Page 6 of Hot Mess Wedding

Yeah.ThatMicah Stone. The bad boy of country music.

Micah and I grew up together. Sure, it’s not like we hang together anymore, because he’s a rock star and I’m just an inkslinger in a small town. In fact, I haven’t even seen him since he came back to our home town of Saddle Creek and stirred up a mess of trouble a couple of years ago. My point is this: when your oldest friend—a guy who doesn't ever ask for help and has massive trust issues—calls and asks for a favor, you drop everything and hop to.

Well, that’s what I do anyway.

Which is why I’m on my second flight in less than twenty-four hours.

The first was early this morning, from Austin to Tahoe, where Micah is hiding out in some lakeside mansion. I don’t know the details. Something about a scandal, a woman, a Vegas wedding, and an expensive ass ring that’s gone missing.

Whothe fuckbuys a three-million-dollar ring for a woman he just met?

Micah Stone, that’s who.

Bad boy of country music, my ass.

Dumbass of country music is more like it.

The point is, he fucked up. The bride is gone. The ring is missing, lost somewhere in the lavish honeymoon suite that he pre-paid for an entire week upfront. He can’t go back to Vegas to get the ring himself because someone leaked the story to the press and now every photographer in the country is looking for him.

And he doesn’t have anyone in his entourage who can go look for the ring for him, because one of them is likely the asshole who leaked the story.

Which is why that mother fucker called me.

The one guy he knows who doesn’t give a shit about his fame, his money, or his love life.

So right now, I have one goal. Get to Vegas, sneak into the hotel room with the key card Micah entrusted to me, and find the damn ring.

Micah offered me a hundred grand as a “finder’s fee” if I can get the ring back to him. And, yes, I punched him for being such a dumbass.

Friends don’t to do favors for friends and expect a finder’s fee.

But also … since I’m doing him this favor that he can’t trust anyone else with, I can’t let myself get distracted. Certainly not by this gorgeous creature sitting next to me.

Because if there’s one lesson from this mess of crap with Micah, it’s that men like us need to avoid this shit all together. No weddings, no rings, no women who scream WIFE.

Which is why I took one look at this chick and tried to change my seat.

Obviously that didn’t happen. Then she started talking and fuck my life. Her sweet voice is pure sunshine, except when she all but told me off. Then she was sass and spunk, and that attitude went straight to my dick.

All her jabbering must have short circuited my brain as well. Why the fuck else would I have told her she could hold my hand if she needed to?

“I don’t think I’ll need to hold your hand,” she says. Then the plane lurches with a bout of turbulence and her pale, freckled hand grabs onto my thigh.

I slide my hand beneath hers so she can grip my fingers instead of my leg. No reason to make my half-chub situation any worse.

She tries to unthread our fingers. “You don’t have to do this.”

Which should be my chance to let go of her hand. Instead, I say, “I don’t want you passing out on me.”

She rolls her eyes, but then there’s another roll of turbulence and her fingers tighten on mine. “I’m not going to pass out,” she whispers. Then she reaches up and pokes the call button. “Not if I start drinking now.”

I laugh. “Hold up there, sugar baby, you don’t want to go and get yourself all liquored up.”

More to the point, I don’t want her liquored up. A woman like this should have the good sense to steer clear of a man like me.

What’s even the point of all my tattoos if they don’t scare off the prim maidens of the world?

The flight attendant arrives and Cleary orders a ‘margarita on the rocks with extra salt,’ like she’s at a goddamn Mexican restaurant. But the uniformed woman just smiles and nods.

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