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“Micky?” Bastien made a face at the nickname.
“Yeah, she’s the concierge. What a babe.”
Bastien glared at him but didn’t say anything. Using the cracker to crush the lobster claw, he pried the meat out and dipped it into the butter sauce. Pure decadence. Now it was a bachelor party. “Toss me a beer.”
Zack laughed and under-armed him a Corona. “Max had her show him how to work that coffee machine five times.”
“To be fair,” Max pointed out, “that thing is more complicated than my car.”
“And now we’re all high on espresso because of all the coffees he made practicing.”
“I hope you were respectful,” Bastien grumbled and then shook his head at himself. If he wanted to be treated like an equal instead of a father figure, he had to stop acting like one. Still, it didn’t feel at all right to agree that yeah, Mikelina was a babe. He concentrated on decimating the lobster in front of him while he waited for the beer to settle down from the toss before opening it.
“I asked Micky if she could switch the tickets so we could go to Flow instead. She said we’d have to talk to you because you knew the owner,” Jace said.
Irritation flashed through him. But he didn’t show it. Friends. He wanted them to be friends. So he wasn’t going to force them to go to an intimate blues show when all they really wanted to do was go clubbing. “Let me make a few calls,” he said instead of asking them if they knew what an opportunity they were missing. Christian Dibiasi’s new album would go platinum the first week it was out.
“Awesome. How do you like your steak, bro?” Zack asked.
“Medium rare.” Bro? Well, Bastien supposed it was a start.
While the steak was cooking, he went into his bedroom and closed the drapes that looked out into the pool area. Before he called his friend who owned Flow, he dialed his sister’s number now that Jace was off the phone and on a raft in the pool.
“Hey, squirt.”
“If you’re calling to rub it in, you can go drown yourself in the pool,” Kitty said.
Bastien hadn’t been, but now he felt that as an older brother he needed to. “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the gorgeous sunshine down here in Florida.”
“I hope it rains.”
“It’s Florida. It will. But then it will be sunny again. How’s New York?” he asked innocently.
“It’s a balmy go-fuck-yourself outside.”
He loved his baby sister so much. Peeking out between the curtains, he could see that Jace hadn’t moved from the raft except to light a cigar and accept a glass of whiskey. “Are you sure you want to marry this tool?”
“Bastien,” she cried, drawing his name out four syllables.
“I’m just saying, it’s not too late to call the whole thing off.”
“Look, buster, I’ve had to sit through three—count ’em—three wedding dress fittings. Mom and Jace’s mom almost had a fistfight over flowers.”
“I can’t even picture that.” Both women were scions of society and prided themselves on being unfailingly polite.
“I swear to you. They almost threw down over stargazer lilies versus dahlias.”
“Which do you want?”
Kitty gave a bitter laugh. “Why would that even matter?”
“Hey, Kit-Kat,” he said. “Hang in there. Wedding is in a month. And then you’re stuck with what’s-his-name.” Bastien looked between the drapes again.
Jace’s groomsmen were now cannonballing him, which upset the raft and sent the drink, the hundred-dollar cigar and the groom ass over teakettle into the water.
“I’ve got to go,” Kitty said. “Time to taste wedding cake. It’s the highlight of the day. I think I’m going with chocolate with cannoli filling.”
“Whatever you want, sweetheart.”
