Handsome Devil: A Hero Club Novel

“No flights available? How is that even possible?” I want to throw this MacBook through the window right now. How are there zero flights from Boston to Vegas? They can’t just strand people in the whole Northeast region. Pulling up my phone, my fingers punch out a frantic text to my best friend.

Laila: I’m freaking out. No flights!

Kirsten: OMG I can’t do this without you.

Laila: You absolutely cannot under any circumstance get married without me. We’ve been planning this wedding since we were twelve. I expect you to stick to the original plan.

Kirsten: Well, in that plan I was marrying one of the Jonas Brothers.

Laila: I can accept a change in groom. But replacing me as Maid of Honor? Unacceptable!

Kirsten: I would never replace you.

Laila: Not even with Elvis?

Kirsten: Not even with Elvis.

Kirsten: Celine Dion performs here now. Maybe she’s available.

Laila: Not funny.

The phone goes quiet for a bit, and I have to stand up to busy myself. It’s bad enough my boyfriend just moved to Chicago, and I didn’t get the marketing job I wanted. Now I feel Kirsten slipping away too. If I miss her wedding, that’ll be it. Everything I had planned will have gone down the drain, and I will be a lonely loser.

My phone pings again, and I pick it up in hopes that it’s salvation in the form of straight flight to Las Vegas.

Kirsten: My dad can’t get a flight either.

I let my phone rest in my lap and heave out a sigh. Of course he can’t find a flight. I don’t know why I feel like him being a deadbeat dad has something to do with him not being able to find a flight when I clearly can’t either, but he’s never really been there for Kirsten, so why would he now?

But then again…if he can’t be there, maybe she won’t get married after all and everything will be fine. Just when I start feeling hopeful…

Kirsten: So he’s going to drive.

Ugh, great. So much for the whole thing being cancelled because her dad won’t be there.

Laila: My car would never make it that far.

Laila: You’re going to get married without me, aren’t you?

Kirsten: You should ride with him!

Hard pass. Three thousand miles with that cocky asshole? No way.

Okay, so I’ve never actually met Kirsten’s dad in person, but the fact that her and I have been inseparable since we were twelve and the man has never made an appearance in that span of time should be enough reason for me to decide that he is an ice-cold, arrogant, British jerk.

Kirsten: I know you’re not the biggest fan of my dad, but right now it’s the only way to get you here in time.

“No way. Not possible. I literally can’t…” I mutter to myself like a crazy person as the texts keep coming.

Kirsten: He’s leaving first thing in the morning. Come on, Laila!

Kirsten: You’re not working right now anyway. Get out of the city for a few days!

At this point, I realize that I’m actually contemplating this. I can endure a day or two in the car with Henry James for my best friend, can’t I? Wait… I quickly Google the drive on my phone. Two thousand and seven hundred miles. Forty-hours!

Laila: It’ll take us a week to get there!

Kirsten: It’ll take you like three days. Relax.

Laila: Will you even be there that long?

Kirsten: Andy’s parents have a time-share. We’ll be here for over a week. You have plenty of time.

Three days in the car with a man I barely know and don’t particularly care for sounds like slow torture. But what choice do I have?

Laila: ugh fine.

Kirsten: yay!

Kirsten is lucky that she’s my best and only friend.

I spend the rest of my night packing and mentally preparing myself for the next three days. My phone is also loaded up with plenty of shows and music so that I can just zone out and pretend he’s not there. I shiver thinking about all of the awkward silence from here to Vegas.

After my suitcase is packed, I grab my phone and dial Ben’s number with a smile on my face. I haven’t heard his voice all day, and I just need it.

“Hello?” he asks, sounding half asleep.

“Hey, baby,” I reply.

He clears his throat. “Hi, Laila.”

“Did I wake you?” I glance at the clock and it’s only eight at night, seven for him.

“No, I’m just working nights, that’s all.”

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry, baby. Get some sleep.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he mutters. Ben works tech support for some big internet provider that honestly, I don’t quite understand. I only know he works terrible hours, sits in front of his computer all night, and works his ass off in hopes for a big promotion. He just got a new position in Chicago, and even though I really expected him to pop the question and take me with him, I know he was hoping I’d get the job I wanted here in Boston. Since I didn’t, things between us have been very up in the air. But that’s our style. We take things slow…very, fucking slow.

“So, you’re never going to believe this—” I start, but he interrupts me, complaining about his new boss and his noisy neighbors.

I’m about to tell him about my trip and the possibility we will pass through Chicago, but he seems stressed. He’s been struggling since he moved, and I decide at this exact moment that if I get a chance to pass through, I will surprise him. It will put a smile on his face.

“Well, I’ll let you get ready for work,” I say with a sweet smile. “Unless you want to talk dirty to me…”

“Uh, phone sex isn’t really my style, babe.”

My shoulders slump. Nothing is really his style. “Boo.”

