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Zack made a mental note to ask about that tab before he left town. He could pay it off without saying anything and then slip away before Cooper found out. He didn’t know Cooper’s financial situation, but he knew his own. He could afford to help a brother.
“I don’t mind buying my older brother a beer,” Cooper said. “And how about we share a pizza? I’m getting hungry, too.”
The Winslow boys loved pizza. Zack wasn’t turning down that offer.
When the pizza came out of the kitchen, piping hot and smelling delicious, the three of them sat down in an unoccupied booth away from the other patrons. Tate had another employee watch the bar, although the young man looked incredibly bored and uninterested in his job.
“Is it tough to get good help?” Zack asked, nodding to the bartender who was now scrolling on his phone.
“The worst,” Tate groaned. “I sound like an old fart when I say this, but man, kids these days only care about their phones. When I was twenty-one, all I cared about was girls and beer. And football. That’s it.”
“Kids aren’t so bad. Every generation complains about the next one,” Cooper said, biting into his pizza.
“Says the man that doesn’t have any kids, and never spends any time with them,” Tate replied. “When are you going to get married and have kids, anyway? Doesn’t Dad bother you about that? Because he’s driving me crazy. I swear it’s the only topic he has these days.”
“He’s worried about his legacy,” Cooper said. “None of his children have given him grandchildren and he doesn’t want the Winslow name to die out. Or some bullshit like that. We’re not fucking royalty. Who cares if the Winslow line dies out? Maybe it should.”
“It’s not an accident that none of us are settled down and happily married,” Zack pointed out. “Let’s face it, we didn’t exactly have a good example growing up. I would never have said that Mom and Dad were happily married. I remember them arguing, and Mom crying.”
“We all heard it. Except for Sam. Apparently, he didn’t hear anything. He thinks Dad is normal.”
Zack didn’t think that was the case at all. Sam knew that Joel Winslow was an asshole. He worked for him, after all, every day. At this point, Zack would have lost his mind, but Sam had more patience than anyone on the planet to deal with Joel on a daily basis.
Zack had his theories, and not one of them was that Sam believed in his father. But Sam wasn’t going to be confiding in Zack. Somehow, the two of them simply never seemed to get on.
He knew one thing for sure, though. Sam Winslow was smart as hell, and just might be playing chess when everyone else was playing checkers.
The pizza was half gone when Tate brought up the wedding again.
“So you’re not going?” he asked Cooper. “I thought I’d convinced you last week.”
“I thought about it and decided you were wrong,” Cooper said with a wicked grin. “As you so often are. Besides, Dad doesn’t give a shit if I’m at the wedding. Or you or Sam or Frankie and Piper. He only cares that Zack is there. That’s it.”
Zack shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He couldn’t deny what Cooper was saying.
And that pissed him off.
He’d never asked for the position as the “favorite” of Joel Winslow. If anything, he’d ignored his father’s wishes, deliberately going to university in the east and taking the Wall Street job. Every year Joel would ask when Zack was going to join the family financial firm, and Zack would give the same answer.
Never.
He might be unemployed, but he still wasn’t going to. That was a circle of hell he wasn’t anxious to visit.
Tate’s attention swung to Zack.
“You’re going to be there, right? You are going?”
“I am, but I’m not happy about it. I’m here mainly because of familial guilt. I don’t support this marriage any more than any of you do. Which I pretty much said to Dad right before I came here.”
“And he didn’t care,” Cooper laughed. “You can do no wrong in our old man’s eyes.”
“Believe me, I’m not trying to be the favorite.”
“But you are,” Tate replied with a shrug. “We’ve all made our peace with it. Except you, of course. You hate it with a passion. It’s kind of amusing to watch from the sidelines.”
“Glad we could entertain you,” Zack shot back. “Seriously, I don’t want to be the favorite. Why can’t Sam be the favorite? Or you? Or you, Cooper?”
“There is no way I would ever be the favorite,” Cooper said. “Dad thinks I’m going to hell. He’s not sure exactly why I’m headed there, but he’s positive that’s the direction I’m going. You should have seen his face when I told him I was divorced. He was almost apoplectic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that mad. He said that Winslows don’t get divorced.”
