I pause. Why did I think that? I don’t want to marry Amanda. Not yet, at least.
Not yet. Not...what? What am I thinking?
“That’s riiiiiiigggght,” Josh says. “And the Supreme Court declared last year that I can marry anyone I want, too.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me like I’m a dessert buffet. “You could be my hubby!”
Guys have hit on me before. It’s cool. Signals get crossed.
But hold on, here.
Josh is not my type.
If I had a guy type, I mean.
Oh, hell.
Declan’s voice cuts through it all. “Little bro, the more important question is: who the hell are you married to?”
My brother has this way of looking at me that combines disgust, amusement, determination and just enough abuse to make me jump off the bed, nakedness be damned, and tackle him around the waist.
And right into the giant teddy bear.
“Ooooo! Cat pee! Cat pee!” Shannon squeals.
“Cat fight! Cat fight!” Josh shouts, clapping. “My bet’s on my hubby, Andrew!”
“I am not your husband!” I shout, my cheek against Declan’s belt.
“You don’t knooooooow that,” Josh calls back.
“Why is Andrew’s mouth orange?” someone asks.
“I’m Shannon’s husband, you dumbass!” Dec grunts. “Speaking of which—hey! Shannon! Get a spray bottle!” Dec calls out.
“Why? Just wrestle him off you. He’s drunk and in pain. You can take him,” she replies.
Shannon has a hidden dark side.
“I don’t know where to put my hands!” Dec confesses. “His junk is everywhere!”
“That—grunt—is because—grunt—my junk is so big—grunt,” I groan.
“YOU BOYS STOP RIGHT NOW.”
As if this couldn’t get any worse. Just did.
That’s my dad.
We ignore him.
Like hell I’m giving up.
“You are such a little shit,” Declan hisses, as he tries to fight me without actually touching my bare skin.
I am winning.
And then Dad shouts to Shannon, she tosses something at him, and I hear:
“This is remarkably satisfying, Shannon! You’re on to something,” he says with a tone of admiration, as I get a face full of water mist. Declan lets go.
“For the record,” I say, wiping my cheeks, “you let go first. I win.”
“Dad sprayed us like dogs!”
I rush him again, but he stops me with arms of steel.
Mine, however, are titanium. We lock grips and wait, poised.
“Andrew James McCormick, you just blew off a two-hour meeting with the Sultan of Al-Massi. The damage control on this is incalculable. I didn’t build this company just so you could tear it down because you were on a bender in Vegas!” Dad roars, his body tense and immobile, but his voice carefully calculated to intimidate.
That doesn’t work on me, though. It makes me let go of Declan, who casually hands me something from the floor to cover my groin. It’s brown and plush but it makes me respectable.
Ish.
“I’ll fix it,” I snap.
Amanda gives me an odd look, then goes back to fighting her inner tubas.
“No time.” Dad turns to Declan and looks him over. Dec is dressed in a bespoke suit from a tailor I discovered and referred him to. “Your brother, unlike you, looks professional enough for a meeting with the Sultan.”
“Or a Moroccan stripper,” Shannon whispers in a weirdly bitter tone that makes Declan’s eyebrow arch.
Declan’s demeanor changes instantly, his stance uncomfortable. Shannon averts her eyes and the two look like teenagers at a dance in Napoleon Dynamite, trying to figure out how to fit in.
“How,” Josh asks, peering intently at my crotch, “did you turn your love pole into a Wookiee?”
“Love pole?” The entire room says the phrase in unison, and in the exact tone I’m thinking.
I look down. Dec handed me a Chewbacca stuffed toy as my junk cover.
“Maybe he just wants a little Chewie down there,” Rainbow dude notes, as he starts to back out of the room, taking Josh with him. Self-preservation is a strong instinct.
Rainbow dude finally covers himself. I hold one finger up to Dad, like I’m pausing him.
Dad doesn’t handle being paused well.
“Well,” Josh says slowly, giving Rainbow dude, who I realize is one of the chauffeurs (George? Geoff?) a series of nervous looks. “We snuck back in to find Geordi’s pants sometime after three a.m., I think.”
Geordi. That’s right.
“And my dong.” Geordi holds up the item in question. The chocolate is starting to melt in his hand.
“So you didn’t sleep in the room all night? You weren’t, er....” Shannon grimaces, looking at Dec, who gets an aha! expression on his face.
“This wasn’t a foursome?” Dec asks bluntly.
“What a ridiculous question!” Dad shouts, exploding on the spot.
“Oh, no!” Josh squeals, flailing his hands. “No, no, no! I don’t sleep with—” He breaks off the sentence and looks at me, biting his lower lip, eyes filled with the kind of panic usually reserved for contestants on Hell’s Kitchen who move a basil leaf counterclockwise as Gordon Ramsay’s coming over.
“You don’t sleep with...what?” I ask.
“I don’t sleep with women!” He points at Amanda like she’s wearing a scarlet letter on her chest.
A scarlet W.
“And I don’t sleep with gay guys!” Amanda moans back.