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Henry glared at Ben and Ben only laughed.
“I hate you,” Henry said. “And I hate you for the following three reasons. Number one—you’ve been here two minutes and the bartender is already flirting with you.”
“I can’t help that I’m prettier than you.”
“Number two.” Henry held up two fingers and feigned shoving them in Ben’s eyes. “I love Claudia. I can’t wait to marry her. But if she ever makes me have a wedding again, I’m going to divorce her. Well, just her family. She can stay.”
“Future mother-in-law driving you batshit?” Ben asked.
“Yes. Very batshit. But the wedding planner’s worse. Wants me to ask my own brother to step down as best man. Something about height symmetry.”
“Next time you get married…don’t.”
Henry tapped his forehead. “Genius, you are.”
“Thank you. I think I get smarter with every breakup.”
“You must be Einstein by now. Are you going to date and dump the bartender this week? She’s giving you the eyes.” Henry looked at the bartender and back at Ben.
“She does have nice eyes,” Ben agreed and then put all thoughts of beautiful bartenders out of his mind. “But no. After Katie, I swore off women for a year. I just need a break.”
“No women for a year? You?” Henry scoffed. “I give it two days.”
“It’s already been two months. And what’s the third reason?” Ben asked.
“The what?”
“The third reason you hate me, you half-drunk asshole.”
“Oh. Because you took my drink away, you not-drunk asshole.”
“Mine,” Ben said and downed the shot. He didn’t drink much, not anymore. Unavoidable adulthood had forced him to do terrible, awful things like drink less, eat better and work out more often. He’d never felt younger, healthier or more energetic since he started acting his age. How depressing. “If it makes you feel any better, man, I hate you, too.”
Henry nodded.
“Yeah, I don’t blame you for that.”
“You do know why Katie dumped me, right?” Ben asked and Henry gave him a guilty look.
“Does it start with a B?”
“She caught me reading Beatriz’s blog.”
“Reading it or, you know, reading it?”
“What do you think? When I told her who she was…” Ben winced at the memory of his final fight with Katie. The relationship would never have worked anyway. Katie wanted marriage and kids and as soon as possible. He needed more time to focus on his career and figure out what he wanted from life before going down that path of no return. And then she’d caught him masturbating to a blog column written by the one woman he’d never gotten over….
“Don’t kill me or anything, dude,” Henry said. “But speaking of people whose names start with B…”
“What?” Ben asked the question slowly, emphasizing every single letter in the word.
“You’re going to need to get back in drinking shape by tomorrow.”
Ben narrowed his eyes at Henry.
“Why?” He drew the “why” out as long as possible to maximize the threatening tone in his voice.
“Because…well, Bea’s coming.”
“What? I thought she was in Spain.”
“She was. But she moved back to the States two months ago. Just in time to come to the wedding.”
“You have got to be shitting me.” Ben’s stomach dropped. Then it jumped back up again at the thought of seeing Beatriz again for the first time since college. Would she look the same? Leggy, brown-haired, dark-eyed and beautiful? Talk the same? Sexy Spanish accent and nine kinds of attitude? Smell the same? Vanilla and strawberry shampoo?
“Ben, she’s Claudia’s foster sister. She’s in the wedding. You both are in the wedding. So, you know, take that.”
Ben took it. He took it hard. Beatriz…He’d loved that girl in college. He could own that now. Back then he’d pretended Beatriz was just another girl he wanted to sleep with, and when he didn’t, he told himself it was no big loss. But here he was, five years later, still thinking about her.
“Is she here yet?” Ben asked.
Henry raised an eyebrow at him and Ben’s stomach dropped once more. It went down and stayed down this time. Ben watched as Henry spun around in his bar stool and pointed across the lobby. Ben followed Henry’s gaze to where it stopped on a woman, tall with long straight black hair and deep copper skin. She had on jeans, a camisole that did nothing to disguise the fullness of her breasts, and a wide grin on her face as she chatted with the man at the registration desk. She was, in fact, the most beautiful woman in the entire world. Ben recognized her immediately.
“She’s here now,” Henry said.
Ben stared at Beatriz across the lobby. She didn’t see him, thank God, so he knew he could stare all he wanted.
“Orange,” Ben said, noting the color of Beatriz’s shirt. “She’s wearing an orange shirt and orange high heels.”
“So?”
“She’s the only woman I’ve ever known who wears orange. She looks like a tropical flower, doesn’t she? God, she looks good in orange.”
“Man, I thought I was the drunk one.”
Ben looked down at the empty shot glass and back up at the bartender. She waited for his order. Five minutes ago she’d been a gorgeous girl he’d had fun flirting with. Now she was only the bartender. Good thing. What he needed right now was a bartender and nothing else. He pointed at the shot glass. She refilled it and started to walk off.
“Wait,” he said to her. She turned around with that same seductive smile. A smile that disappeared after his next three words. “Leave the bottle.”
