Seven Groomsmen from Hell Page 4

  Keeping my headphones in throughout the flight did seem to work, at first, keeping Luke and Cody from bothering me, but eventually, I noticed that Luke’s eyes kept dropping down and painting over my body. I wasn’t in anything too revealing, a pair of comfortable jogging pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt, but I still felt like he was undressing me in his mind. My body heated up as I remembered what Mason had told me at the grocery store a few days ago, mixed with Luke’s behavior at the bachelor party. I’d planned to just write-off what Mason had told me, but ever since he’d said it, I had noticed that Luke’s behavior seemed to match what he said. It wasn’t as if it mattered, I wouldn’t give Luke the time of day if he was the king of England, but he was easily the best-looking man that had ever been attracted to me, and that kind of thing elicits results regardless of my true feelings.

  I reached into my bag and pulled out my face mask. It wasn’t an incredibly long flight from Texas to Puerto Rico, but I could probably sleep through the rest of it and not have to deal with Luke’s wandering eyes. I cranked up my music to try and truly pretend as if I wasn’t in an asshole sandwich.

  Before I put on my mask, I opened my phone to review the email that I had sent to my friend Jordan. She was still at my house when I had to leave for the plane, and I felt bad that I was leaving her alone. It worked out in an odd way, because I had free help to watch my house and feed my cat, but given what she was going through, I couldn’t help but feel like I was abandoning her. I wrote her a very detailed email about everything she needed to know to care for the house, and I even agreed to let her go have some initial meetings with a client of mine as an assistant for some money. She’d have to figure out something else a little more permanent if she decided to stay, but she still wasn’t sure what she was going to do.

  Once I had suffered through enough anxiety about Jordan, I decided it was best I actually attempt to take a nap. I tried to stay focused on the music in my ears and drift off to sleep, but at least when I could see Luke and Cody I knew what they were doing, when I was blind to them, I was more unnerved. I was hoping to put them out of my mind, but eventually I made my peace with the fact that wasn’t going to happen. I slyly tapped my smart watch with the pre-programmed motion to pause my music and decided to listen in on what the two of them were talking about.

  “It’s hard to think of you like that,” Cody said. “Whenever we go out now, you’re Mr. ‘Every woman is beautiful. Their flaws are their strength,’ blah, blah, blah.”

  Surely, Cody couldn’t be talking about Luke; that didn’t even sound like him. All women were beautiful? He once called me a ‘Cheeseburger’ to my face!

  “I’m telling you man, I was a little fucking shit. All to impress some chick who couldn’t even spell her own goddamn name. I was all caught up in being the jock with the head of the cheerleading squad girlfriend. I mean some of the stuff I did to her just because she wasn’t some twig barbie doll was absolutely horrible. It’s no wonder she hates me,” Luke said.

  I didn’t know what to think. If he knew that the way he bullied me in high school was so awful, why was he still doing it? He teased me every chance he got.

  “Are you sure it’s cool to talk about her with her sitting right here?” Cody asked.

  “Oh, yeah, she’s out cold. Trust me. She used to hole up in the library back in high school and sometimes she would doze off. We…” Luke let out a deep, authentically sad sounding sigh. “We would draw on her face or take embarrassing pictures of her and she’d never wake up.”

  “Wow. That’s cold,” Cody responded.

  “Yeah, it was,” Luke said and goosebumps rose to my skin and how legitimately upset he sounded. “She didn’t deserve any of that, even back then, but now I see what an amazing and beautiful woman she grew into. I’d probably let her kill me if she wanted to, and I’d go out happy.”

  “Dude, you’ve got it bad,” Cody replied. “I mean, I get it, but Jesus.”

  “Tell me about it,” Luke said.

  Cody let out a sigh. “You like her. Like, for real.”

  Luke scoffed. “What? I’m just hot for her.”

  “Bullshit,” Cody responded. “You used to notice her sleeping in her corner of the library? You and your friends spent a lot of time there?”

  I shivered as Cody questioned Luke. What was he insinuating?

