chat the ear off the attendant. Angelo was a few feet behind, waiting his turn with a rapt determination—and a flare of annoyance. Finally, she kicked her heels to the side and looked like she might mount the thing, but at the last second realized how impossible it would be in a mini skirt without putting on a whole different kind of show.

She said a few indecipherable words, pointed to her ass, to the bull, back at the man—who looked just as happy to field her antics—and what I thought was an easy win for me and a step closer to getting back to Tally was stalled when the guy shimmied his own blocky beige cargo shorts off his hips and handed them to her.

“What’s going on over here?” Bella and Camilla appeared with drinks in each hand. They noticed Mia at the receiving end of our attention, right as she pulled a complete stranger's clothes up and under her skirt, then unzippered it and stepped out, handing it to the attendant standing there in his underwear.

“Where’s your sister?” I parried.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Bella quipped. Her short hair was in two tiny buns on the top of her head that I stifled the urge to tug on like a doorknob if someone didn’t tell me where the fuck my fiancée was.

Mia hopped atop the bull in her new outfit and threw a mocking wink down at Angelo as the machine started to sway,bucking her slowly. I wasn’t a betting man, but I’d say my luck dried up the same time Mia went from two hands on the saddle to one in the air like a cowgirl.

“She’s done that one before.” Bella whistled proudly. “That’s my twin!”

Having never wished ill on a woman in my entire life, it was amazing how eagerly and unapologetically I wanted my future sister-in-law to get violently tossed like a rag doll off a mechanical bull. The longer she stayed put, the slimmer Angelo’s chances of winning their little wager. Even Camilla, who was the most uptight of them all, was beaming proudly at her younger sibling as she got thrown side to side in concerning jerky movements.

She was more impressed with Mia dry humping the leather saddle than she was with Natalia’s engagement. That said all it needed to about how far out of a hole I’d need to crawl to get my sister-in-laws to help me with Tally. I stole a drink out of Bella’s hand and swallowed the throat-numbing liquid, immediately regretting it. “What the fuck is that?”

“Vodka water,” Camilla said. “Gets you drunk, keeps you hydrated, and saves all the calories.”

“Sometimes I wonder how you four ended up the way you did, and then I’m reminded you were hardwired to hate yourselves to the point of mixing hard liquor with water to appease your parents. Put some fucking cranberry juice in that cup and live a little bit, doc. It’ll save you and Mia the UTI she’s probably gonna have from grinding all over that dude’s sweaty dick shorts.”

Camilla frowned. “God, say what you really feel.”

“You don’t want me to.”

Mia survived another ten seconds, which felt like ten minutes, before losing her grip and slipping gracefully off onto the foam pads below her. She skipped toward Angelo, dustingher hands off arrogantly, knowing her time would be hard to beat. Interestingly enough, my brother leaned down to her ear to say something that caughtheroff guard instead. Mia froze, eyes narrowing as he stepped around her with a grin on his face.

“Sweaty dick shorts or not, she knows what she’s doing.” Bella smiled. “Switch clothes with a stranger, check. Looks like you boys have some catching up to do.”

The list felt like a rock in my pocket. I pulled it out, looking for an easy win while Ang climbed the bull in the distance. Mia returned to us like the female lead singer of a ska band in her mismatched outfit and wind-tousled hair, heels dangling from her hand.

“That is the most unironic walk of shame I’ve ever seen,” Pike said. “Bravo.”

“It’s called taking one for the team.” She looked back toward Angelo, crossing her arms over her chest. His clock had just started and the bull was already jolting him back and forth aggressively.

My phone rang in my pocket and tore my attention away. Before I could get a word out Wink was already speaking. “We got eyes on Tally.”

“Where?” My eyes darted toward Pike’s and he nodded, understanding we were about to be on the move.

“Poolside bar with O. We’ll step in, but you’re gonna want to get over here, brother.”

Fuck.

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