Jack
“The hell you doing up already, Jack?” Mybrother Matt’s voice was equal parts frustration with me and surprise. That was pretty on-brand.
“Couldn’t sleep after you left,” I told him with a smile I knew would annoy him at this early hour, or at least get as close to annoying him as anything could.
“I tried to be quiet,” he grumbled as he refilled the coffee urns in the front room of the Bear Valley Inn. He had crashed at my place, the top floor of the Inn made into a penthouse-type apartment.
“You were,” I assured him. “So much excitement last night should have worn me out, but for some reason. . .” I shrugged, trailing off rather than trying to find the right words.
“Could be the storm,” Matt said. “No one has been at the front desk since I got down here, so it must be as bad as all those alerts on my phone are saying.”
“Yeah, I started thinking about that, too. I doubt we have any check-ins right now, anyway,” I mused, moving over to the polished wood of the antique front desk and logging into the Bear Valley Inn’s reservation system – what I had come downstairs to do in the first place. “New Year’s day and all - probably not that big of a deal that thestaff haven’t made it here yet, well,until brunch.”
Matt snorted as he worked, “I’m sure you can remember how to be the world’s greatest bellhop, despite that law degree, Jack.”
Truth was, I probably would have filled in down here at the desk today if our usual staff could notget through the crazy snowstorm that decided to assault our little ski town. Any of my three brothers would have, too.
However,since I literally lived here at the Inn, most likely me by proximity-default. Matt workedhere, as the chef at the Dining Room at the Bear Valley Inn, and it was impossible to be available to manage the front desk while prepping his wildly popular New Year’sDay Brunch. Between the sold-out Inn and the prediction that the worst of the storm would end in the next few hours, Matt and the Dining Room would be overrun before long.
As for our other brothers,Quinn lived over his bar and architecture firm and would be here as fast as he could walk through the snow, and Baylor lived out at the ranch, but would chain up the tires and be here if I asked.
I wouldn’t ask.
Matt brought me over a cup of coffee, the perfect color of cream and sugar.
“I can’t believe the turn-out at Quinn’s bar last night,” he said with a smile, his grumpy, just-awake morning persona already vanished as ifit was never there. “I bet next New Year’s at Black Diamond is even bigger, because a party like that will definitely get people to come back again.”
“Leave it to Quinn to leverage a snowstorm into driving more business to his bar,” I agreed, and thanked him for the coffee.
“All those people, Jacky, and you still left alone . . .” Matttisked softly under his breath.
I rolled my eyes. “Are we back to that? So did you,Matty.” I respond before throwing out “bratty Matty,” under my breath.
We may both be in our early thirties, but the ribbing never stopped.
Matt just laughed at my use of a nickname. I literally have never met someone who goes with the flow quite as much as my brother. He doesn’t take much personally, and is better off for his outlook on life. I could call him every name in the book, and he wouldn’t care unless I was truly mad at him.
“Quinn even played you a song. And you still couldn’t find a guy? Bad luck, bro.” Matt said, still on the offensive about my love life.
This Will Be Our Year,by the Zombies. That’s what our brother Quinn had the DJ play for me right after midnight. I still feel a little called out about that.
“I kissed Baylor,” I retorted with a grin.
“Kissing a brother on the cheek doesn’t count, man.”
“Who knows? How many years have I gone to Quinn’s bar for New Year’s? Or here at the Inn before that? You remember those yearsbefore all that? Every year someguy at midnight — but — screw the luck of it and all that. Maybe this year will be differentbecauseI didn’t hook-up.”
“Well,” Matt said, lightly scratching his stubble, “if that’s the way it works, Quinn is screwed. I’m not even sure if the guy he kissed at midnight is the same guy he was grinding with on the dance floor.”
“It works for him,” I said, and Matt hummed lightly in agreement. What I didn’t say is how it wasn’t working for me anymore, but we both know that anyway.
“But,” Matt continued, “if that’s the way it works, Baylor should have the best years of all of us.”
“True.” My brother Baylor is tall, built, smart, hot as fuck, and witty. He is also perpetually single. I often wondered if he got his heart broken with a relationship he had in college, but he still - sort of – keeps up with the guy. It’s complicated. I’ve never asked any of my other brothers what they think about my theory of Baylor’s broken heart.
“Do you ever wonder—”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
