Chapter 60
JEREMIAH
Enveloped in warmth and softness, I blinked open my eyes to find sunlight streaming in through my bedroom windows. From the looks of things, I guessed it was around eight in the morning.
Naked in bed with Stephanie though, I couldn’t care less about waking up. We were still tangled together, our limbs entwined and her head resting on my chest. I tightened my grip on her, wondering if it would be possible to stay like this until Monday.
Ordering in food and taking bathroom breaks aside, I decided it was probably the best idea I’d ever come up with. Sleeping next to Stephanie was the best sleep I’d had in a long time, which begged the question of why I was awake.
Bending my neck to nuzzle her hair and fall back asleep, I jerked involuntarily when my phone started buzzing on the nightstand. Fuck that was what woke me up.
Whoever it was could wait. This was my first morning waking up with a girlfriend in my bed, and I was going to savor her. Spoil her. Not wake her up with whatever shit storm was brewing in my life right now.
The phone wouldn’t stop buzzing though. Stephanie stirred and I silently cursed the caller, realizing I was going to have to extricate myself from her and silence the vibrations if I didn’t want her to wake up.
My arm shot out, and my hand closed over my phone. I squinted at it with one eye, only to see enough to silence it when Neil’s name appeared on my screen. Along with a notification informing me I had seven missed calls from him already.
Neil wasn’t a premature caller, nor did he call repeatedly unless something was seriously wrong. Resigning myself to taking just this one call, I silenced the vibrations and slowly slid off the bed, jumping into my pajama pants after making sure Stephanie was still asleep.
She rolled over on her side but burrowed her head into her pillow with a small smile on her full lips. Thank god, my phone hadn’t woken her up.
I padded out of the room and went to the kitchen to grab some coffee from my machine, hitting the green button when Neil called. Again. Without so much as giving me time to return his call.
“What’s got your panties in a bunch?” I asked him, already dreading his answer. Williams Inc., my father, work. None of it was my priority this morning. Dad already thought I was unfocused and immature, so let him be right for once.
Stephanie was my priority right now. Monday would be back to reality, with the tiny alteration of having my girlfriend in the office next to me, but we would deal with all that soon enough.
Just today, I wanted this bubble of private happiness we were in. Just one goddamn day.
Apparently, my silent pleas fell on deaf ears. Neil sounded so stressed I could feel it coming off him in waves even separated by as many miles as we were. “Jeremiah. I was starting to wonder if I should send out another search party.”
“Haha,” I said dryly. “No such luck, I’m afraid. Just being a selfish, immature class-A idiot blowing off his responsibilities as usual.”
Neil hesitated. “Have you spoken to your father this morning?”
“I haven’t. Why?”
“Just a question,” he snapped, sounding flustered. In as long as I’d known Neil, and he was half the reason either Jack or I made it through high school or college, I knew him well enough to know he didn’t get flustered easily.
“What’s wrong?” My voice was flat. Unenthusiastic. I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with what was obviously a work-related problem. Neil wasn’t one to call about personal issues, especially not eight times before I’d had my first cup of coffee.
He ignored my question. “Your father’s in the office, and he’s in a foul mood.”
“Thanks for the heads up, but why are you calling me to tell me about something that happens pretty much every day?”
“He’s in a foul mood, Jer. Not a bad mood, not an ‘I lost at golf’ one, a legit terrible mood. I wanted to warn you not to come into the office today.” Sighing, he took a deep breath. “I don’t know if you were planning on it. I know you said you were taking a couple of days off. I just thought I should warn you in case you changed your mind. He’s on the warpath, and you don’t want to be here for it.”
I poured my coffee and fixed a cup for Steph, sighing as I cocked my hip against the counter and got my first hit of the heavenly caffeine. “Call me if you need anything like, you know, a cleanup crew for the bodies he leaves behind.”
Neil chuckled humorlessly before I heard a racket in the background. “I have to go, but I’ll call you later to keep you updated on what’s going on.”
“Thanks, bud. You’re a lifesaver. Maybe literally.” My father could be a terror in the office when he wanted to be or when he felt hard done by, as he obviously did by me. Without a doubt, I knew he would’ve torn into me if I showed up there.
I would’ve been able to take it though. Much as I hated it, I did know how to deal with him when he started marching down the warpath. Others, however... “If you need anything at all, let me know. He needs to learn he can’t treat people however he damn pleases.”
“I don’t think today’s the day to have that conversation with him,” Neil said over my father’s voice booming something about incompetence on his end of the line. He lowered his voice to add, “Jer, I don’t have a good feeling about this. That’s why I thought I would warn you.”
A pit formed in the bottom of my stomach. Neil’s instincts were great. It was one of the reasons he was my father’s right-hand man at such a young age.