  “I mean… It was the library,” Luke said. “People needed to go there.”

  “All together as a group?” Cody asked.

  “What the fuck is this? When did I start getting interrogated? You’re a nerd. You went to the library.”

  “Yeah, to study. Typically alone,” Cody responded. “How many times did you go before your friends caught you spying on her?”

  I was suddenly obscurely interested in the conversation. Did Luke… like me?

  “Fuck off with your crazy theories. All I want from Khloe is that ass, that’s it,” Luke spat, but it wasn’t entirely convincing. “I’d let her do literally anything to me. I wouldn’t even stop her if she tried to choke me while we were having sex.”

  Cody snickered. “And when do you think that will happen?”

  Luke scoffed, and I could feel him shift in his seat. “In my wildest dreams.”

  Cody murmured an affirmation and then conversation came to a halt. I sat there in total bewilderment for the remainder of the flight. Was Luke a totally different person from the man that I thought he was?

  9

  David

  I let out a hollow whistle as we walked through the lobby of the resort. It looked like a small city inside, with actual street signs pointing down different marble-clad hallways to get to the pool, the gym, the hotel rooms, and the beach, plus a special hall that led down to the ferry that would take us to the actual smaller island the wedding was on. The resort was directly on the water and the beach was only a hop, skip, and a jump away, and that was my number one goal; to check out the fine women that were certain to be enjoying a splash in the sun.

  We checked into our hotel rooms, luxurious suites with two bedrooms, a kitchen, and living room, and I knew that if I could get a few gorgeous ladies back to see the view from the bay window, that I’d have no trouble at all getting into their pants. It had been months since I’d had sex of any kind, and thanks to Luke’s infatuation with Khloe, he’d dragged our influx of shared women to a halt, so on top of ushering Kent through his important day, I had my own personal goal of ending my dry spell with some sexy, Puerto Rican women.

  “This place is gonna be a honey trap,” I said to Christian, my roommate for the trip.

  “No kidding,” Christian responded. “I can’t wait to push a lady up against this window.” He pushed against the glass as if checking to make sure it was durable. “Oh yeah, I’m gonna try and break it.”

  “If we work together, we can do it,” I said with a laugh.

  “Doctor’s orders,” Christian responded and held out a hand for a high-five. I slapped his hand and then we disappeared into our rooms to get comfortable and head out.

  “I’m headed to the beach, man. You coming?” I called out.

  “I’m gonna go meet up with Kent first, but I’m sure we’ll make our way down there,” Christian responded. “I gotta take a shower. I can feel the plane all over me.”

  I rolled my eyes. Christian was the ‘pretty boy’ of the group, so it made sense that he felt the need to bathe as soon as we got checked in. I wasn’t that needy. Probably because I was constantly having to deal with sweat and grime on me as a football player, my threshold for needing to be pristine was much lower. I changed into my swim trunks and a t-shirt for traveling to and from, and made my way out of the room. As I left, my stomach growled with hunger, so I pit-stopped near the resort’s fast food court. I picked up a veggie-burger and munched it as I made my way down to the beach.

  The coastline was breathtaking. Despite the fact that it seemed like kind of a tourist location, the beach wasn’t drenched with people, which was nice. It s
eemed as though the resort owned a private part of the beach, and only resort guests were on it. The crystal clear blue waters gently pushed against the light sand, filling the air with the calming sounds of wave against shore. It was a really beautiful place, I could even see myself getting married there someday. Just as I was thinking about the idea of even settling down, a flock of gorgeous women passed by me, reminding me that I wasn’t ready to hang up my boots just yet. I started after them immediately, laughing when, as it turned out, I noticed I wasn’t the only one hot on their trail.

  “Hey! Get your own!” I looked over my shoulder and Luke, Brett, and Mason were walking up. Luke slapped his hand over my face as he got close enough. “We found these ones first.”

  “You act as if that’s ever been an issue for any of us before,” I responded.

