Worlds Collide (Fan Service #6)

3. Wolf

THREE

WOLF

July 31st—The Hamptons

As I climb the stairs behind Theo every muscle in my body is being held together by one thing—awkwardness.

I have no idea why I was invited to his and Mike’s wedding—the third and hopefully fucking last wedding I attend this year—but I’m pretty sure it was an invite by association.

I’ve talked some with the grooms, but not more than a few sentences here and there. I admire Mike as a professional athlete, of course—he’s the only center in the league who’s strong, agile, and skilled enough to hold off Derek for a few precious seconds. And he’s one of Derek’s best friends, so I know he has to be a great person too.

I spent two weeks being pissed at him for no good reason after I found out he kissed CJ on a New Year’s Eve who knows how many years ago, but I’m over that.

I also really respect Theo, since my brother and Derek have both told me about his struggles with anxiety, and it takes balls to willingly plan such a big event when you normally hate being the center of attention.

But other than those things, I don’t know anything about them.

So maybe it’s more like a pity invite?

In any case, they’re about to get two wedding presents from me just for asking me to be here.

The first is a smart, automated food dispenser for their dogs—Derek and Hawk got them some fancy collars that will open doors for them or some shit like that.

The second present is something I’ve been trying not think about since I arranged it with Ed Trent a few weeks ago—and I’ll keep doing my best to not think about it until it’s time to make it happen

I would’ve been more than happy to stay at the ranch this weekend... alone. I might live in a six-bedroom house by myself—and of course I regret the amount of rooms I chose for my brand-new home since it only makes me itch .

I’m hoping that with the season ramping up in a month the feeling will subside, since Derek will be busier as will most of his friends, there won’t be so many get-togethers.

I’m not holding my breath, though. I’m pretty sure it’s my own head that’s crowding me.

The flight over also didn’t help.

Having CJ in the cabin with Luke and Bennett, who we picked up in Vegas, and with Derek and Birdie was stressful enough. I’m still tense even though CJ slept the whole time. I guess being a surgeon or a surgeon-in-training is pretty tiring. But it pissed me off. The whole fucking world knows he has more than enough money and probably a plane of his own, so why did he have to fly with us ?

I shake my head and come back to the present. The one where I’m in some rich family’s beach house next door to Theo’s family’s beach house and I’m following Theo down an endless hallway to what he said is my room for the weekend.

My brother and Derek are staying at the house on the other side of Theo’s and CJ said something about looking for Mike, though according to Theo his room will also be in this house... somewhere. Not that it matters. Not that I care.

“Here it is,” Theo tells me as he opens a door to the right. “I know it’s not ideal, but uh?—”

“Please don’t worry about it,” I beg him. Tomorrow is his wedding day for fuck’s sake. The last thing he should be doing today—at least in my opinion—is worrying about where a B-list guest is sleeping this weekend.

“Yeah, no.” He looks away and bites his lip as I put down my suit bag and duffle on the bench at the foot of the king-sized bed. “It’s just that uhm...” His hesitation puts me on alert, but I remind myself that I have nothing against Theo. He’s a cool guy who I should never snap at.

“What is it?” I prod as gently as I’m capable of. I don’t know if I pull off any kind of gentleness because he winces.

“It’s just that we really had a very hard time with all the rooms for the guests since it’s the middle of the summer, you know? The Hamptons are actually full. It’s insane. So you’re gonna share a room.”

“Okay,” I say slowly, and extend the word. I feel every inch of my body come alive with anticipation. Is he about to tell me...? “With who?” I manage to ask. My throat is closing and my mouth is suddenly dry. I don’t know what I want more, for CJ to be the one?—

“With Carter,” Theo says, crushing all my hopes. No, those weren’t hopes. I was dreading having to share a room with CJ. That would’ve been the worst.

“He’s arriving tomorrow morning since he insisted on staying in the city tonight so Sebas could come early. He wanted to make sure everything is good at the gallery today. But tomorrow he’ll be staying here.” Theo finally looks at me and his throat bobs with a hard swallow. “With you.”

