The Wright Brother Read online

  “I’m taking you with me, bitch,” Heidi said.

  She raised her shot glass to me, and I warily eyed her before raising mine to meet hers.

  After I downed the tequila and sucked on the lime, I finally responded, “You know I have a rule about Wright siblings, right?”

  “I know you’ve been jaded against the lot of them after Landon, yes.”

  “Oh no, you know it’s not just Landon.”

  “Yeah, so they’re all a bag of dicks. Who cares? Let’s go get drunk on their dime and make fun of them.” Heidi seductively placed her hand on my thigh and raised her eyebrows up and down. “I’ll put out.”

  I snorted and smacked her arm. “You’re such a whore.”

  “You love me. I’ll get you a new dress. We’ll have fun.”

  I shrugged. What could it hurt? “Fine. Why not?”

  Two

  Jensen

  “My whore sister is pregnant again, and this time, she wants to keep it,” I said to no one in particular as I expertly knotted the red bow tie at my neck.

  “Yeah, that’s kind of the point of the wedding today, Jensen,” my brother Austin said. His bow tie still hung loose around his neck, and he was already on his third glass of whiskey. At twenty-nine years old, he was already shaping up to be the one who tarnished the Wright name. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up just like our father—a raving alcoholic up until the moment he was buried six feet under.

  “Can’t believe we’re fucking doing this today.”

  “She’s in love, man,” Austin said.

  He raised his glass to me, and I fought the urge to call him a sentimental dick.

  “He’s looking for a paycheck. A paycheck that I’m going to have to provide because there’s no way he’ll be able to take care of our little sister.” I finally got the bow tie straight and turned back to Austin.

  “Have a drink. You’re being too uptight about the whole thing.”

  I glared at him. I had to be uptight about this shit. I was only thirty-two, and I was the one in charge of the business. I was the one who had been left with all the money and responsibilities to take care of my four younger siblings. If that made me uptight, then fuck him.

  But I didn’t say any of that. I just strode across the room and refilled his glass of whiskey. “Have another drink, Austin. You remind me so much of Dad.”

  “Fuck you, Jensen. Can’t you just be happy for Sutton?”

  “Yeah, Jensen,” Morgan said. She stepped into the room in a floor-length red dress with her dark hair pulled up off her face. Her smile was magnetic, as usual.

  Morgan was only twenty-five and the most normal one of my family. We all had our issues, but Morgan gave me the least amount of grief, which made her my favorite.

  “Don’t you start in on this, too,” I told her.

  “Sutton is her own person. She always has been. She does whatever she wants to do, no matter what anyone says,” Morgan said. Taking the drink out of Austin’s hand, she downed a large gulp. “Don’t you remember that time she decided she was a princess superhero? Mom couldn’t get her out of a tutu, cape, and crown for almost a year.”

  I laughed at the memory. Sutton had been a handful. Fuck, she still was a handful. Twenty-one and already getting married.

  “Yeah, I remember. I’d be happier about the whole thing with what’s his face if he wasn’t such a completely incompetent dipshit,” I told her.

  “His name is Maverick,” Austin cut in. “And you can’t fucking talk, man. Your name is Jensen,” he drawled my name out, exaggerating the second syllable. “It’s a fucking weird name, too.”

  “It’s not a weird name. Maverick is a douche name, especially since he goes by Maverick and not Mav or Rick or something.”

  Morgan rolled the big brown eyes she’d inherited from our mother. “Let’s drop it, shall we? Where is Landon anyway?”

  As if on cue, my twenty-seven-year-old younger brother Landon schlepped into the room. His wife, Miranda, followed in his footsteps in the same dress as Morgan. My eyes slid over to Morgan. She returned the look, saying a million things in that one glance.

  “Hey, Landon,” Austin said when he realized neither of us were going to say shit since Miranda was here.

  “Hey,” Landon said, sinking into a seat next to Austin.

  He looked beat.

