Blame it on the Tequila by Fiona Cole (the reading strategies book txt) 📕

honest—you didn’t finish before you followed me.”

“I assure you, I’m not a minute-man.”

“Okay,” I said, full of sarcasm.

“I’m fucking not.”

“Okay, okay. I believe you. No need to get your panties in a twist.” I barely held in my peals of laughter at his indignation. “Minute-man,” I added, unable to help myself.

“Fucking Christ, Nova,” he groaned but also laughed. “Please don’t call me that in front of the guys.”

I laughed harder, and he joined me.

“You’d never live it down.”

“I sure wouldn’t.”

When we both settled, my eyes weighed heavy, and I was finally ready to succumb to sleep.

My fingers still linked with his, and I stroked my thumb along the soft skin between his thumb and forefinger.

“Thanks for following me, Parker.” I didn’t want to think how this night would have ended if he hadn’t.

“Always,” he promised.

Seven

Nova

“Who’s Rock Star?” Rae asked just before sipping from her champagne glass.

I almost missed my chair from the jolt of shock as I sat back down. Readjusting myself, I struggled to school my features into something other than the wide-eyed panic I could feel it stretched into.

She waited patiently, a docile smile on her pouty lips, looking exactly like the polite, politician’s daughter I knew her to one-hundred-percent not be. Meanwhile, Vera’s eyes flicked between the menu, to me, to Rae, and then back to the menu, trying to appear like an innocent bystander.

“What?” I choked out on what little air still lingered in my lungs. I come back from the restroom, and all of a sudden, the easy conversation about how Rae’s trying out a boyfriend for the first time ever vanished, and all lights were now shining on me.

Raelynn’s eyes narrowed the slightest bit, the only hint to the devious lioness lingering underneath her perfectly made-up face. I needed to get myself under control, or she would eat me for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“Your phone kept going off while you were in the restroom,” she answered easily.

“I tried to stop her,” Vera finally joined in.

Rae scoffed and rolled her eyes over to Vera. “Liar. It was your idea.”

“It was not,” Vera denied, looking beyond offended.

“What if we looked?” Rae said in a softer voice, repeating Vera’s supposed idea. She added an over-the-top giggle Vera would never do and continued. “I mean, not that we would. But who could be messaging so much? It could, like, maybe be an emergency.”

“I do not sound like that,” Vera argued.

While they bickered, I quickly dug through my purse with trembling hands. This is what you got for not immediately spilling to your best friends from college that your ex-stepbrother, who just so happened to be a rock star, started talking to you again. Oh, and that you used to be in love with him and maybe kind of still had some of those feelings lingering about.

Just as I pulled out my phone, it lit up with another message from Rock Star, still unopened by Rae, the messages hidden until it recognized my face.

I heaved a sigh of relief until Rae reminded me I wasn’t out of the woods yet.

“Anyway, I peeked, and it said Rock Star. Soooo…”

Stuffing my phone back in my purse, I swallowed, trying to take discreet deep breaths.

“Gosh, Nova,” Vera said. “You’re like a deer in headlights. I’m a little scared.”

Pull it together, Nova.

One more deep breath, and I managed a somewhat normal laugh, resting a hand against my thudding heart. “You just caught me off guard,” I answered. Digging deep, I shook my head and rolled my eyes at myself, going for my usual self-deprecating sense of humor. “I’m…I—”

I what?

I looked from Rae’s face to Vera’s, both waiting expectantly, and I gave up pretending I was anything other than the mess I’d been since Vera’s wedding.

My shoulders dropped, and all pretense of holding it together dropped with them. “It’s Parker.”

Vera’s face scrunched in confusion while Rae’s dark brows slowly ascended toward her hairline. “Parker? As in Parker fucking Callahan? The one you danced for on Vera’s wedding night.”

“I didn’t actually dance for him,” I corrected. “Someone caught me off guard.”

“Holy shit,” Vera muttered, her jaw dropping more than Rae’s.

Rae recovered first, her shock slowly morphing into a smile that had me bracing myself. Rae gave bold honesty a new meaning, and I never knew what would come out of her mouth. To stem whatever swirled in her head, I rushed to splash water on her flaming imagination. Except, hearing the truth of my situation out loud for the first time made me realize Rae’s imagination might have been better.

“The thing is that Parker’s dad married my mom when I was sixteen, and we lived together for a while, and I kind of fell in love with him completely until he left me to follow his dreams of becoming a rock star.”

“Holy. Shit,” Vera muttered again, slower this time.

“Parker Callahan is your brother?” Rae almost shouted. Then to add insult to injury. “You loved your brother?”

“I swear to all things holy, Rae, I will stab you if you don’t keep your voice down,” I practically growled. “And he’s not my brother.”

If I expected any of this to dim her smile, I was wrong. If anything, it just grew more and more.

“Holy, freaking, shit,” Vera kept saying.

“So, yeah,” I sighed. “And I changed my mind, I want that glass of champagne.” Without one in front of me, I snagged Vera’s and drained it.

“Okay, okay,” Rae took a calming breath with hand movements and all. “So, Rock Star,” she enunciated his nickname, “was your stepbrother, but then your parents got divorced. And you guys just…stopped talking?”

“But you were in love with him?” Vera added.

“Did he love you?”

I winced hearing it played back, pulling a Parker-like movement and running my hand through my hair. “I…I thought he did.”

“So, what happened?” Rae asked.

I closed my eyes, running over the moments of the past, feeling the familiar ache.

The excitement.

The fall off the cliff.

The fear.

The crash.

The pain.

The anger.

The sadness.

I swallowed, struggling to formulate the words. “He left me when