“Okay,” I tell him and nod. But now it’s me looking away. “That’s fine,” I assure him, trying to express my honesty. Because it is fine. I won’t have any problems sleeping next to a dude who’s been drunk every single time I’ve seen him. Though to be fair, I’ve only seen him at big celebrations, so I shouldn’t assume he has a drinking problem. That’s called projecting, apparently.

No, there’s no problem at all, and that’s all Theo needs to know.

He doesn’t know I’m sober—he has no reason to know—so of course it’s logical for me and Carter to sleep in the same room. We’re the only two single guys... Well, CJ is also single.

Fuck, is he single? I don’t even know since I’ve been avoiding him like the plague. Which hasn’t been hard since he’s barely been around since Tristan’s wedding a month ago.

Maybe getting all that money went to his head and now he thinks he’s too good and rich to hang out with Deedee and Hawk.

Just the thought pisses me off beyond anything I’ve felt in a long time. No one’s too good for my brother. He better not?—

Stop!

I mentally yell at myself and take a few deep breaths. Theo’s going to think I’m lying or that I’m insane, and neither of those is something I want, so I turn to look at him and smile as best I can.

“Seriously, Theo, it’s more than fine. You should go downstairs, get back to whatever it is you stepped away from to show me to my room. ”

“Okay.” He lets out a big breath and releases a huge—and seriously kind-looking—smile on his face. “Yes, the rehearsal dinner is in about forty-five minutes. It’s over at my house.”

I nod wordlessly and don’t take a breath until the door closes behind him.

I didn’t know about the rehearsal dinner and all I have packed besides my suit for tomorrow is fucking cargo shorts and vintage T-shirts. Why the fuck didn’t Hawk tell me I would need more dress clothes besides my suit for the wedding?

Fucking hell.

I rub both hands down my face, then sprint to my duffel to see what I can put together. I need a shower after the long flight too, so I need to get moving if I don’t want to be late. Theo is really the best of the bunch as far as I’m concerned, so I do not want to disappoint him and that lights a fire under my ass.

I scrub as fast as possible in the shower and reach the conclusion that I really fucking hate weddings.

Before my brother’s wedding, the last one I went to was my Aunt Lyla’s second wedding more than three years ago. And I liked it that way.

These events are stressful, and if I pay attention to my history, I should be fucking avoiding stress, not flying across the country right toward it.

I spend half the time I have to get ready taming my hair into something presentable—I’m letting it get longer just for funsies. Then I find a pair of boring khakis that were hidden under a pair of my cargo shorts which are the exact same color, so even though I know I’m going to be praying for AC, I put those on with a simple white T-shirt I also find by the grace of God.

Good, now I don’t look like a total asshole and I can spend the night not attracting any attention to myself and just letting everyone around me have a good time.

The rehearsal dinner is ... fine. Again I’m not really sure why I was invited to such an intimate part of the weekend’s events but I’m here, I behave, and I’m even nice—mostly I’m decent but whatever.

There’s only one speech, from Mike’s brother. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, he makes fun of his brother for his love of food—“The odds of you marrying a baker were always high, but you really outdid yourself by finding the most talented, kindest, and most loving baker in the world, bro”—then he welcomes Theo into the McKinnley family. It chokes me up a bit, not gonna lie, but I keep my dignity and my tears inside my body. Unlike Hawk, who has no issues letting everyone see the steady streams of tears running down his face.

Theo’s sister, Iris, goes to stand right after, but their grandmother yanks her back into the seat. “You’re not saying anything outrageous and embarrassing your brother tonight, young lady.” The Crawford matriarch shakes her head disapprovingly and from the laugh that bursts out of Iris, that was exactly her plan.

But other than that, it’s just friends catching up and everyone getting to know Theo and Mike’s family.

I keep quiet for most of it, though I do spend a while talking to George—another one of Derek’s college friends—about music, and actually enjoy it. It’s been clear since I first met him that he’s a huge fan of ours but thankfully he doesn’t act like a crazed groupie, he’s just really interested in the way we write songs and everything that comes with being a musician .

I do love it when he compliments a line of a song that Mom wrote, because hell yeah, I’m proud of every single word she ever put into lyrics. She was amazing at weaving a song and the world knew it—knows it still if the demand for our next album is anything to go by.

