The Stepbrother (Red's Tavern 5)

“Fox, what have you got for me?” Maxine answered. It was only one hour later in New York than in Kansas, but she had likely been up for hours already handling deals that I wasn’t around for. She was slightly out of her depth, but she had two degrees in finance, and I had trusted her with a lot of things I’d never let anyone do before.

“Hey,” I said. “I wanted to check on the Tarrant deal. Is he willing to partner with Miller?”

“The Tarrant deal? Fox, that window on that closed yesterday. Didn’t you get my messages?”

I brought my phone down briefly, navigating to my messages. I saw ten unread from Maxine, spanning from two o’clock yesterday all the way until midnight.

“Shit,” I said, holding the phone to my ear again.

I’d been drunk in the damn pool all day. Ignoring my duties, for the first time in years.

“I’m not going to mince words with you, because you know I don’t play that shit,” she said. “Tarrant called you a flake and said he won’t be doing business with you again.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered. “A flake? It was only one afternoon that I wasn’t available.”

“When he heard you’re going to be out of the city for two to three weeks on an RV trip, it kind of shook his faith,” Maxine said.

I clenched my teeth. I knew it was the right decision. I wouldn’t have trusted someone if they were M.I.A., either. But I’d spent my last two weeks in New York wining-and-dining Beau Tarrant. He’d told me he trusted me more than any other investor he’d ever met. He’d said that we’d be making deals together, as a duo, until we were old and blue-veined, looking out at the ocean from our yachts.

He hadn’t even bothered to give me a single phone call yesterday.

I looked inside through the sliding glass door and saw Sam finishing cleaning up the plates from breakfast. He crouched down to give Cocoa some love, and she rolled over for belly rubs.

New York City had never felt so far away.

I’d only spent one night in Red’s Tavern, but I already could tell that the other bartenders there, and even some of the regular customers, probably would take a bullet for Sam if he needed it. His Instagram comments were always littered with friends telling him how much they loved his posts, no matter if it was a picture of his biceps or his dinner.

Sam had always been so good to his friends, and in turn, they were always good back. I didn’t have anything quite like it.

“I suppose it’s fair that Tarrant is out,” I finally told Maxine.

“Yeah,” she said. “No biggie, though. We have plenty of other prospects on deck. Do you want to do a conference call with Bridget and Sean Kazavarian today?”

I paused for a moment, still watching Sam through the window. My chest was tight with jealousy.

He was currently wearing a tank top that said Let’s Ride. I wouldn’t be caught dead in the clothes he wore, and yet he inhabited them like they were made for him. Hell, half of them were. He had been into making and tailoring his own shirts ever since his high school theater days. Sam really was happier than me. His life was simpler, but he still had a whole universe of his own.

“Actually,” I said, “just cancel it.”

“Cancel? On Bridget and Sean?”

I gulped in a breath of air. “Cancel all of the things we had planned for this week.”

She was silent for a beat. “You told me you made sure you’d have plenty of satellite service and data for the road trip,” Maxine said.

“To be honest, Max? I just don’t want to do it. Not now.”

Maybe not at all, anymore, I thought silently.

“You realize you’ve got thirty million hanging in the air right now,” she said, a warning tone in her voice. “You do not want that. That thirty mil could be set up to become sixty mil for the Kazavarians by the end of the week if we make a deal. Or they’ll go to someone else.”

I was barely listening anymore, though. “Just let it be. It’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ll catch up with you next week, Max.”

The tightness in my chest dissipated as I hung up the phone. I knew I was being stubborn. Maxine was absolutely right—no matter how much fuck-you money I had in the bank, it was a cardinal sin for me to ignore my job for one day, let alone a week.

But right now, all I could think about was getting on the road. I wanted it. And that feeling drowned out everything else.

I heard the sliding glass door whoosh open behind me and when I turned, I saw Sam, reaching out with an orange bottle in his hand.