I always pitied the constant stream of girls going in and out of his bed. The last time I said something about it, he shrugged and told me he would never force someone to be with him — that sleeping around was his way of making sure he never turned out like his messed up mom who had almost ruined all our lives with her crazy antics.

“Nat? Where’d you go, sweetie?” Mom pressed her cool hand to my forehead. “Are you okay?”

“Just thinking.” I gave her my brightest smile. “You know, pregnancy brain and all that.”

“Well…” Mom checked her watch. “Will you just do me a favor and talk to the boys about Jaymeson? I know you say not to worry, but I don’t have time to babysit him and neither do you. It’s a special day, and the last thing we want is his next escapade trumping my only daughter getting married.”

Smiling, I patted her hand. “No worries, Mom, the guys will take care of it.”

And I knew they would, in more ways than one. They didn’t do anything halfway. If Jaymeson decided he should seduce anyone, bridesmaids included, Demetri and Alec would probably tie him up in his own room.

“So…” Mom squinted when something clanged from inside the house. “What was that?”

“Uh, probably Alyssa. I should probably go in and see if she needs help, you’re welcome to stay if you want.” Please don’t stay, please don’t stay!

“That’s sweet of you.” Mom rose from her seat. “But I have a lot on my plate today. I’ll just go out through the back gate.”

Score.

“Love you, baby.”

“Love you too!” I said a little too excitedly as I rushed her toward the back gate, hoping to God that the caterers decided to park on the other side of the house.

Mom waved again from her car and then sped off toward downtown Seaside.

I walked around the front of the house. The catering truck wasn’t in front of our house so I looked further down the street. Awesome, it was parked in front of an abandoned beach house. Right, because that didn’t look suspicious.

Alyssa came running out of the house. “Hurry! We have to get everything set up before the rehearsal dinner.”

“Coming!” I laughed and waved over the catering truck. “Why do we need catered food?”

Alyssa smirked. “Because although I’m a brilliant maid of honor, my Betty Crocker skills are sorely lacking, and the last time I tried to make food for seduction, Demetri thought I was playing a joke on him — oh, and he also got violently ill.”

“Right.” I whistled at the truck, trying to gain their attention since clearly they were ignoring my wave. Finally it started toward us.

“They’ll like this, right?” I bit down on my lip.

“They better,” Alyssa grumbled. “Or I’ll murder them.”

Chapter Three

Alec

“Not funny.” Jaymeson folded his arms across his chest. “You guys are joking, right? Like it’s a practical joke and we aren’t really doing this as part of your bachelor party?”

“Not joking.” I slapped him on the back. “Come on, where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Do you even know your history?” Jaymeson argued. “England equals civilized sorts, America equals savages. Seriously, had I lived in the eighteen hundreds I would have been the guy betting on rain drops, not the one exploring the wilderness.”

“Such a brave, brave soul,” Demetri commented. “Now shut up and grab a stick.”

“Why?” Jaymeson kicked the dirt.

“To scare off the bears.”

“You’re shitting me.” Jaymeson swore then picked up a stick. “What the hell am I supposed to do with it?”

I was amazed that Demetri could keep a straight face, he showed Jaymeson in a few movements the way to thrust a stick into the air to ward off bears. Right.

Jaymeson followed his movements. “You’re sure this works?”

“Course.” Demetri snorted. “I medaled in bear strategies in Boy Scouts.”

Wasn’t in Boy Scouts and bear strategies wasn’t anything a person could medal in, nor did that category exist, but I was having too much fun to say anything.

Since we couldn’t technically camp overnight, we had decided to go hiking. Pretty sure Jaymeson was about five minutes away from stomping back to the car and going on strike.

It had been Demetri’s idea to bring Jaymeson along, considering we’d put the poor guy through hell this past summer, what with him not only finding out that his mother was a money-hungry whore, but also Demetri’s real mom.

Seriously, we needed our own reality show.

Except we already did that.

And failed.

I sighed and followed Jaymeson’s crazy stick movements closer to the trailhead.

The first thing I thought when we got to the Saddle Mountain Trail was that it looked a lot easier on the Internet.

“This is…” Demetri nodded. “Totally doable.”

As if God was punishing us or quite possibly laughing in our faces, it began to rain.

“Aw, crap.” Jaymeson threw the stick down. “Well, looks like we have to cancel the hike. Never fear, I’ll just search up a nice little bar we can go to.”

“Put your phone away,” Demetri snapped.

“But—”

“Now!” He threw his own stick to the ground and stomped on it. “We’re men, damn it! Are we going to let a little rain send us running back to the women?”