“Lauren, I’m not in the mood. Can you please get my brother on the line?”
“You haven’t been in the mood for the last two weeks. Frankly, I’m getting sick of it. Which one?”
“Nate, and make it fast. I have shit to do.”
Not even a minute later, my phone buzzes. “The better Davenport is on line one,” Lauren chirps happily.
The better Davenport, my ass. “Yo.”
“Yo? Is that how an Ivy League education taught you to greet your loved ones?”
I throw my head back, groaning, “Can you stop being a pain in my ass? I need help.”
Why is everyone getting on my last nerve today?
He chuckles. Dickhead loves to get under my skin. “I just finished a meeting by your office. You want to go grab lunch?”
“Can’t. I’m too busy, come here, and I’ll have Lauren order us something.”
“Dad isn’t there, lurking in the halls pretending he still runs the place, is he?”
That makes me laugh, “No, I put my foot down months ago when he was harassing the interns. Haven’t seen him since, thank god.”
“Good. I’ll be there in ten.”
My door flies open, and I look up from my computer to Nate yelling on his phone as if I’m not running a trillion-dollar company where people need to concentrate to work. “Run him over with your car if you need to,” he shouts before hanging up and dropping onto my couch in the corner.
I raise a questioning brow, wondering what the hell that was.
“Don’t look at me with those judging eyes of yours. I’m killing anyone who pisses me off today.”
“I spoke to you five minutes ago. You were happy to go to lunch. Now you’re a murderer?”
“Not guilty…for now.”
Lauren chooses that moment to saunter in with our food, of course, without knocking. “Who’s killing who?”
She puts down the takeout bags and walks over to Nate, kissing him hello. “Don’t you want to come to work for me? He’s probably a miserable fuck to work for, and I’ll double your pay.”
She turns to me. “You hear that? He’ll double my pay.”
“Then he’ll stab you in the back and murder you.” I lean back, stretching my arms behind my head. “Also, do you mind? We need to talk.”
She plops down next to Nate. “Sounds important. I’m all ears.” Then her phone rings, and she’s running out without a goodbye.
“I’m dead ass serious. I want her to work for me. She’s probably miserable here,” Nate says when she leaves.
“She’s not miserable, we’re like brother and sister. She won’t leave me. If you try to poach her, just see what happens. Now tell me why the hell you were screaming, scaring everyone in my office.” I unwrap my sandwich and take a bite of my usual turkey club as I wait for my dramatic brother to spit out whatever he has to say.
“Leo is in Georgia?—”
“Nope. Stop right there. I don’t want to hear anymore.” Not in the mood for his drama.
He regards me with a hard stare. “Don’t be such a jerk-off.”
“Nathaniel, if Leo is in Georgia, and you were stress yelling, it means it’s something about Maddie Grace, and I can’t listen to that drama anymore. You want her? Go fucking get her.Otherwise, I don’t want to hear it anymore. You’ve been pining over her from afar for years. Enough is enough already.”
He glares with fury as he grabs his sandwich, knocking my water over in the process, and doesn’t make one move to clean it up. You can cut the tension between us with a knife. I don’t like hurting my brother, but he knows I’m right.
