Walk on the Wilder Side by Serena Bell

2

Brody

How does a bad boy end up hosting a book club on his boat?

I’ve asked myself this question several times over the course of this wretched night. We’re on my 30-foot fishing boat, currently anchored in the middle of Sentinel Lake. The sun has not yet dipped behind the mountains. The air is warm, the water still, the birds starting to sing. By most measures, I should be in my happy place.

Yeah. Not so much.

“You’re out of toilet paper!” One of the book-clubbers, a whippet-thin, pale-skinned blond woman named Jennifer, pokes her head into the cockpit as she returns from the head. Jennifer has her mini-poodle-chihuahua mix—Chicklet—in a sporty sling-bag obviously made for that purpose. He has been intermittently yapping and whining, and I feel his pain—he’s zipped up to his ears. “I used the last. Where do you keep the extra? I can swap it in.”

“What do you mean, out of toilet paper?”

“I used it up,” Jennifer says. “Also, the toilet’s clogged.”

I close my eyes. “You’re kidding me. How many squares did you use?”

She shrugs.

“Didn’t you hear me say four squares?”

She crosses her arms. “I thought you were joking.”

I’d given all the book-clubbers a lecture about the perils of too-much TP in a boat head.

Which they had apparently ignored.

My jaw aches from clenching it.

Jennifer tips her head to one side. “Anyway, where’s the extra TP?”

“There’s no extra TP. That should have been enough TP for several book clubs.”

“Seriously?” She raises two perfectly arched eyebrows.

“Seriously. And no one can use the head now. There’s no way I can get that thing unclogged without a snake or a pump.”

Jennifer makes a noise I’d translate as “harumph” and turns to join the other book-clubbers in the bow. I step away from the center console helm, intending to see how much damage she’s done to my head, but before I even reach the cabin door, I hear a sharp ziiiippp, followed by yapping and scrabbling. I turn to see her freeing the doglet for a putter around her feet.

“Watch him,” I say sharply. “I’m not going in the lake after him.”

“Oh, is that service extra?” she snaps back. “Like toilet paper?”

I swallow my urge to engage, and go belowdecks. I take one look at the contents of the head—and oh, fuck, it definitely needs to be pumped. And is that—

Oh, no, she didn’t.

Menstrual pad.

I rub my hand, hard, over my forehead, hoping the pad will vanish, but no such luck. Then, gingerly, I reach in and extract it with two fingers and drop it in the trash.

I wash my hands, frowning at myself in the mirror.

This trip is a total failure. There’s no way to sugarcoat it.

And there’s definitely no way to stave off the inevitable rotten reviews.

How was I supposed to know that I’d need more than two bottles of wine?

Or more than a small bowl of jelly beans and a big bag of Doritos? My clients finished both in thirty minutes and asked me where the refills were. One of them asked if I had any healthy snacks. Another wanted to know if I had sparkling water. I had to choke down the urge to point out the sun reflecting off the lake. Sparkling! Water!

Also, they hate the book, which is by some guy named Nicholas Sparks.

(I would not have chosen a book by a guy whose last name was clearly made up.)

The book choice is not my problem, but I feel like it’s making the situation more dire. As are the mosquitoes—which have been worse in our area in the last few years.

I forgot to bring the nice-smelling bug wipes my brother’s girlfriend bought for this occasion. Also, the sunscreen—Jennifer’s nose is a scary shade of pink, and even with a couple of months of base tan on my white-boy skin, I’m probably hurting too.

I go back to the helm.

The women—my clients—are now talking about me in whispers. Which, unfortunately, I can hear perfectly because of the weird acoustics of the boat on water.

“He was engaged to Zoë Milano, wasn’t he?”

“Mmm-hmm. But he broke it off.”

“I guess that’s not a huge surprise, right? I mean, those tattoos and that leather jacket don’t exactly scream husband material.”

“They scream something. Or maybe screaming is just what any of us would do in bed with him?”

Lots of throaty laughter.

These women on my boat are all mid-thirties to early forties. They’re the yummy-mummy type. If you’d asked me to assess them as they were climbing on board, I’d have said I wouldn’t kick any of them out of bed. But right now? I want this night to end so I can get them off my boat.

