by M. S. Parker
Telling him that I would’ve eventually woken up on my own would’ve just prolonged the conversation, so I kept my mouth shut and hoped he’d hurry the fuck up and say what he’d come here to say.
When he realized I wasn’t going to thank him again, he frowned, but continued, “We’ve been together too long to let something like that destroy it all. I mean, it’s not like you were innocent in all of it. You said yourself you’d come over to tell me you’d cheated on me.”
I held up a hand. “I made out with someone else, yes, but I stopped it, and came to see you to make things right. I wasn’t fucking other people for months and only admitted to it when it was too late to deny it.”
He rubbed the back of his head. “I’m sorry, Syll, all right? Is that what you want to hear? That I’m sorry?”
I would’ve wanted to hear it if I thought for a moment he meant it. It’d be easy to accept the apology and go back to the comfortable patterns of our relationship. I could pretend like I believed he regretted what he’d done, and not just that he’d gotten caught.
But what he said after I caught him, that was stuck in my head. It had been cruel and mean-spirited. That was how he really felt – who he really was – and I refused to allow him to treat me that way.
“I don’t want you to say anything you don’t mean,” I said. “And I know you don’t mean any of what you just said.”
“This is bullshit, Syll. You can’t tell me you’re seriously going to throw away the years we’ve had together over this?”
The fact that he was reacting in anger, throwing this on me instead of taking responsibility for his behavior, and telling me that he’d do whatever it took to make things right – like I’d been prepared to do last night – just convinced me that I was making the right choice.
“I think you threw us out way before I caught you with Ariene.” I took the ice off my face to see him better, and then remembered that I couldn’t see out of that eye anyway. “Or are you going to sit there and lie to my face and say that yesterday was the first time you’ve ever cheated on me?”
Color flooded his face, and he clenched his hands into fists. “That…that’s…Syll…that’s not…”
I held up my hand. “Don’t bother. I’m not going to believe you.”
“Don’t you even want to know why?”
A chill that had nothing to do with ice crept into my blood. “You made that perfectly clear last night.”
The bar door opened, and I jerked around, ignoring the pain as adrenaline flooded me, flight or fight making my heart hammer against my aching ribs. It wasn’t the masked man though.
It was Ariene, strolling in here like yesterday had never happened.
I pushed myself to my feet. “Get out.”
She stopped half-way across the floor, her eyes widening as she took in my face.
“I want both of you out of my bar.” I looked over at Billy as he stood. “Now.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “But, I have a shift tonight.”
I stared at her. “You don’t give a shit about your shifts. You hate it here, and always make sure I know it. So, I’m going to give you a gift. You’re fired.”
Her pretty face twisted into an ugly mask. “You can’t fire me. I haven’t done shit wrong.”
I wanted to tell her that I damn well had a reason to fire her, but then I realized she was right. People liked to think that because a person owned a business, they could hire and fire on a whim, but that wasn’t true. Or, rather, they could try it, but if the former employee decided to sue, they’d probably have a case for wrongful termination. And even though Ariene had constantly complained about her job, she hadn’t been late or left early. She hadn’t taken extra breaks. And while she had been fucking my boyfriend, she hadn’t done it at work.
All of which meant I couldn’t fire her without her using her relationship with Billy as a reason to sue me.
But that didn’t mean I had to put up with having her around today.
“Okay. I can’t fire you, but that doesn’t mean I can’t change your schedule. We haven’t been getting a lot of customers the last few nights, so I think Gilly and I can handle it.”
Ariene glared at me. “You can’t send me home and let Gilly stay.”
I lifted my chin. “I can. She has seniority.”
“Bitch,” she muttered.
I let that one go, because I wanted them out. “Also, a word to the wise, if things don’t pick up, I may need to cut your hours. Again, Gilly has seniority, so her hours get priority. You might want to start looking for another job.”
Ariene took a step toward me, but Billy stepped between us. “Let’s go, babe. We don’t need this.”
He looked over his shoulder at me, and I made a little shooing motion with my hand. The quicker they got out, the quicker I could clean up. I waited until they closed the door behind them, then crossed to the door and locked it.
I locked the door between the bar and my apartment too, then after a minute, moved a chair in front of it. I wasn’t going to get caught off-guard again.
Twenty-Three
Jax
We sat in a half-circle in front of Ms. K’s desk, all of us trying not to look at each other. My brothers’ motives were probably like my own. We’d all loved Grandfather in our own way, and we’d all mourn in our own way. None of us had ever shared our grief, not when it’d been Grandma Olive, not even when it had been our parents and Aimee. We were just too different, and it hurt too much.
“Thank you for coming so quickly. I know this has been hard on all of you.” Ms. K’s own eyes were red-rimmed, but she sounded professional and collected. I’d always liked and respected her, but my estimation of her had grown immensely over the past few days. “Your grandfather had hoped that he’d be able to rewrite his will back to what it had been, but…”
“Back?” I echoed.
