Blame It on the Bachelor (27 page)

Kylie’s tone of voice had been soft, forgiving. Tender, even. She’d almost married this man. And even Dev, biased against the jerk, had to admit that the side of him he could see was tan and muscular and good-looking—if you liked the whole Aryan thing he had going. The douche bag probably highlighted his hair.

Why would Kylie go out with him?

Clearly she was still in love with the bottom-feeder.

Between this catastrophe and seeing Will’s parents, his emotions were chaos. Dev followed blind instinct and habit.

He headed straight for his office and the bottle of Black Label that waited for him inside. He locked the door behind him and found a big plastic cup.

BY THE TIME he stumbled out, Dev was seeing double. Everything was blurry and swam in and out of focus as he made his way to use the facilities.

Whoa…he was able to get his zipper down all right, but the gap in his pants kept moving and he had a helluva time getting his dick out. But then he figured out that there were two of them, so no wonder it had been tough.

Dev looked down at them, very proud. He decided it could only be a good thing for a guy to have two dicks. It was double the urine storage and double the fun to be had with a girl. You also had a backup if anything went wrong with the first one, right?

Now, the only problem with having two of the suckers was that it seemed to be extraordinarily hard to aim. Especially with a trick urinal that kept dancing around. It veered to the right, then it moved to the left. It even bounced up and down.

Dev focused really,
really
hard on it, though, and was happy to say that he beat it. Not a single drop of liquid landed on any of his four shoes. He was a champ! He could take on any video game after this and kick some real ass.

He managed to stow both of his penises into his pants, wash all eighteen—or was it twenty?—of his fingers and peer into the mirror. “Uncle Sam,” he said, pointing at his reflections, “wants you! Nope, you. No, wait. The first one of you.”

For some reason, that was hilarious: Uncle Sam wanting any of him at all. Dev had to tell the guys about this. Oh, yeah, and he had a Swedish chef to kill.

Then he was going to hunt down all the missing waiters and harness them to a sleigh. He’d make them fly him around to various rooftops as he lashed them with a whip and yelled, “Yah! Yah!”

He stumbled out of the men’s room and barged into the kitchen like Clint Eastwood into a Wild West saloon. There was loud music playing. A bunch of people were washing dishes and drinking wine and putting away food in large containers.

“Hi, ebryone!” Dev said.

“Hey, Dev. Where you been?” His brother approached, a dish towel slung over his shoulder.

“Tha’s top secret,” Dev announced, and then burst out laughing.

Aidan took his arm. “Have you been drinking, bro?”

“Only water. I schwear.” Dev laughed again. “C-can’t tell anyone.”

“
Right.
Devvy, old man, I think I should drive you home.”

“
Nope.
Gotta serve dessert first. Where’d it go? Hey, where’s the sheesecake? And the moushe—the mooshe, uh, the pudding shit?”

“We served dessert an hour and a half ago. Then everyone left. You’re wasted, man.”

But Dev had found and focused on the object of his affections. Kylie stood at the long, stainless-steel sink with Pete, their hands plunged up to the elbows in soapy water, washing pots and pans. Adam and Ciara were drying.

Pete said something that made Kylie laugh, and she scooped a handful of bubbles and dropped them on his head. Pete returned the favor with a handful of bubbles to her nose, and Kylie squealed, then sneezed.

Dev swayed on his feet. Kylie had made a date with the Jack-ash. And now she was with Pete, his friend Pete. They looked like they were having
way
too good a time washing dishes. He was scrubbing her pot. She was scrubbing his pan.

Pete could
not
have her. Pete was a very, very nice guy, but Dev was better and she was his. Kylie couldn’t date Pete. No way.

Dev shuffled toward them on his four feet.

Aidan sprinted after him and took his arm, but Dev shook him off.

Ciara saw him coming and her face adopted that expression she used when she was worried. But she didn’t have any reason to worry. This would all be fine. He just had to convince Kylie that he was a better man than Pete.

But Pete was a really, really nice guy. Everyone said so. How was he better than Pete? How could he convince Kylie that she should go out with him, Dev, and not his buddy with all the soap bubbles?

And then the answer came to him. Of course! Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

“Kylie,” he said loudly.

She turned; so did Pete. “Hey, Dev. Where have you been hiding yourself?”

“He’s zall wrong for you,” Dev declared.

“Who is?” she asked. But she looked guilty.

“Pete. And whass-hiss-face. But
I
am a prince among men. An’ you know what else?”

She sighed. “What, Dev?” A peculiar expression on her face, now. But he needed to impart this vital information to her. Then she’d smile and come running. How could she not?

He nodded, secure in this knowledge.

He took a big step forward and spread his hands wide, magnanimously including the rest of his kitchen kingdom. Why shouldn’t they know, too? Everyone would be impressed.

Dev took a deep breath and focused glassily on the woman whom he loved above all others. The woman whom he wished to bear his children. The woman who would soon be his future bride.

“I have two dicks,” he announced proudly.

26

“Nooo,”
MOANED DEV. “I did not say that.”

“Yes, you did.” Ciara held out a glass of water and four ibuprofen tablets. “You said it loud and clear in front of about twelve people, including Mami and Dad.”

