the windows ramped my headache up a few notches.
My ass started vibrating again. Goddammit.
What if it’s Andie?
I didn’t know if I was ready to talk to her yet, but curiosity drove me to dig my phone out of the back pocket of the jeans I’d fallen asleep in last night.
Fortunately, it was only my older brother, Tanner, one of the members of my family I least minded talking to. My dad had offspring by three different wives, so our family tree was a messy hodgepodge of half and step relations. All told, I had five half-brothers, two half-sisters, one adopted brother, and Tanner—the only littermate I shared both a mother and father with.
“Tell me you’re out of bed,” Tanner said when I answered the phone.
“I’m out of bed.” Technically, that was true. Lying on the floor in front of my couch counted as being out of bed.
“Good. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“Very funny.”
“Ha ha yeah. But seriously…”
“The thing with the photographer? The family photo at the shop followed by brunch at Dad’s? Don’t tell me you forgot.”
I pushed myself upright, wincing as my head throbbed in response to the change of altitude. “Forgetting would require knowing about it in the first place.”
“We talked about it last week.”
“Did we?” I rubbed my forehead, unable to dredge up any recollection of such a conversation. But then I had a habit of tuning out when Tanner started talking about family business. Especially if it involved me being expected to do something.
“You said I’d better come pick you up or you’d forget. There was also an email.”
Groaning like an eighty-year-old man, I pushed myself to my feet. The room tilted a little—or maybe I did—but I managed to stay upright. “I don’t check my email.”
“And a group text.”
“I have the family group text muted.”
“Jesus Christ, Wyatt.”
Moving carefully, I shuffled toward the bathroom. “I get enough texts without being bombarded by Nate’s boring company updates and Heather’s attempts to guilt us into volunteering for one of her whackadoo charities.”
“Well, we’re having a family photo taken this morning for some big PR thing Josie’s putting together, and I’ll be at your place in exactly three minutes to pick you up, so you better make yourself presentable.”
“Cool.” I stared at my black-and-blue face in the bathroom mirror. “Awesome.”
“Oh, great,” Tanner said when I let him into my apartment and he got a look at my face. “This is fucking perfect.”
True to his word, he’d showed up exactly three minutes later. I’d had just enough time to piss and brush my teeth before he’d knocked on my door.
“I’m fine, thanks for asking.” I left him standing in the doorway and went into the kitchen, hoping I still had a Monster Energy in the back of my fridge.
Shutting the front door behind him, he trailed after me. “What happened?”
Tragically, the only thing in my fridge was some leftover coleslaw of indeterminate age and a mostly empty bottle of orange juice. I grabbed the juice and elbowed the fridge shut. “Some tourist at the Palace made a grab for Andie Lockhart.”
Tanner whistled. “Did you kick his ass?”
I chugged the last of the OJ and wiped my mouth, grimacing at the way it interacted with the taste of toothpaste. “Not as much as he deserved, unfortunately.”
“You got your ass kicked, didn’t you?”
“Little bit, yeah.” Looking around the kitchen, I realized Andie had cleaned up my place. The counters were clear, the dishwasher had been run, and the recycling bin was full of empties. Shit. I’d let the place get into a real state recently, and I hadn’t intended for her to see it like that. She’d probably give me an earful about it later—on top of the earful I had coming about the drinking and the fighting.
“I guess I don’t need to ask if you were drunk.” Tanner’s lip curled. “You smell like a distillery.”
People said the two of us looked a lot alike, only he was the respectable, clean-cut version of me. We were like a before-and-after makeover. Which one of us was the “before” and which was the “after” depended on whether you liked good boys or bad boys.
“I need to take a shower.” I shouldered past him and headed for the bathroom. “Gimme five minutes.”
“That’s all you get,” Tanner shouted as I slammed the bathroom door on him. “I’m walking out that door in exactly five minutes, with or without you. I can’t afford to be late. Dad’s already pissed at me.”
“Why’s Dad pissed at