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“How’d the politician go?” Grant asks.
Xavier grunts. “He took a last-minute trip with his family. I’ll let him enjoy Disneyland before I cut his head off. Does this place not have glasses?”
I rap my knuckles on the bar top. “It’s closed. Stop fucking stealing.”
He pops up to glare at me. “We just paid close to a grand for a fucking meal. If anyone’s being stolen from, it’s us.”
Grant chuckles. “You say that like you paid.”
“Zayden likes paying. Makes him feel like Big Daddy.” Xavier winks at me.
“Big Daddy. That’s your new nickname,” Grant says, narrowly avoiding me slapping him up the back of his head. “What’re we doing here, anyway?”
I check my phone again. The notification from Cleo is still there, but part of me hoped I’d read it wrong. I don’t want to work tonight, and I definitely don’t want to work when I could be fulfilling fantasies with my hot-as-fuck wife.
Pulling up the CCTV app Yale created, I scan through each feed. The room I booked is empty, so I check the restaurant. Silence is sitting with the man at the bar—Dean McGregor. Quantity surveyor, thirty-six, boring as fuck, but that’s fine by me. I’m not looking to make friends with the guy.
I watch Silence for a moment, the way she keeps brushing her hair back, playing with the straw in her drink—she’s nervous.
“Z?”
I raise my gaze to Yale, then lock my phone. “Cleo got us a meeting with Bobby; we couldn’t miss the chance.”
Xavier scoffs. “Why are we meeting with that leech?”
“Let me guess. He’s in trouble with the wrong people?” Grant suggests before rolling his eyes and taking his phone out again.
“Something like that.” I glance at Yale, wondering whether it was a good idea to bring him into this. He can take care of himself, but he’s not as quick to violence as Xavier and I.
As if reading my mind, he says, “I’m fine here, Z.”
Rolling my shoulder, I nod. “You given any thought as to how you’re gonna propose, Grant?”
“I was thinking Christmas Day. That’s romantic, right?”
Xavier shrugs. “Do it while you’re boning. That’s hot.”
“It blows my mind that people actually go home with you,” Yale says, shaking his head.
“Because they don’t,” Grant quips, and Xavier flicks a straw at our friend. “What? Is that supposed to be a secret?”
Confusion furrows my brows, and I look at Xavier. “What secret?”
“He hasn’t gotten laid in a year.”
Xavier growls. “Grant, I swear to God, I will beat you to death.”
“Why?” I ask. “I thought you were sowing your seeds all over the damn place.”
My brother shakes his head. “I just haven’t felt like it.”
This is odd. Xavier loves one-night stands. He told me he was once torturing a man to death in a hotel room and stopped because a hotel employee knocked with room service. He fucked her in the hallway, then ate the food, and only then continued the torture.
“X,” I say.
My brother finally meets my eye. “Fine. I’ve been going to therapy.”
We’re all quiet for a second. Yale glances at me, and his expression tells me that he didn’t know either. He asks, “For how long?”