  Landon was the only one of us who didn’t work for the company. Austin and Morgan both worked for me at Wright Construction, and Sutton would once she graduated—or that had been the plan before she got pregnant. Now, I’d probably have to hire Maverick in her place, so she could take care of that baby.

  Landon had graduated from Stanford—unlike the rest of our family who had attended Texas Tech since the school’s founding in the 1920s—but instead of putting his business degree to good use, he had joined the professional golf circuit. That was when he’d met Miranda. They’d dated for only six months before he proposed. Just like we were doing with Sutton, we’d all sworn that Miranda was pregnant and using him for his money. But when she hadn’t had a baby nine months later, we had all been fucking baffled.

  It was one thing to marry a girl like Miranda for a baby. You had to take care of the kid. That always fucking came first. No matter who the mother was. It was another thing to marry a girl like Miranda because you liked her—or, fuck, loved her.

  “Well, what a happy reunion this is,” Miranda said. She eyed us all like she was trying to figure out how to wiggle more money out of the Wright family. There might as well have been actual dollar signs in her eyes.

  “Miranda,” Austin said. He stood and gave her a quick hug. “Good to see you.”

  “Thanks, Austin,” she said with a giggle.

  Austin, the peacekeeper. That used to be Landon but not anymore. Not since the wicked bitch had sunk her claws into him.

  As a man who had been through a brutal divorce already, I couldn’t figure out why Landon hadn’t handed over the paperwork. Being around Miranda for a solid five minutes was too much for me, and it made Morgan lose her shit. I hated that Landon always looked like someone had kicked his puppy.

  I’d been there. I knew what that was like. I did not want him to have to go through the same thing I had. Or end up with the same consequences.

  “Come on, Morgan,” Miranda trilled. “I’m sure Sutton will need us with the other bridesmaids.”

  “I’m sure. Why don’t you head over there and tell her I’ll be just a minute?” Morgan said, using the slow voice she typically reserved for small children.

  Miranda shot her an evil glare. Or maybe that was her face. I could never tell.

  Then, she grabbed Landon’s arm. “I’ll see you at the ceremony, honey. Kiss?”

  Landon turned his face up to her, and she latched on to his lips like a leech.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” he said automatically.

  When she was gone, we all breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Bless her heart,” Morgan drawled.

  “Y’all,” Landon groaned, “don’t.”

  Morgan started humming the theme song for the Wicked Witch of the West.

  “Are you ever going to give it a break, Morgan?” Landon asked.

  “No, probably not.”

  “We’ve been married for two years now.”

  “I can’t believe you’re staying at a hotel,” I said.

  Landon shrugged and reached for the bottle of whiskey, pouring himself a glass. “Miranda wanted to stay downtown.”

  “And, before we start World War III by bringing up Miranda,” Austin cut in, “I feel like someone should grab Sutton. We’re about to suffer through a couple of hours of pictures with eighteen of her closest friends. Might have some time, just the five of us.”

  “I limited her to nine bridesmaids,” I said.

  “That’s a limit?” Morgan asked with a huff. “I don’t think I even like nine people.”

  “You weren’t in a sorority either,”
I reminded her.

  “I don’t like people. I certainly wouldn’t like to pay for new sisters. Sutton is above and beyond.”

  Austin and Landon laughed, and that sound finally made me relax. It was nice to have all my siblings back in one place. With Sutton in school and Landon living on some beach in Florida where he could golf year-round, it just wasn’t the same. Some people thought the Wright siblings were…odd. They thought we were too close, but we had to be. With both parents gone, we were all each other had.

  “You want to go see if she’s decent?” I asked Morgan.

  She groaned. “This is what I get for being the only other girl.”

  I opened the door for her, and she hiked up her dress and stormed out. I knew she wasn’t happy about having to spend the next twelve-plus hours with seven other girls she didn’t know or like, plus Miranda, but there was nothing I could do about it. Trying to convince Sutton to do anything was like trying to move a mountain. She might be tiny, but she was a firecracker.

