“Hold up,” I say, throwing my hands up between them, though despite their fighting words, there’s not an ounce of tension between them. They’re fucking around, but I wouldn’t put it past them to start throwing punches just for the sake of seeing who has the biggest set of balls. “If we’re doing this, we’re doing it Jell-O wrestling style, and there better be baby oil involved.”
Logan’s face scrunches in disgust. “Awww, come on, Bri,” he groans as we all pile onto the bus that was meant to take the wedding guests back to the five-star hotel Orlando booked out. “You made it weird.”
I give him a guilty smirk, unable to stop the laughter rumbling through my chest. “My bad.”
Jax pulls out a wad of cash and has a private word with the bus driver, and within the space of twenty minutes, the bus is pulling to a stop outside the twins’ mega-mansion.
“What the fuck is this place?” Damien mutters, staring up at it with a strange, impressed kind of horror, just as I had when I first saw the place. “Who lives like this?”
“That’d be us,” Logan says, clapping him on the back as he jumps down from the bottom step of the bus. “Now, we can either stand here and look at the house, or we can go and get fucked up. Your choice.”
Damien nods. “Enough said.”
Ilaria takes off to raid one of the many house bars and meets us by the fire pit, her arms overflowing with bottles. She drops them to the table and starts mixing drinks, assuming she’s some kind of cocktail goddess, and I’m not surprised to find Damien right by her side.
There’s no doubt in my mind that by some point tonight, he’ll have her legs wrapped around her own freaking head, and when that time comes, I’ll be more than ready to hurl into the pool again.
Ilaria starts handing out drinks and, judging by the smirk across her face, I know this shit is going to be potent. Upon taking my first sip, I realize just how right I am. The mystery mix hits the back of my throat and burns the whole way down, adding to the buzz I’ve already got from the tequila.
It takes two seconds for Tanner and Riley to get back into their usual bullshit and start knocking each other around while Jax disappears inside. Chanel and Logan start bickering, which I don’t doubt will eventually turn into a full blown argument, and Hudson and Addison remain huddled together.
It won’t be long until Addison realizes just how lucky she is to have him, though I don’t think she’s there yet. She’s still working through a lot of shit, and it could be years until she’s ready, but there’s no mistaking the way she searches him out in a room and lights up every time he’s near.
With Damien openly hitting on Ilaria, I kick off my heels and move across to the pool before hitching up the bottom of my gown and dangling my feet into the water, narrowly avoiding getting clobbered by Riley and Tanner. Arizona joins me and we talk shit while sipping on our cocktails that I can’t figure out if I actually like or not.
We talk for ten minutes before a loud gasp is heard by the firepit, quickly followed by a booming laugh, and I spin around to find Jax, standing in nothing but a cheeky man-thong, his body covered from head to toe in what I can only assume is Vaseline.
Arizona’s eyes bug out of her head, but she can’t resist the urge to feast her eyes all over his body as the rest of us laugh, my tipsy state almost sending me back into the cold water of the pool.
“What the fuck, man?” Logan says, shaking his head, almost embarrassed by his twin brother, and I’m sure if he weren’t so used to Jax’s shit by now, he’d probably be dragging his ass back inside.
“So,” Jax starts, knowing damn well we all need a thorough explanation, not even an ounce of shame on his handsome face. “I was sitting there, trying to take a dump when I got to thinking; how fast can I get from one end of the house to the other?”
Tanner shakes his head, coming up behind me, curling his arms beneath mine and hauling me up off the edge of the pool before dragging me back to the fire pit. “Yeah, bro, we’re going to need more than that,” he says. “How the fuck did you make the connection between trying to work out how fast you can go to slapping on a pair of your mom’s panties and slathering yourself in lube?”
“Alright,” he says, his eyes sparkling with silent laughter. “Hear me out …”
“Shit,” Arizona says, coming to join us. “This is going to be good.”