“I didn’t grow up with you.”
“Over a decade, Smith,” I reminded him. “It’s nearly half your life.”
“I had friends,” he said quietly. “Before Mom…”
“Smith.”
“I can’t believe I ever thought of taking her name over Covington,” he muttered, rubbing his fingertips across his cheeks. He looked so young and so old at the same time, and I had to admit I was out of my depth. This was Marshall’s territory for sure. I had no clue how to talk Smith through this in a productive way.
“I’m sure she took care of you as best she could.”
“She sold me out,” he snapped.
It might have been the first time my brother had ever raised his voice at me, and I reeled back accordingly. My back hit the seat, and Smith sucked in a sharp breath, shaking his head and holding up his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean…”
“You don’t have to apologize for having feelings.”
It was then, I realized, I didn’t know my brother at all. I knew him in the ways that he mirrored Marshall and me and Finn, and I understood him in the way I understood the others. In a way that resonated down to my marrow because we shared the same blood, and we would always be who we were, but each of us had half of someone else. In my case, someone I’d never really known, but Smith…
He had lived a whole life before coming into ours.
“It’s complicated, isn’t it?” I finally said.
He made a dismissive sound in the back of his throat but nodded his agreement just the same.
“I didn’t mean to open up this can of worms,” I told him, which earned me a laugh and a watery smile.
“This is more Marshall’s speed, isn’t it?”
Even though I didn’t have the right words, I was ready to force myself to answer anyway. Saved, or not, by the ping of a meeting reminder chirping out of my cell phone that sat face down on the table. I flipped it over, frowning at the last-minute calendar invite from Caleb Winters, one of the equity partners at the firm. There was also a message from Lincoln, but I definitely wasn’t about to open that in front of my brother.
I huffed out an exhale and shoved my plate into the middle of the table. “I know this is horrible timing, Smith, but?—”
“You’ve got to get back to work.”
“Yeah.” I pulled my wallet out of my pocket to pay. “I hate to…but are you…”
“I’m good, Hunter,” he said. “I promise.”
“We can talk more on Friday?”
“You talk less when Finn is around,” he said. “I’m good, though. I promise. And you know, Hunter…not like any of you have asked, but I do have friends.”
Smith gave me a smile that felt a lot like scorn, then he stood up and fussed with his shirt.
“Thanks for lunch,” he said, jerking his chin toward the wallet I still held in my hand.
“Anytime, Smith.”
I watched him walk away, waiting until he was out of the restaurant to drop cash onto the table. I had fifteen minutes to get back to the office, and my heart was lodged in my throat for all of them. Last minute meetings were never good, but I was relatively certain I wasn’t about to get fired. We’d just talked about me being made partner. Had I messed up a case or done something wrong that would jeopardize that? Lunch meetings weren’t uncommon, but last-minute ones certainly were less usual.
By the time I made it back to the office, I didn’t feel any better about the situation, but time was short. I made it to my desk with seconds to spare, barely enough time to throw a mint into my mouth before heading for the other side of the floor where Caleb’s office took up the whole corner.
I knocked on the metal frame of his door, sticking my head around the corner to find him behind his desk with two of the other partners—Walsh and Shaw—sitting opposite him. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth like I’d used Velcro on it.
“Covington,” he greeted, gesturing toward the other open seat across from his desk. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”
