Dick Dynasty: Porter Part 2

"Looks like Parker found the stereo again. We should probably get back in there before he trashes my house. Again."

I nodded in agreement, "He's an a.s.shole and not good for much most of the time, but the man knows how to work a crowd. He'll have them in a frenzy in no time."

We stepped into the dining room where Preston always set up the bar during his parties. Parker had managed to set up a miniature stage, lost his s.h.i.+rt, and gathered a small group of women and gay boys to squeal at him while he danced. Dollar bills were quickly piling up at his feet and forming a hula skirt of sorts at his waist.

"Leave him be, Porter. He's harmless for now. Let him dance it off and have some fun." Preston had to shout over the tooth-chattering hit of the ba.s.s, but I got the message loud and clear: He didn't want to cause a scene.

If there's one thing our brother is good at, it's causing a scene.

"I need a drink." I turned on my heel and before I could take two steps, slammed into someone, nearly knocking her over. Her squeal as she teetered backwards had my arm shooting out to catch her before she could crash to the floor with her martini.

Holly lifted her head and shot me an accusing glare. There was so much anger blazing in her eyes that I half-expected her to shoot laser beams at my head.

It made my d.i.c.k hard again.

"I'm so sorry, Holly," I apologized lamely.

"I know you're probably used to using people as doormats," she spat, "but you do know that's just a figure of speech, right? You should probably watch where you're walking." She shook the spilled booze from her arm and stormed off toward the front door as Marco appeared to clean up the broken gla.s.s.

"f.u.c.k me!" I yelled as I sidestepped Marco.

I hit the bar with a vengeance and poured myself a triple shot of Jack, which I tossed back like a college boy.

I'm going to regret that in the morning...

I put away two more before leaning down on the polished bar top and glowering in the general direction of the stage, invisible through the throng of adoring fans trying to stuff dollar bills down my little brother's pants.

"What's wrong, Peanut?"

The nickname brought a sentimental smile to my face even as I rolled my eyes.

"Nothing, Ma. It's just been a long day."

"Don't you bulls.h.i.+t me, Porter Joshua Hale. I've been reading between your lines for thirty-two years, young man. Something is bothering you and you're going to tell me what it is."

I've always had a weird Pavlovian response to the use of my full name. When I was a kid, I knew I was in deep s.h.i.+t if she threw in the middle name or, G.o.d help me, the words "Just you wait until your father gets home!"

My whiskey-muddled brain fired in a furtive attempt to come up with a placating statement that would get me off the hook.

"I'm worried about Parker is all," knowing that she could sniff out a lie better than a drug dog could sniff out my brother, I had to go for a light version of the truth.

"You mean his drug problem?"

I couldn't mask my surprise and felt my eyebrows shoot so high they d.a.m.n near joined my hairline.

"Don't look so shocked, Peanut. I was married to your father for twenty-eight years, G.o.d rest his soul. I know what this industry does to people. Honestly, I'm just thankful that only one of you struggles with it. Your father used to come home from parties just like this one higher than a kite. Parker's lucky to have you looking after him. If anyone can talk some sense into that boy, it's you. You always could."

"No pressure or anything," I muttered under my breath, praying that the deafening pounding of the speakers would keep it from reaching her ears. No such luck. The woman can hear conversations in China if she puts her ear to the ground.

"There shouldn't be pressure to be who you are, Porter, and you are his big brother whether you like it or not. Do what you do best and take care of them. I won't be around to do it forever, you know."

"Neither will I, Ma. When is it time for him to start acting like an adult?"

"About ten years ago, Porter. He hasn't had many role models in that department though. He's got some catching up to do."

Her voice was soft, but those words were sharper than any knife she could have buried in my chest. She gently patted me on the back and kissed my cheek before she wandered off toward the kitchen; presumably to gather her purse and jacket before heading home for the night.

"What the h.e.l.l did you do to Holly?"

"Jesus Christ, Preston! Can I catch a break? Five minutes! That's all I ask! Five f.u.c.king minutes without being grilled by a family member about my failures of the evening!"

My youngest brother raised an eyebrow at me and caught his bottom lip between his teeth.

"Mom found you, didn't she?"

I blew out a long breath and rubbed my hands over my face, "Yeah."

"Queen of guilt trips strikes again!" he stepped around the bar and poured us both a shot from the bottle beside me, "Let's drink about it."

We touched our gla.s.ses and swallowed the whiskey in a single gulp.

