Today was probably one of our biggest investing wins in recent months, and I’m fucking stoked on it. We’ve been babysitting this one for four years, waiting for the exact perfect moment to sell, and today that patience paid off – twenty-five million a piece, in fact. It was a good fucking day.
Pouring each of us a few fingers of single malt, I ask, “Your wife gonna kick my ass if we black out?”
“Yes,” my best friend laughs as he pulls his glass toward himself.
I reach for my phone and pull up a florist’s website, quickly placing an order to be delivered ASAP with some flowers that look like the ones she has their bedroom decorated with.
“Our apology is on its way.”
It takes us all of thirty minutes to down our first three rounds of drinks, clinking our glasses together and cheering every time that we take a drink, like a couple of fucking high schoolers stealing from Dad’s liquor cabinet on a Friday night.
“It has been a damn good year, all things considered,” Colt says, clinking his glass against mine before downing drink number four.
“Brother, you have no fucking idea.” I throw my own drink down my throat and slam the emptied glass back onto the table. Stretching over the back of the booth, I ask, “My room still set up?”
“Your room will always be set up,” he chuckles. “Rowan washes the sheets every week, just in case you crash at home.”
“I love that woman.”
I could tell him about finding Noelle. I want to tell him. But if I do, it’ll be one of two reactions: either he flips out like his wife did, thinking it’s rainbows and puppies that shit glitter, or he realizes where she works and the two of us wind up in prison for killing theonlyuntouchable fucking guy in the city.
So instead, I bite my tongue and sip on my drink.
•
I stumble into the house behind Colt, headed in a beeline for the kitchen. The flowers I sent at the start of the night sit perched on the kitchen island, with a note sitting in front of them written on some fancy, cutesy stationery. Colt moves toward the counter to pick it up, reading it out loud.
“Nice try, boys,” he slurs. “Tylenol is on your bedside tables. Take it with some Gatorade. XO.” He presses the note to his chest, and I cackle. “I’m going to go upstairs and see my beautiful, amazing wife,” he tells me.
“Emmett still here?” He nods, bending down to try and get his shoes off quietly, but he can barely fucking stand. Lightweight. “Awesome. I’m eating his food.”
While Colt wobbles his way toward the stairs, using the banister for support, I move to the freezer and dig out the box of chicken nuggets calling my name. I throw about thirty of them into the air fryer and grab a bottle of water from the fridge, chugging it while I wait.
They keep their house so goddamn quiet at night, I don’t know how they stand it.
Taking my food down the hall, past the girls’ rooms, I kick open the door at the end of the hall and walk into my room. The smell of fresh laundry hangs in the air, like Rowan came in here and put fresh sheets on the bed while we were out because she knew I would be coming home. I drop onto the bed and grab the remote sitting next to the bottle of Tylenol on the nightstand, clicking on the TV, and I scrollthrough Hulu until I land on a show that’ll work for background noise.
Bill and Martina adopted me as a kid, but Colt and Rowan have adopted me as an adult. I’ve always had my own room in Colt’s houses, since the day I moved out here; but his wife has me set up in here like I’m another one of their kids.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it.
TWENTY
Sophia
Part of me thought that Eric was kidding – or at least exaggerating – when he told me that he would be back for me, but he’s been here every night that I’ve worked for the past week and a half. Always alone. Always buying out the entire section.
I probably shouldn’t be so eager to spend so much time with him, but it’s so comfortable, and it’s the happiest I’ve been coming to work in longer than I can even remember. If I have to be somewhere that I hate, at least I can be with someone that I like and not have to worry about being on the menu for the evening if I don’t want to be.
I just get to be...Sophia.
Well, Noelle, I guess.
“Your accent gets thicker when you’re drunk,” I giggle, tossing my feet over Eric’s lap and crossing them at the ankle. “You never did tell me where it’s from.”
“It’s Texas salad.”
I arch a brow at him. “I’m sorry?”
