Best Friend's Ex Box Set

"No, they didn't survive," I said quietly. "Mamm and Dat are gone, Danny."

My brother dropped his head and sat silently staring at the table for a long time, while the rest of us stood utterly still. Suddenly, Danny brought his hands up to cover his face and then let loose a long, thin howl. My sisters and I looked at each other stunned. I squeezed his shoulder tightly as he turned and buried his face in my neck. He held out one hand and signed a single word over and over: "No."

Chapter Eight

Adam

The next morning, I woke up ready to do battle with my best friend, but as usual, Bugsy had found a way to try and disperse the tension to make the problem seem to go away. When I went into the kitchen, I found him making breakfast for us as he sang show tunes.

"Morning," I grunted as I pulled a mug from the cupboard and poured myself a cup of coffee.

"Good morning, my friend," Bugsy said cheerfully. He turned around and I nearly dropped the mug I was holding when I saw he was wearing an apron with the words, "Domesticated bitch" over a picture of a dog holding a spatula.

"You are warped," I said grumpily as I recalled the night before. "And gay."

"I own the first, but reject the second," he replied. "Not that there's anything wrong with it."

"God, you are such an asshole," I said shaking my head as he turned back to the stove and carefully flipped what looked like an omelet.

"And you take life entirely too seriously," he replied as he added cheese and ground pepper to the fluffy, golden mixture in the pan. "Why can't you just let go and have fun for a change?"

"Because my best friend is paying hookers to seduce me!" I shouted as I slammed my fist on the counter. "Goddamnit, Bugsy, do you not see how completely fucked up that is?"

"I only did it to—" he began.

"I know, I know! You only did it for the business!" I shouted. "I'm not the business! I'm a person, Bugsy! Do you have any idea what it's like to have spent my life growing up with parents who hate each other but will band together to hate me more? And on top of that, I have followed in your genetically blessed footsteps and wondered if the girls like me because of me, my father's money, or if they simply want to use me to get closer to you?"

"I had no idea that bothered you so much," he said flipping a perfectly folded omelet onto the plate in front of me and adding a slice of buttered toast on the side.

"Oh bullshit, you've always known," I said as my ego-driven brain tried to convince my rumbling stomach to reject the peace offering. "You just choose to ignore it."

"Fine, if that's true, then I'm sorry," he said, catching me off guard. "Just eat your breakfast. You've got to be starving."

"What the fuck, Bugsy?" I muttered as I picked up a fork and dug into the eggs.

"Look, I didn't mean any harm, Adam," he said as he slid more eggs into the pan and turned the heat down. "I honestly thought I was doing you a favor, but I can see how it might have been the wrong way to go about things, and, for that, I'm sorry."

I ignored him, but continued eating his peace offering.

"Adam, we have a huge weight on our shoulders right now," he said as he turned back to the stove and stirred the eggs. "Honestly, I'm a little worried that we're not going t

o be able to make this idea work unless you are able to quickly negotiate a deal with the farm folks down south. We need to secure enough space for at least twenty turbines to land the manufacturing contract, and I'm not entirely certain that there's going to be enough interest for us to do that."

"So? If we don't land Corner Grove, we move to the next farming community," I said.

"You don't get it, do you?" he replied as he flipped the second omelet onto a plate and offered it to me. I shook my head and he picked up a fork and began shoveling food into his mouth as he spoke. "The next potential farming community where we can actually make a profit after Corner Grove is outside of Topeka fucking Kansas! You read the DOE report, too, Adam. Don’t play dumb with me now."

"And the problem with that is?"

"We're talking increased supply chain and installation costs because of the distance," he said. "And the maintenance and upkeep visits are going to exponentially increase our cash needs. Plus, it's not rated as highly as Corner Grove in terms of wind levels."

"So, I need to sell the idea in Corner Grove," I said flatly. "This still doesn't explain why you hired a hooker to fuck me in a broom closet last night."

"Jesus, are you ever going to let that go?" he sighed. "Look, you and I both know that you're in desperate need of a woman's touch."

I winced as Bugsy stated the obvious, but said nothing.

"You're a red-blooded American male! You needed a release! You deserve to have a good time!" he insisted. "Why can't you just thank me for the effort and let it go?"