Page 65 of Reckless

I had only seen Madison in two states up until that moment. Irritatingly calm and collected or openly condescending. She never lost her shit. Never showed any weaknesses.

With a lethal expression on her face, she stomped over to me. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong and yet I braced myself for what was to come out of her mouth. Clem probably sensed me tensing, because she intervened before Madison had the chance to say a word.

“Is everything okay?”

Madison closed her eyes, like she couldn’t bear to look at her younger sister and raised a hand in the air. That’s when I took a good look at her. Her hair was a mess, the makeup smudged. Something had happened. Something bad, by the looks of it.

“I just need a minute,” she said and opened her eyes to look at me. “Where is my room?”

I pointed behind me. “That’s the kitchen. When you reach the hallway turn right and pick whichever bedroom you like.”

She nodded and left as fast as she came.

“Your bedroom is there,” Clem said.

That was true. There were four bedrooms on the right side of the house and four on the left. The others took all four bedrooms on the left side, so I chose one on the right. So I was going to share a wing with Madison. Yay for me.

“She can have my bedroom, if that gets me off of her shit list.”

Half an hour later the bartender I had hired for the evening arrived. He positioned himself on the bar in the kitchen. Every room in that villa had a bar area. Even the bedrooms. Scott was around my age and immediately started flirting with everyone. Clem was the first one to cut him off.

When Madison finally returned an hour later, she looked poised and cold as always. She stretched out on a sunbed, one long leg over the other with her phone in her hands, typing again.

Scott approached her and that was his first mistake. She was sending strong do-not-come-near-me vibes. When he asked her if she would like a drink and called hersweetsin the process, the death glare she sent him made me worried I would have to scrub blood from my boss’s floors by the end of our stay. Fortunately for us both, Scott got the hint and focused on the rest of us.

Clem drank the same fruity cocktail I did, sans the vodka. It was my second one and I didn’t usually drink vodka, so I felt my limbs going soft. Leaving the cocktail on the ground beside my sunbed, I told myself I would go easy from that moment on. I didn’t want to get drunk before we even had dinner.

“You are the tamest bachelorettes I had even seen,” Scott teased us when he brought the others their drinks. He made an entire show about pressing a button on some remote control. Seconds later, Beyoncé’s “Naughty Girl” blasted from the speakers that surrounded the pool area.

“We are saving ourselves for the strippers,” Madison shouted over the music. Scott didn’t hear a thing. He was already going to back to the kitchen.

“I told you guys. There will be no strippers tonight,” I repeated myself for a millionth time that day.

Clem had specifically asked me not to hire strippers. She said it felt icky to have a total stranger rub himself on her while she was pregnant. I could see her point.

“Tyler said otherwise,” Madison took out the straw from her Long Island iced tea and took a serious gulp. “I saw him before I came here.”

“He’s probably trying to piss Lucas off,” I said shaking my head. “There is no stripper. And I haven’t talked to your brother since the engagement party, so even if there was, he wouldn’t know.” Madison shrugged and went to sit at the edge of the pool, feet dipped in the water.

When I felt my legs steady again, I lifted my butt of the sunbed and ushered the others to go to our rooms and change for dinner. I gave Scott a one-hour break and soaked myself in the bathtub for most of that time.

I was the last one to go to the table for dinner. Everyone looked flushed, except for Clem, who was the only one not drinking. Madison had another Long Island in her hand. At this rate, she was going to be the first one the get ugly drunk.

For the next few hours we drank and danced and ate cupcakes with little funny looking penises on top. We laughed like crazy while watching Madison eating one with the serious face of a person doing something she believed was idiotic but had to indulge the rest of us.

At some point I heard something that resembled a doorbell. Madison and I walked over to the front door. There were three men waiting at the gate. I pressed a button on the intercom.

“Can I help you?”

“Police. Open up.”

I straightened up a bit and tried to focus on the image I was seeing in front on me. It was dark but they could be in uniforms.

“The strippers?” Madison asked.

“There are no strippers,” I said a little annoyed that no one believed me. “We were probably too loud and someone complained.” Then I pressed the button again. “I’m opening up.”

I unlocked the front door and watched the men approaching us. They looked way to ripped for actual officers. As they came closer I saw wicked smiles on their faces, then three pair of eyes slid over me and Madison.

---