"Really though," he poured two more shots, "what'd you do to Holly?"

I pressed my hands to my eyes, not wanting to think about the pretty brunette with an invisible leash around my d.i.c.k, "I kinda broke her martini when I trampled her."

"That's it?" Preston paused with his shot gla.s.s half-raised.

"Yeah. I apologized, but she was p.i.s.sed and stormed out."

"Weird."

"Yeah."

"You should call her tomorrow and apologize again." He set his empty shot gla.s.s down in front of him and slid a business card to me, "She's not usually so easily shaken."

My stomach sank when I read it.

"Are you s.h.i.+tting me?" I asked as the panic set in.

"Nope. Make amends." The little s.h.i.+t walked off without another word.

"f.u.c.k me." I downed the shot he had left in front of me and stared down at the business card.

Holly Nash it read in bold black letters Casting Director The name of the company was one anyone on either coast would recognize.

I had spilled a martini on a casting director with the largest casting agency in Hollywood.

Vodka-soaked olives had literally crushed my dreams.

I flopped down onto the couch with a dramatic flourish and a groaned loudly.

"Stop it, Holly. It can't have been that bad." Becks set the gla.s.ses of wine she had chased me through the kitchen with on my gla.s.s-topped coffee table.

"It was that bad," I corrected her, "and get some f.u.c.king coasters."

She ignored my request and shoved my feet off the couch so she could sit down, "Only you could attend a party with the three hottest men on the planet and find a reason to storm out without saying goodbye."

I was beginning to regret my decision to call in the cavalry.

As my best friend, she should've been agreeing with whatever bulls.h.i.+t was coming out of my mouth, nodding sympathetically, and gasping at all the right times. The person sitting by my feet staring at me expectantly couldn't have been my best friend. Someone had taken my Rebecca and replaced her with a doppelganger. I had stepped into Invasion Of The Body s.n.a.t.c.hers and my best friend had been replaced by an alien, h.e.l.l-bent on taking over the human race by replacing us with mindless clones.

"Who are you?" I asked accusingly, "And don't make any sudden movements or I will kick you in the face with my deceptively fas.h.i.+onable designer heels."

"You're being a baby, Holly. Use your words and tell me what happened."

I sat up and s.n.a.t.c.hed my gla.s.s of wine off the coaster-less gla.s.s surface and threw myself against the back of the couch like a pouty five year old.

"He is evil and must be destroyed."

"Who?" the best friend thief leaned forward to retrieve her own gla.s.s.

"Porter Hale. He is Satan incarnate and we should call the Vatican right now and have them send an exorcist."

Becks' clone snorted into her wine gla.s.s, "You want the pope to exorcise a p.o.r.n star? I mean, the dude's pretty liberal as far as popes go, but I don't think he'd go for that."

I took another gulp of my merlot before continuing my tirade, "For the sake of our own species, we'll have to take it upon ourselves then. He has some kind of supernatural demonic voodoo power that saps your brain cells and makes your v.a.g.i.n.a turn against you. One look from him and you go completely stupid. You find yourself das.h.i.+ng for the nearest Depends to keep yourself from leaking down both legs."

"Finally getting to the juicy stuff!" the Rebecca-bot taunted, "Go on." She folded her legs underneath her and watched me with those inhumanly joyous eyes over the rim of her wine gla.s.s-which was suspiciously full still, further confirming that she wasn't actually my Becks.

"You're a b.i.t.c.h and I hate you," I spat as I emptied my gla.s.s and rose for a refill. Rebecca-bot stayed on her perch while I considered running out the front door and leaving her to sit there waiting for me to return. Her batteries would run out eventually, right?

"What about Ryan and Roman?" she shouted after I had made my way into the kitchen.

I just rolled my eyes and pored my wine.

"They were fine," I huffed and returned to my seat, "Preston and Parker don't seem to be of the same tainted bloodline. Preston was his usual flirty self and Parker was too busy taking off his clothes and shaking his a.s.s to even notice that I was there. Hard to notice a stranger when your pants are stuffed full of dollar bills."

"Uuuuuuugh!" Becks groaned, squeezing her thighs together and pinching her eyes shut, "Of course I would miss that! Next time you get invited to one of those parties, you better get a plus one! Otherwise I will have no choice but to follow you, scale the security fence, climb a rain gutter, break a window, and infiltrate with my mad ninja skills."