Birdie and I released a song late last year that was mostly written by her. The chorus is actually a lullaby she wrote specifically for us when we were babies. She sang it to us all our lives, and when our fans, and the world in general, found out what it was and that we’re planning on releasing more of her songs, they went a bit feral with how bad they want it.

But Birdie and I haven’t been working—like, at all—so it’s a good thing we haven’t given anyone a release date. I don’t know what needs to happen for us to sit down and start writing. At first we thought we’d start when the build of the houses at the ranch was done, and then we said after the wedding, and then we said after the summer.

But I know damn well Birdie’s going to be very distracted the second the pre-season starts in two weeks. Hell, I think he and Deedee are even looking for a condo closer to the Warriors Stadium so Derek doesn’t have such a long drive.

What do I think about that?

Well, if they’re going to want to live closer to the city then what the hell did we buy the ranch for?

And also, isn’t this precisely why we have a driver and bodyguards?

But no one has asked for my opinion, so I keep my mouth shut and let them get on with their lives. It’s not my business and I don’t want them butting into mine, so I stay out of theirs.

Aaaaanyway.

Other than the chill conversation with George, I don’t have any type of meaningful conversation with anyone, I simply spend all that time and every last bit of energy I have making sure I’m not staring at CJ for the whole damn event.

He makes it hard though. Smiling happily, asking Hawk all sorts of questions like he didn’t ghost my brother for a month, and Birdie doesn’t seem to have a problem with CJ’s disappearing act either.

CJ looks put together like always. Seems effortless too, which infuriates me because I feel like a slacker and spent more than half an hour working on looking presentable. He’s wearing a linen shirt that hangs loosely off his arms and torso. The top two buttons are undone and show a tantalizing patch of his chest with just enough chest hair peeking out. His hair is sexily messed up... He looks like he could walk a runway show and like he just got out of bed and threw on whatever clothes he found on the floor at the same time.

I hate how much I want to run my fingers through his hair, how much I long to cup his cheek and taste those insanely kissable lips.

I curse mentally and make myself look away as everyone stands to go.

I’m thankful that no one seems bothered by how quickly I wish them goodnight and escape to my room where I don’t touch myself thinking about CJ’s lips.

Of course not.

“How are you feeling?” Birdie asks me in a whisper the next morning as I’m pouring myself a second cup of coffee.

He’s smart , I think, as I let out a long breath and decide to take a sip before I answer him. My brother knows to wait until after I’ve drunk my second cup if he wants a kind answer out of me, so of course he let me be when I came over to the Crawfords’ house for breakfast. I also know what he’s thinking, why he’s asking, so that makes it easier to tamp down my annoyance at being treated like a wounded, fragile animal.

“I’m fine.” I think I sound pleasant enough.

Three months ago I had one drink, and I had no problem making it only one drink, didn’t I? Well, it’s not like my brother knows this, but I’ve told him I’m fine about a million times since I got sober, and still he won’t stop asking. He doesn’t believe me.

I’m over the whole addiction thing. Totally over it.

But I can’t snap at him for caring. I can’t ever be annoyed at him because he does everything out of the goodness of his precious fucking heart. So I just nod and assure him again.

“Really, Birdie, it’s all good.” I pat his shoulder and walk out to the covered porch where there are a bunch of people having breakfast and talking excitedly about the wedding.

I stare at Deedee for a moment, wishing, truly wishing I could smile as carefree as he is in that moment. I wish I could just be happy about being at a wedding, a celebration of life and love and family.

But life never turns out the way you want it to.

No matter how good a songwriter I am, everyone in the world will always say that it’s all because I’m Shell Storm’s son—so I haven’t written solo in about a decade.

No matter how much I try to ignore my past, the world will always know that when I was seven years old, my mother killed my father when he pushed Birdie against a table and split his skull open then broke my arm in an attempt to teach me a lesson.

And no matter how much I know I’m fine and that alcohol isn’t really a problem for me anymore, all my brother will ever remember is finding me in a hospital room with what felt like ten pounds of screws holding my leg and hand together, about a mile of bandages on my body, and the highest percentage of alcohol in my blood that’s humanly possible.

Birdie will never treat me the way he did before I went and fell down glass stairs, before I went to rehab. I’ll forever be his fragile, blow-and-he’ll-break brother.

So I might as well just get used to it.