“They must be so proud.” Dev swallowed the pills and wished that God would unscrew his head and mash it in a trash compactor to put him out of his misery.

“Mami was horrified—just whirled around and ran out. Dad laughed until he couldn’t move. We were all mortified for you.”

“And what did Pete say?”

Ciara’s face softened. “That Pete. What a sweetie. Without a blink, he said, ‘I know, Devster. And they’re both much bigger than mine.’”

Dev couldn’t help a grin at that one. “He said that?”

“Yes, he did.”

“What a good guy.”

“You have nicer friends than you deserve.”

“Probably.” Dev closed his eyes and pulled the covers over his face. “And Kylie? What did she do?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

“She patted your cheek and said she’d always known you were a real man. Then you offered to
show
both your dicks to her, and she got out of Dodge pretty quick.”

Dev curled into a fetal position under the covers. “Kill me?” he begged Ciara.

“Sorry, bro. You asked.”

“Oh, God. I’ll never drink again.”

“About that, Dev…”

“You don’t have to tell me. I’m done. If I ever slip up again, I’m checking into a rehab place. I kid you not. It’s pretty clear to me that my liver can’t process that shit anymore. I hurt it too bad in my misspent youth.”

“Yes, you did.” Ciara was silent for a while. Then she said, “Look. I’m sorry about Kylie’s date.”

“What date?” Dev flipped the covers off his face and squinted at her.

“You know. The date she made with that Jack guy. That’s what set you off. That’s when you started drinking.”

Jack. How could he have forgotten? The horrible ex-fiancé. The prince of porn. She was going out with him.

“Didn’t I just ask you to kill me?” Dev pulled up the covers again. “Could you get on with that, please?”

“Dev, it’s not like all is lost because of one date.”

“Jack is her friggin’ ex-fiancé, Ciara. If she’s seeing him again, I’m out of the picture. Not that I didn’t seal my fate last night anyway.”

“Dev, once you’re feeling better, why don’t you pick up the phone and call Kylie? You can apologize.”

The thought made him cringe. “I’m not calling her, Ciara. Not after I made such a colossal ass out of myself. Shit—what the hell would I say to her?”

“Tell her the truth, Dev. That you found out she was going to see what’s-his-face again and you got really upset. Then you got drunk.”

“I’m not calling her,” he said through the covers.

“Chicken.”

“There’s only so much humiliation a guy can inflict on himself. I’m done.”

And Dev mashed his face into a pillow, begged the devil to switch heads with him and rocked himself back to sleep on big waves of shame.

KYLIE WONDERED HOW much Dev’s head hurt the next morning. She was half-tempted to pick up the phone and ask him, but the other half of her was so disgusted by his drunken performance that she didn’t care.

She’d never seen him that way, and frankly, she never wanted to see him that way again. He’d looked so handsome and together at the beginning of the night. He’d been so grateful that she’d stepped in and helped him pull off a successful opening night—that speech of his had touched her to the core. He’d also managed to shake her up inside with that direct, determined gaze of his. As if he’d said, from across the room, that he was coming for her. That she was his.

Truth to tell, it had been a thrilling moment from an embarrassing, primal, feminine point of view. The caveman preparing to drag his chosen woman off to his lair; promising to club a tasty varmint for her every day for the rest of her life.

From a slightly more romantic point of view, she’d felt like Cinderella must have when the prince strode toward her with the missing glass slipper.

But in the fairy tale, Prince Charming didn’t disappear with it and consume a gallon of liquor. The prince didn’t then reappear and announce to Cinderella that he had two dicks.

She’d never seen anyone make a bigger ass out of himself. And why? They’d pulled off a smashing success of a grand opening. He had been in the clear. The guests had been happy and prepared to spread the word to all their friends. Bikini was off and running.

So why had Dev felt the need to slink into his office like some weasel and glug down half a bottle of whatever? Celebrate by himself in the dark?

Who knew? But it wasn’t impressive.

Kylie, girl. You really can pick ’em, can’t you? A pill-popping porn addict and a smart-ass, accounting-averse drunk…with two dicks.

She wondered if Dev would call to apologize, and decided that if he did, she wouldn’t answer. She didn’t know what to say to him.

And then there was Jack. She didn’t really want to have dinner with him, but she’d do it for one lowly reason: vanity. He’d seen her at her absolute worst. And from a purely female point of view, that was unacceptable. There were certain inalienable rights a woman had when it came to her ex…and the first one was that she looked like a million bucks should she ever run into him.

But Kylie went to work on Monday dreading Jack’s phone call. She didn’t like the way he’d called her
babe
on Saturday night. She didn’t like the proprietary kiss he’d planted on her before walking away. And she especially didn’t like what got delivered to the office at around 11:00 a.m.

April, the receptionist, called her cubicle to say there was a surprise waiting for her downstairs.

A surprise? That sounded ominous. Was it another embarrassing practical joke from Dev? Probably. She took a sip of lukewarm coffee—the air-conditioning vent above her desk had worked its usual wonders on her hot beverage—and walked to the elevator.