Wicked Whoopie Pies Addison Moore (the false prince series TXT) 📖

Winslow nods. “And unrepentant.”

“That sounds like Char-lay in a nutshell.” I’m about to storm the stage when Charlie steps out in a long pink sequin gown—one I’m betting Cormack had a hand in lending her, considering that’s her favorite color, and my sister begins to croon into the microphone in her hand. The entire room lights up with raucous whoops of approval, she’s just that good.

Charlie starts in on a slow and seductive number that has the words making whoopie in it and the room breaks out into catcalls.

“Wow,” I say, taking a blind step forward. “She’s really good. Why can’t I sing? Can I sing?”

Binky floats up next to me. “It’s doubtful, Lottie. One of my sisters was an expert howler and I couldn’t squeal above a whisper. Some people got it and some people don’t.”

Charlie hits her stride as the music starts to pick up in pace and she struts down to the front of the stage like she owns it.

Men swarm the vicinity and start chanting for her to take it off, take it off. Dollar bills start to fly, and Naomi, Lily, and Cormack get straight to work scooping up the dough for her.

Then the unthinkable happens. Charlie lets that sequin gown slip down one shoulder, then the other, then it miraculously drops straight to the floor, and pandemonium breaks out as the men go wild, the green goes flying, and I’m about to cut a sister.

I do my level best to leap onto that stage, but Carlotta pops up and pulls me back.

“No can do, missy. I know it’s hard to share the spotlight with your sister, but this is her chance to shine. Face it, you’re in her territory now.”

“Carlotta!” I snap. “I am not letting any of my sisters take off their clothes for a bunch of lusty men. It’s not right. My sister, my rules.”

Carlotta huffs as she looks right at me, “Sounds to me as if someone never had to holler for a dollar and it shows.”

My mouth falls open. “You mean Charlie had to dance to make a living?”

“Why not? She could, so she should is what I always told her. I woulda if I coulda. Believe me, I tried. Now don’t go getting all high and mighty on us. She’s just doing what she’s gotta do to survive.”

“So you came down to watch and support her?”

“Of course, I did,” she balks. “I always came out to support her. Who do you think was right there scooping up the green and shoving it into my pockets? If that’s not support, I don’t know what is.”

Before I can offer up a rebuttal, my phone starts to ping like mad and I look at the screen. It’s a text from Evie.

MOM! Why is #HotBaker trending and why am I seeing pictures of you standing on a stage with nothing on but your underwear? And you thought I was making a career blunder?

A hard groan comes from me. “It’s times like this I really hate the internet.” I grab Keelie by the arm. “Come on, Keels, we’re going in. We’re going to storm the stage and hogtie a stripper if we have to—just like the good old days.”

Keelie laughs up a storm. “I guess these are the good old days.”

Keelie and I hop onstage and clamp ourselves over Charlie like a couple of female wrestlers. The men only seem to howl that much louder, that much stronger, and oddly enough, it’s a sea of government-issued paper free-falling all around us.

Charlie lets out a growl and yanks off both my T-shirt and Keelie’s in one fell swoop and the crowd lights up with laughter.

Charlie locks eyes with me—my own eyes staring back at me—and she growls with a vengeance brewing deep inside of her.

“No,” I call out as I begin to back away.

“You drew first blood, sister.”

Before I know it, she’s on me, yanking and pulling at my jeans until she’s stripped them off and tossed them into the rabid crowd. Charlie hoists me over her shoulder, parades me up and down the stage, all while giving my bottom a few healthy wallops.

“Show her who’s boss, Cha Cha,” Carlotta shouts and I growl over at her.

I’m about to show both Carlotta and Cha Cha who’s boss when I hear an all too familiar voice.

“Lemon?” Everett riots and I can see the crowd parting with a start.

“Lottie!” Noah riots as he pulls his gun out and aims it for the ceiling. “Everybody freeze!” he howls and the room breaks out into utter melee. Bodies are running, diving under tables, and oddly enough multiplying while the music continues to bop out its funky beat, and a pair of hot pink lights begin to swirl around the stage only adding to the madness of it all.

Everett jumps onstage in one giant leap, and for a second, it looked as if he was a supernatural being taking flight, and Noah hops up right next to him.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Charlie backs up while securing her hold over my legs. “You two don’t get to treat my sister like a piece of meat that you’re playing tug-of-war with! Sure, you try to convince the world you’re gentlemen.” She smears the word gentlemen as if it were a slur. “But neither of you has the cookies to stand down. You’re both grunting and beating your chests, hoping that she’ll pick you.”

“She has picked me,” Everett thunders. “Now put down my wife.”

Noah takes a step forward. “And I did stand down.”

Everett glances his way. “Because you were following my lead. I stood down first.”

Noah gives him a look. “And you should have stayed down. Lottie and I would have worked everything out if you didn’t seize her during our weakest moment.”

“Nobody seized me, Noah,” I bleat, but the music thumps right over my voice, and the next thing I know Noah gives Everett a shove, and before you can blink, fists are flying.

Carlotta, Naomi, and Cormack leap onto