  “True indeed,” Brett replied. He looked around the beach and then started applauding. “Yes sir, Puerto Rico is looking mighty nice.”

  “They’re okay,” Luke said with a lackluster dip to his voice.

  Mason rolled his eyes. “Oh my god, we get it. Khloe’s hot; you want her, but guess what? Unless you magically figure out how to turn into someone else entirely, it probably isn’t going to happen. So pick up your dick and let’s go find some women you actually stand a chance with.”

  Luke looked a touch dejected, but also seemed to be in agreement. We each lifted our shirts off our body and resumed trailing the works of pure art that had passed us by before. They weren’t really trying to get away from us; in fact, all it took was catching up to them to engage them in some conversation. We brought them to the beach tiki bar and bought them some drinks and Mason floated the idea of getting together later on for some ‘group fun.’ They seemed interested, but seemed to have to ditch some of their wet blanket friends first and told us they’d give us a call later on. With the promise of some enjoyable company, the women left, leaving Luke, Brett, Mason, and I to talk and reminisce.

  “I thought you were an idiot,” I told Luke finally. “When you showed up on the field as a rookie, talking about ‘baskets’ and ‘paddles,’ I was certain you’d be traded out within the month.”

  When Luke first started, he played dumb, like he’d never actually played football before. He kept asking all the guys on the team what different things were and acting as if we were teaching him the game from scratch and he was just some kid who’d gotten lucky out of college. Turned out, he was the most sought after quarterback in the college circuit and that the Hellraisers had got lucky with a No. 1 draft pick that they traded with another team from the season prior.

  “Out of everyone though, you were the most willing to help me,” Luke said. “This fucking idiot,” he slapped a hand on Mason’s chest, “tried to get me dropped to third string.”

  “You called the goalpost a ‘basket,’” Mason responded. “I wasn’t about to have you hitting me in face with footballs.”

  “I was on board with third string,” Brett said. “When you asked me what ‘hut’ meant, I was ready to punch you in your goddamn face.”

  After a lot of drinks and laughs, the sun began to set, and by that time Christian had called me to find out where we were to meet up. Christian, Cody, Bram, and Kent met up with us at the tiki bar and we continued drinking into the night.

  “Hey guys,” Kent started after a while. “I really promised myself that I wasn’t going to get all emotional and sentimental, but getting married has a way of doing that to you.”

  I started to poke him and whine. “Awwwww.”

  Kent swatted my hand away. “I’m serious. I’ll admit, I’m scared, but I love Anna and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for us, but I know that I couldn’t have done this without you guys. Having you all here… it really means a lot.”

  “To the groom,” Cody said, holding up his cup.

  “To the groom!” we resounded, and then everyone threw their cups together sloshing drinks around and even spilling some on the table.

  “We’re really the ones who should be thanking you,” Luke said. “Not only is it an honor to be involved in your big day, but spending time on this island is amazing!”

  Bram held up his cup. “To vacations on someone else’s dime!”

  We all tossed our cups together again, laughing as we cheered. “Hey, maybe tomorrow we should all have a huge game of beach football,” Luke proposed. “If the doctor and the accountant can keep up.”

  “Don’t you worry about me keeping up,” Bram said. “You just worry about how you’re going to explain that you lost a football game to an accountant.”

  “Damn! The gauntlet has been thrown down,” I barked. “I wanna be on Bram’s team.”

  Mason patted Kent’s chest. “You in, Mr. Retired-and-Almost-Married?”

  Kent nodded with a bright smile. “I’m down for sure. As long as you guys don’t mind the girls tagging along. Anna told me she wants to get a tan for the wedding, so we were already planning on being on the beach tomorrow, Khloe included.”

  “I’ll fucking drink to that,” Luke said. He held his empty glass in the air and a waitress walked over. She was skimpily dressed, wearing a black mini-skirt and a tankini that showed a lot of cleavage. “Can we get another round over here please?”

  The waitress, a dirty blond with hazel eyes, smiled. “Of course, sir.” She collected the empty glasses and was off a moment later.