Chapter Three
Beatriz checked into the hotel at nine that evening, THE MANUAL still burning a hole in her bag. While the man at the desk processed her credit card and paperwork, Beatriz scanned the lobby looking for any suitable candidates to help her with her review. Maybe she’d get lucky and an “Attractive Men Looking For No Strings Attached Sexual Intercourse” conference would be happening at the Hotel Essex this week. She saw a few teenage boys loitering by the fountain. Too young. Three older couples talked in the vestibule. Too couple-y. A pretty girl about her age strode through the lobby pulling a wheeled suitcase behind her. Too female. Most days she wouldn’t have any problem with a few nights in bed with another woman, but the sex position manual was for heterosexual couples. Plus women tended to get clingy. She had no time for clingy.
She heard a shriek from the general elevator area and Beatriz took a steadying breath. Speaking of clingy women…
“Oh, my God!” Claudia rushed toward her and wrapped her up in a bear hug. Beatriz hugged back, knowing that a Claudia-hug, much like quicksand, trapped a person more the harder he or she struggled. Best to simply relax and take it. This, incidentally, was her philosophy of anal sex, as well. “When did you get in?”
“Just now. Checking in. You look amazing.” Beatriz pulled back enough to give Claudia a once-over. She hadn’t seen her foster sister in over a year. She’d expected her to look haggard from wedding planning, but she wore the look of love. “Engaged looks good on you. Where’s Henry?”
“Hiding in the bar,” Claudia said while the bellhop put Beatriz’s bags on the luggage rack. “The wedding planner’s driving him nuts. I’m about ready to hit her myself. Got any connections?”
“I do,” said the bellhop.
Beatriz made a mental note to give the bellhop a good tip.
“How bad is it?” she asked Claudia.
“Long story. It involves her trying to get Henry to rearrange his groomsmen so they line up by height. She thinks the tallest one should be best man. Henry’s brother was not amused.”
“Short men deserve love, too. Is Mike still single?”
Claudia shook her head. “Nope. He’s here with his girlfriend. Why?”
“I need to get laid. It’s work-related.”
Claudia nodded. She knew all about Beatriz’s work.
“I have connections there, too,” said the bellhop. Keaton, his nametag indicated.
“I love this guy,” Beatriz said as they neared the elevators.
“So what’s the job?” Claudia asked as the three of them got on the first elevator.
“I have a book to review by Monday. Sex position manual creatively entitled THE MANUAL. They call it ‘The Joy of Sex for Generation Y!’ complete with exclamation point.”
“What’s Generation Y?”
“Us.”
“Got it. We’ll find someone to do you. Someone generation Y.”
“I like older men. Gen X works, too.”
“A couple of the groomsmen are single,” Claudia said. “Jake’s here.”
“No way. He always wears too much body spray. I’d need to wear a hazmat suit. Hazmat suits are not sexy.”
“Speak for yourself,” Keaton the bellhop muttered.
“Jed?” Claudia suggested.
“We hooked up in college. He’s terrible in bed.”
“Really?” Claudia sounded stunned. “He seems so confident. Cocky even.”
“It’s a cover. Guilt. Momma complex. You have sex and then fifteen minutes later he’s giving you the ‘I don’t think we should do this anymore’ routine. I told him his cock wasn’t worth cutting through the red tape for.”
“You go, girl.” Keaton nodded his approval as the elevator door opened.
The three of them disembarked and headed for room 424.
“Well…there is one other option,” Claudia said as they reached Beatriz’s hotel room.
“Not worry about it since you’re getting married in five days?” Beatriz asked.
“Not that. Getting you laid is much more fun than me getting married.” Claudia helped Keaton with the bags.
“Then what?” Beatriz asked.
Claudia smiled at her. It wasn’t a good smile. It was a “don’t kill me” smile. Immediately Beatriz thought of a plethora of ways to kill Claudia.
“Ben’s here, isn’t he?”
Claudia winced. “Sort of. He’s one of the groomsmen.”
“You told me he wasn’t coming,” Beatriz almost shouted.
“He wasn’t coming because of a work thing. Then he got a promotion. So now he is coming. I mean, he came.”
“So Ben’s here?” Beatriz glared at Claudia.
“Ben’s here.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“Who’s Ben?” Keaton asked, leaning against the luggage rack and smiling.
“My ex-nothing,” Beatriz said.
“She was in love with him in college, but nothing ever came of it. She’s still a little bitter.”
“I’m not bitter. I’m just still mildly disappointed in him. You know, as a human being. Because he never fucked me, and he should have.”
“Yes, he should´ve,” Keaton said.
“Thank you. I owe you money, right?” Beatriz asked.
“I wouldn’t want to impose.” Keaton waggled his eyebrows.
Beatriz handed him a five-dollar bill. He gave Lincoln a quick kiss and headed for the door with the luggage rack.
“You should leave the rack,” Claudia said. “She’s having crazy sex this week with someone she doesn’t know yet. She may need that.”
“If she needs it back, call the front desk,” Keaton said as he pulled the luggage rack out of the room. “Put the wheel brake on first. Voice of experience.”
Alone now in the room with Claudia, Beatriz started to unpack.
