“Settle your panties,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Do I look like I’d send it to Painter? No, I sent it to Hunter, Em’s old man. I may have sent it to Reese, too. Hard to remember. I know I sent him the one of London.”

A very, very dark suspicion reared its head.

“Jessica . . .”

“Yes?” she said, fluttering her lashes at me innocently.

“Are you and Kit using the party to collect blackmail material on all the women in the club?” I asked, my voice carefully level. Jessica frowned, and I swear she looked almost hurt.

“Of course not,” she said, pushing herself up and out of the hole. “Blackmail means you want money or something, right? We’re just doing this for fun, Mel. I’m not trying to take your money. I’d never blackmail you or any of the other girls.”

She shook her head at me sadly, conveying profound disappointment in my lack of trust.

“I’m going to find Dancer. She should know about this cave thing—I got out just fine, but some little kid could get stuck down there for real.”

•   •   •

The pillow fight had ended by the time we got back, apparently transitioning into a water fight. Either that or Dancer was using a hose in an attempt to control the herd of drunken women currently dancing in her backyard.

“Jessica!” Kit yelled as we came back. “You’re here—good news! We’re already getting responses on our pictures!”

Fuck, how many people were they sending them to?

“Reese is going to strangle me,” London said, coming to stand next to me. Her white T-shirt had gone totally transparent, showing off a gorgeous black bra.

A spray of water hit me in the face, then splattered down across my chest.

“You’re welcome!” Dancer shouted, laughing. I shook my head like a dog, trying to get some of the water off. Bad idea, because I still wasn’t totally steady on my feet. What the fuck was in that punch? Dancer and London caught me, one on each arm.

“Thanks,” I managed to say, watching as Dancer aimed her hose again, spraying down another woman I didn’t recognize.

“Why are you hosing everyone down?”

“Damage control,” she said, her words slurring ever so slightly.

“Damage control?”

“Yeah, the girls have been texting pictures of us with the strippers to the men. I got a tip-off—Bam Bam, Horse, and Reese are coming to break it up. I guess once we started groping random naked guys they’d had enough of the bachelorette party.”

“So you’re spraying everyone with water because . . . ?”

“Because guys get off on girls in wet T-shirts,” she said, as if the answer were obvious. What? “There isn’t a man alive who doesn’t secretly pray that when women get together, we have pillow fights followed by wet T-shirt contests. Bam has a thing for mud wrestling, too, but I’m drawing the line here—gotta keep it classy. By the time the guys get here to claim their old ladies, we’ll be ready for them. I already paid off the strippers. If they’re smart, they’ve already left.”

Wow. Just . . . wow.

“That’s impressive,” I admitted. She nodded sagely, accepting my praise as her just due.

“Not my first rodeo, baby girl.”

Jess came up behind me, throwing her arms around me for a big hug.

“You’ll get this old-lady shit figured out, no worries,” she said, ruffling my wet hair.

Wait. I wasn’t an old lady.

I didn’t want to be old. Or a lady.

Pushing Jess off, I turned to Dancer, but she’d already gone off to spray someone else. London was missing, too. Marie was nearby, though.

“Hey,” I said, lurching toward her.

“Hey,” she said back, grinning like an idiot. Her eyes were big and sparkly and her cheeks were all flushed. At least I wasn’t the only drunk one here.

“Am I an old lady now?” I asked. She blinked.

“What?”

“Painter asked me to be his girlfriend, so does that make me an old lady?”

Marie’s eyes widened. “Painter seriously asked you that? Holy shit. Hey, Soph—Painter asked Mel to be his girlfriend!”

Ruger’s old lady, Sophie, turned toward us. Her long hair was plastered against her head and back. Totally soaked. She looked between me and Marie, obviously surprised.

“Really?” Sophie asked. “Wow, never saw that coming. Like, he used the word ‘boyfriend’? That’s hysterical.”

I frowned, because it wasn’t funny at all, let alone hysterical. No wonder Painter was always heading out of town on club business—I would, too, if I had to put up with this shit.

“He’s a really nice guy, you know,” I said, glaring at them. They looked at each other and burst out laughing. “Hey!”

They laughed harder. For the very first time in my life I gave serious thought to punching someone in the face. Totally would’ve done it, too, if the world hadn’t started spinning on me.

“Sorry,” Marie finally managed to say. “I can think of a thousand different descriptions for our guys, but ‘nice’ generally isn’t one of them. And no, you aren’t an old lady yet—being someone’s old lady is more than being their girlfriend. It means the whole club has accepted you as an official partner, and they support the relationship. Maybe you’ll be an old lady at some point, but that’s something Painter would talk to the club about first.”

Sophie nodded. “They have some sort of supersecret process for it. Ruger won’t tell me shit about it, but I think it mostly involves an announcement and then drinking beer together. But they can’t possibly tell us that, you know? Gotta keep the mystery . . .”

“Oh,” I said, swaying. Chair. I needed a chair or something. Standing was way too hard. I looked around, spotting an empty folding chair near the wall. I wandered toward it, slumping down as my phone buzzed.

PAINTER: What the fuck is going on? Hunter just texted me a picture of you climbing around on some naked guy.

Oh shit.

ME: It’s not what it looks like.

PAINTER: You got one hand on his chest and the other on his dick

ME: I swear, Kit and Jessica set me up. Em may be in on it too. Kit and Jess together are like some nasty demon bigger than its indiviudiual parts. They get together an things like this happn. I think we need one of those priests to come and cast the devls out

He didn’t respond right away. Finally my phone buzzed again.

PAINTER: Drunk?

ME: There was something in the punch . . .

PAINTER: Where are you?

ME: Dancers house. It’s the bachelorette party

PAINTER: Got it. FYI—don’t ever drink Dancer’s punch again. I’ll send someone to get you, okay?

ME: ok

“Babe!” Marie shouted, distracting me. She ran toward the front door, jumping up and wrapping her legs around a giant man who’d just stepped inside. Horse was a big guy—even taller than Painter—and Marie looked like a little monkey hanging off him.

Reese stepped in past them, taking in the scene.

Kit was sitting on the floor, giggling as she flipped through her phone. Em gave him a thumbs-up as she finished chugging a big cup of punch. Jess had disappeared completely. Reese stalked over to the entertainment center, turning off the music with a flick of his finger. Silence fell, and then Em gave a loud burp.

“Excuse me,” she said, wiping her mouth delicately with the bottom of her shirt.

“Fuckin’ girls,” Reese said, shaking his head. “You’re going to kill me.”

“Hey,” London said, coming up to wrap her arms around him. She kissed the side of his face, which seemed to soothe Reese. Kit stood slowly, then walked over to stand right in front of her father.

“This is what happens to people who get married secretly,” she said, poking a finger into his chest. “Don’t do it again.”

A smile quirked the edges of Reese’s mouth. Then he dropped his hand down to give Loni’s butt a squeeze. Ewwww . . . Kit and I exchanged a look, and I could tell she was thinking the exact same thing that I was. Old people shouldn’t be having sex.