  Bram’s eyes followed her closely as she walked away and then he tilted his head. “I’m a fan of the work uniform at this bar. Not to mention the workers.”

  “Yeah, they’re pretty nice, but I’ll say what we all know Luke is thinking,” Cody interjected, “none of ‘em holds a candle to Khloe.”

  Everyone agreed without question. I hadn’t gotten to spend a ton of time with Khloe myself, but I knew she was sexy as hell; the kind of woman I typically went for. Some guys turn their noses up at meat on the bones, but I’d always preferred my women a bit thicker. Not only were they just more attractive to me than a woman that was skin and bone, but in my experience they were way better in bed. Gotta do something to make up for the fact that most guys go for skinny-minis, make sure they want to come back. Khloe had that syrup-bottle frame that made me want to pour her on a stack of pancakes. Large breasts and ass, a stomach with some substance, but still toned, and a nice pair of thick thighs that would feel good in my hands if I were holding her legs up. Just thinking about her got me hard. For a while, we were keeping it to ourselves that Luke wasn’t the only one who had the hots for her, but it seemed like that cat was out of the bag.

  “The real question is, Luke. Could you share?” I asked, knowing he’d carried the flame for her the longest.

  “Are you kidding me? Half the times I’ve jerked off, I’ve imagined watching her get fucked by you guys.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “We shouldn’t talk about it. I’ll pop a boner right now.”

  Everyone laughed, but I held out my hands to quiet the table. “Okay, so then I think we need to set some ground rules.”

  “What do you mean?” Brett asked.

  “Well, the key question,” I continued. “If we do somehow luck into Khloe, do we up the ante on the scorecard?”

  All of us, apart from Kent (except for one time when he was really drunk) had shared women throughout the duration of our friendship. It just worked best for all of us to work together keeping one woman satisfied rather than do it on our own, plus we found we were all freaks and liked to engage in types of sex far outside the norm. After we started to get a little bored with the typical run-and-gun with women, Christian invented ‘The Scorecard.’ It had all the different types of sex we liked to have; public, threesomes/foursomes, bondage, toys, sex with food, in a moving car, and orgies, and had them ranked in points by difficulty. The most point bearing thing on the card was ‘the first’ and it was for whomever could get our woman of choice to sleep with them first. Once we found a woman that we enjoyed, the game started, and it was up to each individual man
to find a way to rack up the most points. The loser bought dinner for everyone at the nicest steakhouse in Austin; at least $2000 worth of food for the whole group. We didn’t whip it out for every woman we shared, only the ones who seemed the most adventurous and exciting.

  Kent let out a loud, exhausted sigh. “I fucking hate the scorecard.”

  “You’re just a goody two-shoes,” Mason spat. “Go ahead, Doc.”

  I nodded. “Thank you.” I flipped Kent off before continuing. “First of all, dinner at Bottie’s isn’t gonna cut it for the winner of this card.” There was a resounding sound of agreement. “Loser takes the entire group on vacation, all expenses paid.”

  “Out of the country!” Mason added.

  I high-fived Mason and everyone laughed. “An international vacation, all-inclusive, courtesy of the loser,” I reiterated.

  “Take ‘the first’ off,” Kent blurted out suddenly.

  “What? Why?” Luke said. “That’s the best one.”

  “Take it off because if you don’t you’re going to all be clamoring to get to her first and you’re going to fuck up my wedding.” Kent slammed his drink down on the table. “Let me make this perfectly clear. Khloe and I have gone to a lot of trouble to make this day perfect for Anna, and you seven aren’t going to come in here being animals and ruin it. Khloe is off limits until we’re wheels down in Texas and I’m off to my honeymoon. I’m not kidding. I won’t talk to any of you again if you mess this up.”

  Luke held up his hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said. “Relax, it’s not like we’re actually going to try it or anything, it’s just harmless fun. I’m sure you fantasized stuff like this about Anna. It’s not like it’s going to happen, but if by chance it does, we have something to work from.”