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I slap him on the back. “I love having you here, bro.” Leaning toward him, I peek at the girl again. “But it doesn't make me want to get my dick wet any less.”
He barks out a laugh and shakes his head, taking another swig of his beer. “You really are a pervert.”
Truer words have never been spoken.
I take a drink of my beer and check her out again, but she’s leaning over the table, engrossed in a deep conversation with her friend, both of them smiling and laughing conspiratorially.
Coen issues a deep sigh. “You know what? I don't get you sometimes, but I envy you.”
His words make me pause with the bottle halfway to my mouth. “What? Why? Because I get so much pussy?”
The corner of his mouth quirks into a lopsided half-smile. “Well, that, and because you know who you are. What you want to do. You have your whole life mapped out.”
Sipping on my beer, I consider his words. I don’t get laid nearly as much as he imagines. Between classes, interning for the Center for Wrongful Convictions, and clerking at the local firm to get some real experience, it doesn’t leave much time for the extracurricular activities I would love to enjoy more often with girls like the redhead.
Though it probably does seem like that to someone on the outside looking at me—that my life is all meaningless sex and success after success in school—but he has no idea the pressure that’s been put on me. He can’t possibly fathom the expectations that weigh on my shoulders every day of my life and threaten to drop me to my knees at times.
Being the eldest male of the Hawke children means things have been laid out for me, demands made from a young age. Everyone expects me to succeed, to become Dad’s right hand and help manage the Hawke empire in the legal arena, help it grow, and protect it from all threats.
Easier said than done.
But at least when everything is already planned for you, it removes having to make certain decisions. I can see how Coen might envy that from where he sits.
I nod slowly, trying to figure out how to say what I want to, how to explain it to him in a way he can understand. “I guess I do have my life mapped out. I’ve always known I wanted to go to law school and work with Dad, but I'm not so sure that makes me lucky or gives you any reason to envy me.” Water trickles down the brown bottle in my hand, and I brush my thumb across it absently. “I’ll never know if wanting to be an attorney was actually my choice and what I really wanted or whether I only wanted it because it’s what I was raised to do because Dad always brought me to the office with him and it’s what I saw every day growing up. It meant I was always very focused on one thing, which didn’t leave room for other possibilities. It gave me tunnel vision.”
“But still…” Coen fiddles with his beer label, suddenly looking every bit my baby brother and not the adult he now is. “I'm twenty-one, almost twenty-two, and I still haven't figured out what I want to do with my life. I don’t want to work for Uncle Savage and Uncle Gabe forever.”
No one does.
We all love them to death, but it only seems the older and grayer they get, the more demanding and intolerant to change they become. It makes keeping all the family businesses running at full speed difficult, something Kennedy laments every time I talk with her. She undoubtedly has ranted to Coen about her feelings the same way when he’s around. It can’t put him in a great mindset about working for the family forever to see our cousin so stressed out and frustrated in her role, especially when she’s still so young and has so much responsibility already.
“You're still young, Coen; you'll figure it out. In the meantime…” I pull my keys from my pocket and hand them to him. “Head back to my place. I'm going to go talk to the redhead.”
He smirks. “You're ditching me?”
“I'll be home in New Orleans permanently in two days. You're going to see plenty of me. So much that you’ll probably get sick of me.”
Coen examines the keys. “You're not going to try to bring the redhead back to your place tonight?”
I bark out a laugh and shake my head, tossing a couple twenties on the bar for our drinks. “No. Having your little brother hanging out at your condo kind of kills the mood.”
“Gee, sorry I'm cock-blocking you.”
I lean toward him and nudge his shoulder with mine. “You're not cock-blocking anything.” I pull out my phone and swipe the screen. “I'm texting my friend, who is a concierge at the Palmer House. He'll have a room ready and waiting for me when I get her out of here.”
“When?” Coen raises his brows. “Don't you mean if?”
I peek over my shoulder at her and meet her amber gaze again. “There is no if.”
“Christ”—he releases a heavy laugh, pushing to his feet—“you’re a dick.”
Grinning at him, I waggle my eyebrows. “That may be, but I’m a dick who's going to spend some time with a beautiful woman tonight. Unlike you.”
Coen shakes his head, smirking. “Asshole.”
I push off from the bar, nudging the stool back, so I can slide out and move toward the redhead who now stands alone at the high-top, her back to me while she types on her phone. Her friend seems to have vanished while I was talking with Coen. I wave to Coen before he steps out the front door, and I approach the girl slowly so as not to startle her when she’s so fully engrossed in whatever she’s doing.
“Your friend abandoned you?”