  I grabbed the bottle of whiskey out of Landon’s hands before he and Austin could finish it. Leaving the two of them alone with alcohol would guarantee a disaster. Then, I rummaged through my bag and found the group of shot glasses I’d brought with me. I was setting them up right when Sutton returned with Morgan.

  “Hey, y’all!” Sutton said, flouncing into the room with a skip in her step. “Morgan said you needed me for something important.”

  I hefted the bottle of Four Roses Single Barrel whiskey at her. “Your brothers tried to drink the bottle before you got here, but I thought, a toast?”

  She sagged in disappointment. “You know I can’t have that.”

  I grinned devilishly and then grabbed a bottle of apple juice that I’d tucked away, knowing she couldn’t drink. “How about this?”

  “Yes! Make mine a double,” she told me.

  I laughed and poured out the shots. She was definitely part of the family. Addictive personalities ran in the Wright line. I had my fair share of vices, but I was lucky that alcohol wasn’t one of them.

  “Annnd,” Sutton drawled out, “while I have you here, Jensen, I wanted to run one teensy little thing by you.”

  She widened her big blue eyes like she was about to ask me for a million dollars. She’d been giving me that same look for years. Once, it was a blowout sweet sixteen to rival that TV show My Super Sweet 16. Another time, it was for a trip to Europe with all her sorority sisters. I couldn’t imagine what more she could want from me right now. We’d put together her wedding in six weeks, and she was flying first class to Cabo for two weeks. Still, she was upset that I wouldn’t give her the jet.

  “Oh no,” I muttered. “What is it?”

  “Look, I was talking to Maverick last night, and I know that he already signed the prenup, but—”

  My face instantly hardened. “No.”

  “I didn’t even ask anything!”

  “I know what you’re going to ask, and the answer is no.”

  “But it’s silly, Jensen. Really! He’s the love of my life. We’re going to spend eternity together. A prenup is ridiculous. It’s a bad way to enter a marriage. If you’re thinking about how it’s going to end before it even starts, then what does that say about a person?”

  Morgan, Austin, and Landon had all gone still behind her. They could probably read the fury on my face. I didn’t want to blow up on her on her wedding day, but I was dangerously close to doing so.

  “You are worth a small fortune, Sutton. And I don’t give a fuck who you’re marrying. You get a prenup to protect yourself in case something happens. Thinking about the future is a way to ensure that you are not getting scammed. No matter how much somebody loves you.”

  “But, Jensen—” Sutton said, trying to reason with me.

  “Sutton,” Austin said, cutting in, “do you really want to do this right now? I mean, Jensen and Landon both had a prenup. No one marries a Wright without it.”

  “That’s right,” I said, silently thanking Austin for his backup.

  “Plus, you’re only twenty-one,” Morgan said. “Who knows what could happen?”

  “Oh, wow. Thanks, Morgan,” Sutton grumbled.

  “I didn’t mean that Maverick isn’t ‘the one,’” she said with air quotes. “I just mean, Jensen didn’t think he’d divorce Vanessa under any circumstances and look what happened.”

  I gritted my teeth at the mention of my ex-wife. Vanessa Hendricks wasn’t a name that was usually brought up in polite conversation. But she certainly was a cautionary tale as to why a prenup was necessary.

  “If Maverick really wants to throw out the prenup, I’d be happy to talk to him about it,” I said to Sutton with raised eyebrows.

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not that stupid. You’d scare him half to death.”

  “Well, if he’s trying to take you for your money, then he’d deserve it.”

  “Okay, fine. I get it. I just thought I’d ask. Maverick and I had a long talk about it.”

  “I bet,” Landon muttered under his breath.

  “Anyway, shots!” Sutton cried.

  I passed out shots of whiskey to Austin, Landon, and Morgan and then handed Sutton the shot of apple juice.

  I raised my glass high. “To Sutton, on the happiest day of her life and to many more amazing years to come.”

  We all tipped back our glasses. The whiskey burned all the way down my throat, but I just grinned at my siblings.

  The world felt right when we were all together. No matter what challenges we might face, at least we had each other.

