He nods. “Absolutely. But I’ll need your answer first thing in the morning. If it’s a no, I have to figure out my next plan.”
“Understood,” I say, and I tap my fingers on my bicep where they’re resting with my arms still crossed over my chest. I try one more time. “You can’t give me any hints at all about who this client is?”
He presses his lips together. “If I had specific details, I’d give them to you.”
“What if it’s an athlete?” I ask, and I wrinkle my nose. Four of my five brothers play in the NFL, and the other one is a pro baseball player. I’d really prefernotto work with athletes, as Stuart well knows after all our years together.
But he’s insisted the entire time that we’ve worked together that athletes not only make great clients, but I’d be a built-in expert because of my brothers.
“Then what if it is? Could still be a pretty interesting stepping stone, don’t you think?” Silence passes between us, and his phone starts to ring. “I better take this. It’s my wife. Let me know first thing tomorrow, okay?”
I nod, and the first person I call when I slide into my Audi is my brother.
Not the one in Vegas.
I’ve always been closest to Ford, and I think it’s because my two older brothers, Madden and Dex, were close on their own. I was just the annoying little sister who came along and picked up NERF guns only to accidentally shoot my older brothers in the balls.
Yeah…“accidentally.” It’s not my fault I always had good aim.
Aside from that, Madden is four years older than me and tends to go off and do his own thing. Dex has always had a bit of a delinquent edge to him, though he seems to be straightening out. I think I’ve always just been the rather prim and proper, somewhat wholesome younger sister who cared about her studies and her family above everything else.
And Ford is a lot like me. He’s more of a traditionalist. A pragmatist. He’s two and a half years younger than me, and I got to pretend he was my baby when I was a toddler and he came along. I guess in a lot of ways, I’ve always been a bit of a caretaker when it comes to my siblings. My entire family, really.
And that’s why I’m not sure I want to leave Chicago.
My family is scattered all over the US, but this is our home base.
And when Stuart brought up the fact that I have a brother in Vegas, he meant Dex. He’s been all over the news lately with his new wife and baby, and the truth is that when I got to hold my nephew at the funeral of one of the high school football coaches a few weeks ago, I had this tug on myheartstrings that one of my brothers has a baby that I won’t get to watch grow up.
But Stuart forgot that I have another brother in Vegas, too—Archer. People always seem to forget Archer, but not me. It’s that whole caretaker thing I have going on. He’s the only baseball player in a family of football stars, the lone wolf, the one who I text once a week but rarely get a response from.
I text him the same thing every week.
Me:Thinking about you, little bro.
Sometimes he thanks me, sometimes he simply thumbs-ups my text, sometimes he ignores me…but sometimes, on very rare occasions, he actually writes back.
I wouldn’t mind being a little closer to him, either.
“Hey, Ev,” Ford answers. “What’s wrong?”
I laugh. “Nothing.”
“Then why are you calling? You never call.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. But I have something I need to talk out. Is now a good time?” I pull out of my spot. I could’ve called Penny, my best friend who I also work with. But I’m not ready for her to know that I got this offer. I’m not ready to tell her that maybe we won’t get to see each other every day anymore.
“I’m just finishing dinner,” he says. “Go for it.”
I sigh. “My boss offered me a job in Vegas. It’s one client and triple the money.”
“What’s the catch?” he asks.
“I have to move to Vegas.”
“Do it. Have you been there? Fuckin’ paradise,” he says.
“Yes, of course I’ve been there. But tomovethere? And for a single client when I have to drop all of my others?” I ask.