“Originally, your grandfather had intended to split his shares of the company between the four of you. The same with the estate. He had provisions in place in case you wanted to change some things around. Buy out each other’s shares, or various parts of the estate.”
That made sense. I doubted my brothers would want the house, and they might not even want their shares in the company. At least I knew they wouldn’t have a problem with me running things. None of them had said a word when Grandfather had appointed me the CEO. I’d been the only one who’d even wanted to work there in the first place. They all had different interests. Business was the only thing I’d ever wanted to do. The only thing I’d ever been good at.
“He always knew us well enough to know we liked different things,” I said.
One of my brothers made a sound like a smothered laugh, but I didn’t look to see who it was. Ms. K, however, glared to my right, so I assumed it had been Blake.
“He did,” she said. “And he loved the four of you very much.”
“Ms. K, you said this was an urgent matter,” Cai spoke up. “I don’t think offering up platitudes requires urgency.”
Leave it to Cai to say it flat-out like that. He’d never had any tact. Grandfather had always said it was a good thing Cai had gone into a medical field that didn’t require subtlety. He would’ve been shit at doing what I did. Business dealings like mine required both strength and diplomacy.
Ms. K gave him a sharp look. “Is saying how much your grandfather loved you a platitude?”
“No,” Cai agreed. “But that’s personal, and this is business.”
She flinched, and I was tempted to turn around and smack my kid brother upside the back of his head like I had when we were kids, and he’d said something stupid. Couldn’t he see how upset she was? Hadn’t they realized that her relationship with Grandfather had been more than professional?
“I think what my brother’s trying to say is that we’d like to hear what you needed to talk to us about so that we won’t have it weighing on our minds during the funeral.” Slade cut into the conversation with his usu
al mellow tone.
He did that a lot. Inserted himself into situations that were tense and either said something funny, or like now, something that gave a simple explanation and diffused the tension.
“I don’t see why everyone’s being so damn polite,” Blake muttered under his breath. “None of us are any other time.”
Ms. K shuffled a couple papers on the desk, her cheeks pink.
“Let’s just get this over with, okay?” I said. “I’m sure you’d like to be alone.”
Her eyes met mine briefly, and I saw her gratitude in them. I wondered again how little I must’ve been paying attention if I hadn’t known about her relationship with Grandfather.
“As I was saying.” Her voice was stronger than it had been. “He’d hoped to have the will changed back, but because he hadn’t, it stands as is.”
“What does that mean?” Cai asked.
“Did he write us all out?” Blake slid his eyes toward me. “Or everyone but Jax?”
“He didn’t write any of you out,” Ms. K said. She seemed to have regained her composure and handled the interruptions easily. “It’s not the division of the estate that’s changed, but rather the stipulations that come along with it.”
“Stipulations?” Blake snorted a laugh. “Figures the old man would set up rules we have to follow to get an inheritance we would’ve gotten from our dad anyway.”
And the tension was back.
“He can keep it,” Blake continued. “I don’t need his money.”
I turned as I heard him move, catching him in the middle of standing up.
“Sit down, Blake.” I didn’t shout, but I used the same tone on him that I’d used when he was a kid. To my surprise, he stopped, glared at me, and then sat back down. “Let’s hear her out.”
“Whatever,” he muttered, crossing his arms.
After a beat, Ms. K continued with her explanation.
“Your grandfather didn’t make a list of rules for you to follow.” She almost sounded scandalized by the idea. “He wasn’t like that.”
I could think of plenty of times in my life he’d been exactly like that, and I knew my brothers could too. I didn’t say anything though, and they’d apparently either learned their lesson about interrupting or decided it wasn’t worth the time it would take.
“What he wanted was for you to resolve your differences.”
I waited for the punch line because there had to be one. There was no way that our grandfather would’ve made that a condition.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I finally asked.
“It means that he was aware that the four of you had problems with each other, and he didn’t want you to go through the rest of your lives staying mad at each other.” She paused, and then added, “Everything will be held in trust until such time as I can say that you’re reconciled.”
“What, exactly, does that mean?” I asked slowly. “For the business.”
“It means that, until your grandfather’s shares are distributed, no one really has majority shares in the company since the four of you have an equal number of shares.”
“That could seriously fuck up the business.” I leaned forward, forcing my voice to stay low. “I can’t see Grandfather doing that. Hunter Enterprises is everything – was everything – to him.”
“He made a provision,” she said, “that if you were working on reconciliation, there’s a temporary grant of ownership that will allow you to still oversee the day-to-day workings of the company.”
Okay, that was something.
She stood. “I’m going to step out for a few minutes, let you talk.”
She didn’t say anything else as she left us alone, silence filling the room. I didn’t look at them, but I knew they were doing the same thing I was doing. Waiting for someone else to say something.