I laughed at the scene that played through my head as she spoke and felt some of the tension drain out of my shoulders. The paranoid delusion that my best friend had been swapped out for an alien robot fungus-clone quickly faded and I put my feet in her lap. I tipped my head back against the armrest on my end of the ma.s.sive chocolate colored leather sofa and closed my eyes.

"Seriously, Becks, that guy f.u.c.ked up my p.u.s.s.y. It took on a life of its own and all but jumped on his leg like an overly friendly Labrador."

She rubbed a hand over my freshly-shorn s.h.i.+n and clicked her tongue, "Aww... Tell Becks all about it." She took a sip of her wine and smacked her lips, "And don't bother sparing me the X-rated details."

I recounted my s.e.x organ's hostile takeover of my brain in detail for her. When I got to the part where he smacked into me and spilled my drink, she finally gasped out loud and spoke for the first time since I'd started my story, "He caught you? You were crushed against his body? Did you cop a feel?"

"For f.u.c.k's sake, Becks! No! I certainly did not cop a feel! My p.u.s.s.y was on fire and my brain was telling me to lie down on the floor, pull my dress over my head, and beg him to ravish me! I did what any respectable woman would do! I yelled at him for being a clumsy oaf and stormed out with what little dignity I had left!"

Her mouth dropped open and she stared at me like I had started speaking j.a.panese. I left her just like that as I rose to refill our wine gla.s.ses. She still had the same look of shocked horror plastered to her face when I returned and set our gla.s.ses down on the ceramic coasters she refused to use.

"You have lost your f.u.c.king mind, Holly. You haven't had s.e.x in, how long has it been now? A year? Two?"

"Three."

She whistled low through her teeth, "You haven't had s.e.x in three years and the first man to have any kind of impact on your c.l.i.t has you crying for exorcism? You're broken, honey. I don't know if I can fix this."

"Why do I call you in an emergency?" I groaned.

"I ask myself the same question every time. It's not like I've ever been good at the coddling thing you seem to crave. I'm going to tell you the same thing I do every time your libido rears its pretty little head and scares you to death: Plug the leak with a d.i.c.k and quit b.i.t.c.hing."

"That's your advice for everything," I countered.

"It's good advice. You should take it sometime."

"I want the Rebecca-bot back."

"Huh?"

"Nothing." I buried my face in my wine and reveled in my underhanded win.

"Really though," I said at length, "do you think the Vatican would send someone?"

"We're not Catholic."

"They don't know that."

"But G.o.d does and He's pretty tight with the pope from what I hear."

"You're probably right," I pouted into my wine gla.s.s for a moment.

It was then, as I stared into the swirling burgundy of the alcoholic grape juice in my hand, that I had an epiphany, "Catholics drink wine, right?"

"I don't like the sound of this," Becks replied warily, "but yes."

"Where do I join? Do I have to get baptized? And if so, do they just hit me with the metal thing full of holy water, or do they actually have to dunk me in a river? I think I could handle the metal thing, but there's no way in h.e.l.l you're getting me in the L. A. River."

"Oh my G.o.d, Holly. You're paranoid. Stop it. We're not joining the Catholic church just so the pope might send an exorcist to banish the imaginary demons from your p.o.r.n star."

"He's not my p.o.r.n star!" I shrieked, mortified, "If anything, he's your p.o.r.n star! You're the one obsessed with the whole d.a.m.n family! Maybe I should have you exorcised for good measure!"

Becks held up her hands in a "don't get crazy" gesture and leaned away from me as far as the couch would let her. "I'm just trying to be the voice of reason here, Holly. You're a little off your rocker at the moment and it's time to come back down to earth. I'm not possessed. Neither is Ryder. And you can't join the Catholics. You don't have enough guilt to be Catholic."

She had a point on the guilt issue. I was notorious for being the "good girl" out of all of our friends. I have never been in trouble with the law, I'm not a wh.o.r.e, I never go out drinking on a work night, and my t.i.ts and a.s.s are generally completely covered. I really haven't ever done anything to be guilty about-at least not by Los Angeles standards. The worst thing I ever do is lower my eyes and sprint like an Olympic runner when a homeless person asks me for money.

Add dirty people clothed in trash bags to my list of irrational fears-right below demonic p.o.r.n stars with the power to melt panties with a glance.

"Have s.e.x with him, Holly," her eyes bored into me with all the seriousness of a funeral director, "What's the worst that can happen?"