  Three

  Emery

  “Heidi, what are you doing to my hair?” I asked.

  Heidi laughed hysterically behind me. “I’m making you look presentable, Em. You just wait. It will come together at the end.”

  She threaded a few more strands of my hair into this crazy braid.

  If Heidi and I hadn’t been best friends since kindergarten and if I hadn’t known all her deep, dark secrets, I was sure she would have dumped me for the cool crowd. Despite her obsession with geometry, her all black attire, and her pool-slinging skills, she had been a cheerleader and obsessed with popularity.

  My sister, Kimber, had been the girlie girl—prom queen, homecoming queen, voted most attractive. The whole shebang.

  But not me. Though I never had a problem with finding a date, I had not been the typical teenager. I had played varsity soccer my freshman year, I’d skateboarded circles around the dude-bros in town, and I had made up my mind that my dream job was to become a vampire slayer.

  At the time, Landon Wright had tested my friendship with Heidi. Why would the star quarterback have any interest in the loner tomboy? I hadn’t understood it any more than Heidi.

  I closed my eyes and pushed the thoughts aside. I was only thinking about Landon because I knew he would be at the wedding this afternoon. He hadn’t crossed my mind in a long time, and I hadn’t seen him in longer.

  “I swear, it’s going to be cute,” Heidi assured me.

  “I know. I trust you,” I said. “I cannot believe that you talked me into going to this wedding with you. Is it going to be like a high school reunion? I don’t know if I’m prepared for that.”

  “It’s not a high school reunion,” Heidi said. “I got invited because I work for the Wrights and, like, half of the company was invited. It’s going to be a big wedding. I doubt you’ll even run into him.”

  “I am not worried about running into Landon. It’s been almost ten years since we broke up,” I told her.

  “Didn’t he get married anyway?” Heidi asked.

  She yanked on my hair, and I winced.

  “I don’t follow him. You would know more than I would.” I glared at Heidi in the mirror. “Stop giving me that look. Do you know how many guys I’ve dated since Landon? No, you don’t. Because I can’t even remember, but it’s a lot. And I’m currently sitting right here because of guy trouble.”

  “I just know you and Landon,”
Heidi said dreamily. “Perfect high school couple. That was, like, the only thing that you beat Kimber in. You and Landon got Best Couple in the yearbook.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Please stop reminiscing about high school, or I’ll vomit.”

  “You were cute,” Heidi added.

  “If you think for a minute that something is going to happen with him at this wedding, you’re out of your mind. Not only is he married, but he’ll also be there with his wife. And, as of today, I’m officially swearing off men.”

  Heidi laughed. “Yeah, right, Em,” she said. “You are boy crazy and always have been. Even when you were our little skater girl.”

  “Look, Mitch fooled me into thinking that he loved me. He was, like, fifteen years older than me and a total player. I’m almost certain he was sleeping with an undergrad,” I told her. “I mean…how bad is my judgment skewed that I ended up with someone like that? I think I just need to be single for a while.”

  “All right,” Heidi said with a shake of her head. Her blonde hair swayed back and forth down against the middle of her back in an amazing wave that she’d somehow created. “More for me tonight.”

  “All for you.”

  Heidi stepped back and observed her creation. She messed with my bangs and then added one more curl into the end. “There. What do you think?”

  I looked in the mirror and hardly recognized myself. While I wasn’t still a tomboy, when I felt down, I’d tend to fall back on old habits, as in no makeup and messy bun galore. But Heidi had practically digitally remastered my face. My makeup was flawless, and the shimmer shadow brought out the green in my eyes. My dark hair was braided into a crown atop my head that wove into a low side ponytail with curls.

  “You have a gift,” I told her. “You’ve made me look human again.”

  “Go put on your dress,” Heidi said. “I can’t wait to see it all together!”

  “All right. All right. I’m going.”

  I shimmied into the dress that Heidi had picked out for me from a boutique downtown.

  I stepped out of the closet. Heidi whistled.

  “You’re ridiculous.”