Ben is painfully shy. So shy in fact, he’s never made a move on me in the eleven months we’ve dated—not once. I’ve managed to get him to third base but even that was painstakingly hard. If I wasn’t so attracted to him as a person, I probably would have given up on him long ago, but Ben and I are a perfect match. We love all of the same shows on Netflix, farmer’s markets on Sundays, take-out instead of dine-in, and dogs over cats. The chemistry between us is great, and I’m not bragging, but we look fantastic together. He has tan, olive skin and big brown eyes, which looks great next to my pearly white complexion.

The sexual chemistry will come, eventually. I just have to be patient.

After we say our goodbyes, I flip through selfies of us on my phone with tears in my eyes before putting it on the charger and crawling into bed. I wish I was going on this road trip with Ben instead of some stuck-up old guy I don’t even know. I can already hear him judging every single thing I like, and I am mentally preparing comebacks to everything he will say to me.

At exactly six am the next morning, a muted green Subaru Outback pulls up to my apartment building. I try to decide exactly how I’m going to behave around Kirsten’s dad. I guess I can at least be polite. He was never around for Kirsten when she was growing up, so I’ve always held a bad taste for him as a dad. Sure, he claimed it was for work and because a better job was available in England, but I mean how hard is it to find a good job here? He’s a surgeon. There should have never been an excuse for not being around for his daughter.

The absolute worst part of Henry James is he doesn’t look at all like you’d expect your best friend’s dad to look. I’ve seen him on Facebook and in pictures, and perhaps I could warm up to him quicker if he was a little heavy, wore socks with sandals, had a mustache that required a thick comb, and wore cargo shorts as his everyday attire. But that is not him at all.

Kirsten’s dad is infuriatingly hot. British heartthrob hot. Straight off the set of a medical drama hot.

With his chiseled jaw, dimpled chin, and thick brows, even Kirsten has a hard time admitting her dad isn’t the textbook definition of dashing. I mean, not in a weird way. He is still her dad, which would probably explain why Kirsten’s dating style is the total opposite—spontaneous, carefree stoners with names like Benji, Stone, and well, Andy.

Henry gets out of his car and rings my doorbell because of course he doesn’t honk the horn. Instantly, his politeness annoys me. I want to hate him, so it would be far more convenient for me if he could just be an inconsiderate asshole.

“Um, you must be Laila?” he asks with a cold emotionless expression in a Mr. Darcy accent that makes me want to slam the door in his face. It’s too early for perfection. Plus, he’s way hotter in person than in pictures.

“That’s me,” I reply without much inflection.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you,” I stammer in response. Silence drags between us for what feels like an hour.

“Ready to go?” He looks around for my luggage. We have a lot of ground to cover in just a couple of days so I understand his enthusiasm.

“Yes,” I answer, dragging my suitcase to the car. I don’t know why, but I avoid looking directly at his face, as if those Henry Cavill eyes will put me in a trance, and I’ll mistakenly be nice to him.

We load everything in the car and after locking up my apartment, I get in the car. Immediately, things are just as awkward as I predicted. The first thing I notice about his car is it smells delicious, like men’s cologne and leather. The second thing I notice is it’s immaculate. My car is fifty-percent trash receptacle and junk mail collector. I’m instantly glad we didn’t take my car.

“Do we need to stop for coffee?” he asks in a very professional manner like I’m a patient, and he’s my doctor. I hold up my full travel mug in response.

“Please make yourself comfortable,” he says with a certain level of gruffness. Henry isn’t exactly nice. It’s more like he’s obligatorily polite. He has good manners against his will. Must be a British thing.

Once we get onto the road, I start to fidget in my seat. I’m so wired and hopped up on early morning caffeine. I want to put in my headphones and zone out on some reruns of Brooklyn Nine-nine, but I don’t want to be rude. We’ve hardly spoken five words to each other all morning.

“So, you’re a surgeon?” I ask.

“Mhmm,” he replies coolly.

Awkward silence.

“What kind?”

“Orthopaedic.” I nod my head, looking out the window and wondering how many one-word answers I can get in forty hours. Whatever the answer is, it sounds like torture.

Well, if he’s not going to talk, then I guess I’ll fill the silence myself. “When I was fourteen, I broke my arm above my wrist trying to do a back-handspring without a spotter, and it needed four pins, so I had to have surgery. Is that what you do?”

“Yep.” He’s staring forward, and I’m starting to get the feeling that doesn’t really want to partake in the small talk. So I continue.

“Hey, maybe you were the one who did it.”

There’s a sidelong glance in my direction and a curious twitch in his eye.

“I’m kidding. That was a joke…” Could this ride get any more uncomfortable?

“So are you excited?” I ask once the car grows quiet.

“Excited for what?” His brow wrinkles inward as he watches the road.

“The wedding,” I reply.

He literally growls in reply. Well maybe not a growl so much as a disgruntled snort.

“I’ll take that as a no? I mean, I get it. It is very sudden, but she’s always been like this. She really marches to the beat of her own drum, so why would her wedding be any different?” I’m rambling. I don’t exactly know why, but I’m suddenly desperate to fill the silence because when it’s quiet I feel so alone with him.