I didn’t used to mind being women’s bad boy fantasy. But lately, I do.

Every woman wants to fuck the bad boy, but no woman trusts the bad boy to take care of her and the things that matter. It’s a lesson Zoë knocked into my head.

I fidget with the fishing fly I keep in my pocket. It’s one my dad made when I was a kid. He cut the hook off and let me keep it. Some guys have rabbit’s feet, I have a “woolly bugger,” with most of the feathers worn off.

“He’s the baby’s father, right?”

The fist that never quite leaves my chest clenches a little tighter. That baby they’re talking about is Justin. My Justin.

Not my Justin.

“No,” someone says. “He’s not. That’s what the fight was about.”

I close my eyes, which is one of those dumbass things you do when you really want to close your ears but it’s physically impossible.

“Len Dix is the father.”

The name physically hurts. Like a fishhook through the heart. Barbed.

“Wait. I thought he was the dad.” He, meaning me.

“Zoë told him he was the dad.”

If the news is out, it’s only a matter of time before everyone I know—including all my family members—learns it, too.

I know that means I’m living on borrowed time. I need to tell them before they hear it like this, from strangers at a book club.

I can’t take anymore. I start the engines, throw us into gear, and jam the throttle. There’s a scream, a splash, and, “Chiiiiickleeettt!”

Shiiiiiit.

I guide us to the quickest halt I can and rush to where the women are leaning over the starboard bow, wailing and pointing.

Jennifer is wringing her hands and imploring her friends to go in after her doglet because she can’t swim.

Chicklet, for his part, is treading madly, his bug eyes huge with panic, his little paws scrabbling, his nose barely above water. I whip my t-shirt over my head, shed my shoes—luckily, I am wearing swim trunks and not jeans—and dive.

Moments later, I deposit a shivering and coughing Chicklet over the side and hoist myself back in.

Does Jennifer thank me? No.

She hollers, “You could at least give a girl some warning! Chicklet could have died.”

“If he fell in, he must have been on the gunwale.”

“He wanted to see!”

I close my eyes.

“You started fast on purpose!”

“It’s rude to gossip!” I roar.

I’ve shamed at least a couple of them, if the ducked heads are any indication. But it’s a shallow victory, because Jennifer is pissed.

The reviews I desperately need?

Just got way worse.

And I can’t even bring myself to give a shit.

Except I have to give a shit. All of us—the five Wilder Brothers—are working together to revamp our business, after our rodeo town became a wedding-and-spa destination—overnight. My oldest brother, Gabe, hired a consultant to guide us. The consultant—Lucy, who is now also my brother’s new girlfriend—decided I should expand my charter fishing business to include other activities.

Like book clubs.

I want Wilder Adventures to rebound. I want it to stay in business. I want it to keep feeding my brothers and my mother and my sister Amanda and her husband and three kids and Gabe’s girlfriend Lucy.

I want it to pay my salary so I can give Justin a good life, even if Justin isn’t mine and I have to do it in secret.

So I have to figure out how a bad boy runs a book club. Or whatever it’s going to take to make my part of the Wilder Revamp a success.

The women are murmuring among themselves now. I can tell it’s bad news even before Jennifer approaches me. She’s been appointed spokesperson, obviously.

“We think you should consider giving us all a discount on tonight’s trip. Fifty percent off.”

I grit my teeth, worried that if I speak I’ll say something I’ll regret.

What I finally say is, “That seems fair.”

She’s only slightly appeased. The wrinkles in her forehead don’t smooth out at all. “You’re lucky we aren’t demanding a full refund. The snacks, the wine, poor little Chicklet, a clogged toilet, and no toilet paper?”

I want to fight back—there was plenty of toilet paper!—but I know it’ll only make the review situation worse.

“I’m sorry,” I say, instead, because my mother taught me the importance of a real apology.

I want to beg Jennifer and her cronies not to trash me in the reviews, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Besides, I’m pretty sure it’s a lost cause.

The bad reviews will suck, that’s for sure.

But the worst part isn’t the reviews.

It’s what my brother Gabe will say about them.