One Bride for Five Brothers

I don't know why this is so exciting. I can't imagine what it means, but knowing that he was just doing that, touching himself in my room, shakes me to the core. I feel closer to him than ever before, knowing that he invaded my space like that. He’s only been there in my dreams before, and my dreams are slowly becoming reality.

Chapter 33

August

It's almost noon when I key into the penthouse, armed with nothing more than twenty-six ounces of black coffee. As I stroll through the rooms, I’m surprised. There's no one here. Not a single half-dressed woman to be found.

The apartment is nearly clean, with just a few wine glasses on the counter and a case of Beaujolais on the dining room table.

Just what the hell is going on here?

I find Kirkman on the second floor, in another control room. This one has the “motherboard” as they call it, a mixing board with literally thousands of knobs, dials, and sliders. It has to be fifteen feet wide.

Kirkman is perched on the edge of a designer Aeron chair, elbows on the ledge of the mixing board with his hands holding the headphones snugly against his ears. His head bobs in time to some music that I can't hear and every once in awhile his fingers reach out to some of the knobs and sliders, adjusting things slightly. Four huge Apple monitors are situated around him in an arc, each with a different chunk of what I presume is supposed to be music on them.

He doesn’t notice me for a few seconds so I just hang back, waiting for a break in whatever the hell it is that he's doing. When he reaches to the side for his coffee he sees me out of the corner of his eye and stops, clicking the spacebar on the keyboard and pulling the headphones off his ears.

“What's up?” he asks me, squinting and distracted.

“Um, nothing I guess. Just checking in,” I answer, taken slightly aback.

If I didn't know any better, I would say this looked like a professional musician sitting in front of me who is doing actual work, instead of some entitled douche nozzle trying to spend all his money in a hurry or go down in a blaze of fiery glory. The comparison between these two personalities is striking.

“Okay, cool,” he nods, turning back around. “Melanie talk to you?”

“No,” I reply, ready to just turn around and leave. “Did you think that she would? It looks like your issue with the ladies is settled, for lack of a better term.”

“Oh, yeah, she totally chewed my ass out,” he smirks. As soon as I see that familiar douchebag expression on his face I get the sudden urge to slap it off of him. “She was all, ‘remember Seattle?’ I figured you guys must have had a conversation or something.”

“Actually, I never got around to it,” I admit. “But it's not like you were being subtle, Kirk. She was gonna find out one way or another. She keeps a close eye on you.”

“Kirkman,” he corrects me again. “She was really pissed off. And apparently I'm supposed to be more considerate of her job or whatever. Which I guess means I am supposed to be more considerate of your job too, is that right?”

I spread my hands in front of me.

“Listen, man, I'm just trying to keep you safe for as long as you are here,” I explain. “I personally don't give a fuck what you do with your life. You can bang every piece of legal pussy from here to Seattle, for all I care. All I need to do is make sure they are on the up and up.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“Glad to hear it. So, glad we got this worked out. I'll just be —”

My phone buzzes my pocket, then twice more. That feels like three alerts. Without even thinking about it, I pull the phone out, sliding into my messages to see what's what.

“You okay?”

I glance up, startled.

“Why would you ask me that?”

He smirks. “What are you doing there, old man?”

I tuck the phone back away, irritated. “I'll just be seeing you later.”

He leans back, crossing his heels on the other chair and folding his hands behind his head. “Yeah, you got something going on,” he croons. “Something good? Something for me?”

“Why would it be something for you, Kirkman? No. Not for you.”

He shrugs. “That's cool… from the look on your face, I thought maybe you had something special planned. My bad.”