“Oh, Kirsten isn’t getting married.” He says it so nonchalantly that I just stare at him a moment trying to figure out if I missed something.

“What are you talking about?”

“The only reason I’m going to Vegas is to stop my daughter from making the biggest mistake of her life.”

My jaw drops and I turn in my seat to face him. “You can’t do that.”

“Oh, I absolutely have to do that.”

“But why? She’s in love. If you try to stop her, she’ll be crushed. You can’t do that to her!”

I’m starting to feel flustered, heat flushing my cheeks in anger. My phone practically buzzes in my hand with the sudden need to text my best friend to tell her about this.

“There is no way she loves him enough to marry him. It’s been two months.”

I scoff. “And how the hell would you know how she feels about him? You’ve barely seen her in the last ten years.”

“Excuse me?” he says, his face turning toward me in surprise. I have no filter, none. And I do this shit all the time, especially when I’m heated about something, and maybe it’s a bad idea to pick a fight with the guy that I have to spend the next three days with in a confined space, but I can’t help it. I’m too bold for my own good.

“I’m sorry,” I lie. “But I really don’t think you understand what you’re threatening to do to her. I know Kirsten better than anyone, and if you walk in there and tell her that you don’t approve it will crush her.”

“A short-lived marriage and a divorce in her twenties will crush her far worse.”

My jaw drops. “You don’t know that will happen.”

“Yes, I do.”

I press my lips together. How can he be so rude and yet so calm at the same time?

He grimaces at me, but I ignore it.

“Listen,” he says. “Your generation seems to think everything will come to you easily. Not everything is sunshine and roses. Just because they love each other now doesn’t mean they will love each other after the first time they fight or when they travel together or when one of them gains a little weight or loses their hair. Life is not picture perfect, and marriage is a life-long contract that is not easy to get out of.”

“What do you know about love? Are you married?”

His brows furrow and he glances away. “No.”

“So, how would you know?”

“Are you married?” he snaps back.

“I’m in a very committed relationship. Ben is going to propose soon, I know it.”

“And where is this Ben? Why didn’t he drive you?” The hairs rise on my neck as I feel the sudden need to defend my boyfriend.

“Ben just took a job in Chicago,” I reply. “But we’ve been together for eleven months, and I know without a doubt in my mind he’s the one. I’ve known since the first month, so I totally believe this is real for Kirsten.” For a moment, I feel like I’ve won, and my phone relaxes in my lap.

“Well, you’ve had time to get to know your boyfriend. Kirsten hasn’t had that. I mean, after eleven months, you get more relaxed around each other. Right? You can agree with me there are certain things you learn about a man you’re living and sleeping with after almost a year that you didn’t know after two months.”

Embarrassment starts to creep up my spine, but I shove it down. I’m not ashamed of the fact that I’m still a virgin; I’m just a little self-conscious by it. “Actually, Ben and I don’t sleep together, but that has nothing to do with it.”

The car lurches, not to a complete stop because we’re on the freeway, but I definitely get a small dose of whiplash as he slows down.

“You’ve been with a guy for eleven months without sleeping with him, and you want to talk to me about the realistic expectations of a long-term relationship?”

We’re getting off on the wrong foot. We’re not even out of Mass yet, and already, I’m dying for a sinkhole to suddenly appear in the middle of the highway and swallow this car whole.

“Yes, yes I am,” I say astutely. “And just because I’m waiting to keep my first time…special,” I stutter, “doesn’t mean I don’t know what a realistic relationship is.”

“Oh, darling, it absolutely does.”

My skin tingles at the word darling, and I hate myself for it. “Well, I am a romantic, and I’m not ashamed of that. What Kirsten and Andy are doing is romantic. Not everything needs to be so sensible. I think you need to learn to be a little more romantic.”

The frown lines in his forehead deepen as he sends me a sideways glare. Henry is anything but romantic, and I can tell he’s all about smart choices without a spontaneous bone in his body. “I’m not the one holding out for a boy who hasn’t even made the moves. You say I need to be more romantic. I think you need to be more realistic. If he hasn’t made a move yet, he likely never will.”

With my lips pursed, I stare out the window. I’m plenty realistic, and who says you can’t be romantic and realistic at the same time? Henry is just a jaded old jerk who wouldn’t know real love if it slapped him in his stupid, handsome face.

“Wait,” he says, peering over at me. “Does that mean Kirsten is a…virgin too?”

I probably shouldn’t laugh as hard as I do, but I blame it on the coffee because a large cackle escapes my lips. “Oh God, no. Not even close.”

When I finally look at him, his jaw is clenched, and he’s staring at the road with a tense scowl. “That’s quite enough, thank you.”

“Sorry,” I mumble, holding my travel mug to my lips.

“I mean, that should make you happy though. It means that Kirsten has more realistic expectations in her long-term relationship…as you say.”

When he finally glares at me, I bite my lip. He’s annoyed with me already and we haven’t even crossed our first state border. This is going to be a long trip.