Banking the Billionaire (Bad Boy Billionaires Book 2)(104)

I glanced back to Frankie in the back seat, and his green eyes said he knew what I was thinking. “We better bust a nut, dude.”

“Yep. I’m guessing we’ve got an hour, tops, before it pours.”

“What are you guys, meteorologists?” Cassie scoffed while Phil snorted his way around the floorboard at her feet.

“It’s a f*cking sauna outside,” I explained. “It’s not like I had to calculate the atmospheric pressure and wind shear.”

“What?” Claire asked.

“Don’t ask, baby,” Frankie advised.

“What?” I laughed. “You don’t like my above-average interest in weather, Franklin?”

“Oh, my God,” Cassie cried. “You’re a weather geek.”

I narrowed my eyes.

“I’m engaged to a f*cking nerd.”

Claire laughed, and Frankie gave me a pat on the shoulder. “It had to come out sometime, buddy.”

“Fuck you guys.”

“Aw, don’t be sad, Thatcher. Come on. Turn me on. What’s the force calculation for my *?”

The answer poured out without planning. “Your * is usually stationary, and since force is mass times acceleration, it’s really my cock that possesses the force in our equation.”

“Oh, my God,” she squealed. “It’s like I don’t even know you.”

A tiny twinge of something panicked at the thought that maybe she didn’t know me. What if she found out something that made her decide to move on? I didn’t know if I could take it.

Unhappy with that line of thinking, I shut it down completely before it could get carried away. I had enough baggage working against me on this trip. I didn’t need anything extra weighing me down.

“Come on, Frankie,” I grumbled. “Help me set this shit up.”

The sound of Cassie’s laughter finally died down as I stepped outside and shut the door. That could have been the soundproofing of my Range Rover, though.

“Why does Cassie look like she swallowed a clown?” Georgia asked from across the site. Kline had her holding one corner of their tent while he staked the one opposite. Tall trees shot up around the entire perimeter, and pine needles made a bed on the ground in between. It was big enough to hold six or seven tents, thankfully. Of course, Wes was late like always, so if we somehow managed to run out of room, the joke would be on him.

Frankie was all too eager to share the cause of Cassie’s near on fit of hilarity. “Thatch just showed her his science boner.”

“It was bound to happen sometime,” Kline shouted. “I think it’s some kind of mathematical certainty. After he showed her his other boner so many times, he was contractually obligated to show her this one.”

“There!” I pointed as though there was some high court in the woods that would come down with an explanation or ruling. “Jesus. Why doesn’t anyone make fun of Kline for being smart?”

Kline smirked and gave me an innocent shrug while Georgia leaned down to whisper something in his ear with a blush.

Fucking hell.

“Come on, Thatcher,” Cassie called, having finally exited the car with a squirming Phil in her arms. “Come set up our tent so you can show me your thunder down under!”

Crazy.

Mine.





“Let’s take a hike!” Georgia stood in front of my lawn chair and held out her outstretched hand. “Come on, lazy bones, let’s get some fresh mountain air.” Phil tugged at the leg of my chair in an attempt to go to her. Fucking Georgia. The Animal Whisperer.

Thatch had been right about the rain yesterday, and truth be told, I’d been impressed as hell by his plethora of random knowledge. I mean, the guy hadn’t gone to school for that shit, but still, he had a real understanding of it.

After I buttered him up with some bedtime boning, he’d finally told me that late in college, he’d been restless and searching for things to drown out the white noise. When he wasn’t getting Kline and Wes into all the trouble he could think up, he was studying all kinds of things until his mind started to wander again.

The result was one really f*cking smart fiancé.

My face scrunched up in annoyance. “Ugh, Wheorgie,” I muttered and wished I was anywhere but in the hot heat of the midafternoon sun in the middle of the goddamn wilderness. “It’s hot. I’m annoyed. And you’re too f*cking perky.”

Camping was one of those things that was a good idea in theory. But when you actually experienced it—the bugs, the heat, sleeping on the hard ground of a tent—you realized it sucked donkey dick.

She laughed. “Shut up and come with me.”

“Why can’t Big Dick go hiking with you?”

“Because he just walked down to the water with the guys and Claire to fish.”

I slipped my sunglasses over my eyes and leaned my head back, hoping she’d eventually go away if I fell asleep.

“That’s not going to work,” she declared, and I heard her footsteps crunch against the gravel as she moved behind me. “Get your ass up!” she exclaimed as she gripped the top of my chair and pushed forward. Phil took off as soon as the end of his leash cleared the bottom of the leg.

I fell out of my seat, and my ass hit the ground a few seconds later.