“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” I finally said. “Just because we’re brothers doesn’t mean we have to be best friends. We just drifted apart. Siblings do it all the time.”
“You would think that,” Blake muttered.
I turned to look at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, his expression mutinous as he got up. “I don’t expect you to get it.”
The three of us watched as he stormed out, looking, even at twenty-eight, like the little boy who used to get so angry when told it was time for bed. I looked at Slade and then at Cai, wondering if either one of them thought this was necessary.
“I need to call in,” Cai said. “I said I would as soon as I knew more about the arrangements.”
As he walked out, he was reciting a list under his breath, something that consisted of lots of scientific words I didn’t understand.
Slade gave me a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “What do you say we figure out what it is we have to say to each other to get this taken care of? Then we can go back to our regular lives and never have to think about each other except to mail Christmas cards.” He stood. “It seems pretty clear that’s what everyone wants.”
As he left, I wondered about what he said. Was that what he thought?
Was it what I thought?
Was it what I wanted?
And, more importantly, did it even matter anymore?
Twenty-Four
Syll
It was a slow Tuesday night, but that was good. It meant that I didn’t have to feel guilty about telling Ariene not to come in. Gilly was able to handle things without any problems, and it made for a more peaceful work environment. I hadn’t told her about what happened yet, but she was smart. Plus, she’d already suspected what Billy had been up to with Ariene. I had a feeling that if she saw me with Ariene, she’d figure it out. I planned on telling her later tonight when she’d have to decide between going home at a fairly decent hour and going over to Ariene’s and bitch-slapping her, then going to Billy’s and bitch-slapping him.
Right now, however, I was busy training Doug. Doug was my new bartender. He’d never done it before, but he assured me he’d drunk at least half of the drinks we served. He looked and sounded like the stereotype of a frat boy. Which basically meant he was good-looking and not-too-bright but loved to have fun.
I just hoped he could do more than smile at me and nod. For the last fifteen minutes, that’s all he’d been doing.
It was better than what everyone else was doing when they saw me though. I’d put on more makeup than I’d ever worn before, doing my best to hide what that guy had done to me, but my left eye was still swollen almost completely shut, and no amount of foundation could fix that. Only a few customers had asked about it, but they’d seemed to accept my story about how I’d taken a tumble down the stairs.
Gilly would see right through that though. The bar was just one story.
Which was why I’d been keeping my distance, using training Doug as an excuse. But now we were closing in on the end of what I could reasonably call training. I’d gone through all the nit-picking stuff, and he’d watched me make drinks for the past three hours. Now, it was time for him to start mixing. I’d keep watching him, but things were slow enough that Gilly would want to talk to me. I just had to decide what I wanted to tell her.
“All right, time’s up.” Gilly’s voice came from behind me.
“What do you mean?” I asked without turning around.
“I’ve given you space because you clearly don’t want to talk about whatever’s got you moving around like that.”
I closed my eyes. Shit. I should’ve known she would’ve already figured out that something was up.
“You need to talk to me, Syll.”
I took a slow breath, but not a deep one because my ribs still hurt like hell, and then I turned around.
Gilly let loose with a string of curses that had half the bar staring at her. She came around the bar, ignoring the looks she was getting. “What the fuck happened?”
What the hell. Might as well give the excuse a try. “I fell.”
“It wasn’t Billy,” I said. “Someone broke into the bar and beat me up.”
“Like hell. You think I didn’t notice who’s not here right now? Ariene. And now that I see you, and no Billy anywhere in sight, I think the shit hit the fan.”
I sighed and pressed my fingers to my temples. “I told Ariene she didn’t need to be here.”
Gilly leaned one hip against the bar and folded her arms. “If you’d said that without gritting your teeth, I might’ve believed you. Now, spill.”
“I’m telling the truth about this.” I gestured to my face. “The guy came in, beat me up and threatened me. He told me to…make wise choices.” I decided that leaving out the part about Jax wasn’t lying. It wasn’t relevant. “Billy didn’t hurt me. In fact, he found me after it happened.”
“Why the hell aren’t you at the hospital? They couldn’t have let you go so soon, not when the police are involved…fuck. You didn’t call the cops, did you?”
I shook my head, swallowing a wince at the pain. “I can’t afford to lose any more business. If I called them, they’d consider the bar a crime scene again, and I’d lose even more business.”
A different sort of concern crossed her face. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“A lot,” I admitted. “Some because I didn’t want you to worry, but some because I didn’t want to hear you say I told you so.”
“What would I – that fucking piece of shit!” She straightened. “That fucking bastard!”
“Keep your voice down,” I warned. “This isn’t something I want the whole world to hear, okay?”
She kept going with the insults, but at least she lowered her voice.
“You were right. He was cheating on me with Ariene, and it’s been going on for months. And I don’t think it’s the first time he’s done it.”
She reached out to touch my left arm, then glanced at my face, and switched to the right arm. She squeezed my shoulder.
