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“What makes them so intense?”

“Bryce is a hard-ass. He’s been known to be cold and abrupt. Work is his life, but that’s not what makes him intense. He’s this hopeless romantic at heart, and he tries to cover it up. I know he planned for a different life than the one he was dealt.” His hands rise inside my shirt as he runs his fingers up the sides of my ribs. “Austin is the playboy. He drinks too much and parades around town like he doesn’t care about a thing. Truth is, he’s a runner. Ever since Mom died, he’s been trying to get away. First, to college and then to the military. Now, he street races.” His hands stop as if he’s recalling something. “I always thought he raced because he needed an outlet away from his responsibilities at work. Now, I wonder if there’s more to Austin. Something else that makes him tick.”

“But he’s happy now. With the girl?”

“Yeah. Last time I spoke with him, he mentioned this girl, Jalynn. I knew she meant something.”

“That’s great.”

“She’s Bryce’s assistant, so we’ll see how great it is.”

My mouth opens up in surprise. “So, if Bryce is the hopeless romantic and Austin is a playboy, then what are you?” I smile as I eye him in question.

“I’m the baby,” he says, unhappy with the term. “Since I was so young when Mom died, everyone went out of their way to protect me. First, it was from the details of her death, then it was the business, and now, with Austin. I know Bryce is excited for me to come back and work beside him. I just have this feeling that, no matter how hard I perform, they’re always going to look at me like the baby of the family.”

There it is. The crux to Tanner Sexton’s life.

“You are the youngest brother. If they talk or act that way around you, it’s probably because they don’t know any other way. You’ll just have to show them you’ve grown up.”

“I guess. It just gets to me because they act like they have their shit together. Meanwhile, the two of them are so far off track that they need me to help them keep from losing their cool. Bryce is always angry about something, and apparently, he took a woman—the first in years, mind you—away for a weekend, but I bet he fucked it up. Because that’s what he does. He self-sabotages. And Austin can’t keep himself on the right side of the law with his racing. There’s still a lot of hurt in him—either from my mom’s death or what he saw when he fought in Afghanistan or both. And yet, when shit gets heavy, they baby-brother me.”

I smash my lips together and tilt my head to the side. “I love you, but you don’t exactly have your shit together. You’re an illegal graffiti artist who paints abandoned buildings by night, and you take college courses even though you could have graduated months ago just so you can stay in New York a little longer.”

The shock in his eyes is almost charming. “You caught on to that?”

“You’re not ready to go back home yet. And I’m glad because, if you’d left last spring, I wouldn’t have met you.” I kiss the corner of his self-deprecating smile. It’s the same one on the woman whose picture he was drawing. “Tell me about your mom.”

His eyes glisten. “She was the most amazing woman anyone had ever met. She loved us boys so fiercely and fairly; I honestly don’t know how she did it. She worked hard to provide for us and give us the life we have today. Her death was shocking for the entire community, but it hit the three of us differently.”

“How so?”

“Bryce was supposed to be a photojournalist, traveling the world with his girlfriend. He gave up his passion and the girl to stay in California and step into my mom’s role at the company. Austin went to college and chose to drink his four years away.”

“What about your dad?”

With the pinch of his brows and his lips pursed, he stares off into space a moment.

“I saw exactly just how affected he was by her death. He put on a good show for everyone in public, but in private, I knew quickly that something wasn’t right. He was more mad than sad. Annoyed even, like her dying was an inconvenience.” He shrugs, like he has no control over any of it. “When we went to the lawyer’s office to read my mother’s will, he was livid that my mom had updated her will. My father only got half of the company. It’s been a bone of contention in our family.”

“Who owns the other half?”

“Me and my brothers. When my mother died, we inherited her shares. My father recently gave half of his shares to Missy. Sorry, it’s confusing, I know.” His teeth skim his lip as he thinks. “Bryce and Austin are pissed.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to really know what’s going on, being all the way over here. They’re more apt to tell me what to do. Not ask my advice.”

There’s a brief pause in the conversation as we sit in silence, and I take in everything I just learned. Being an only child, I don’t know what it’s like to have a sibling, let alone two of them.

“You’ve never actually told me what the family business is.”

“We own a media company. Some newspapers and online stuff,” he says nonchalantly.

That can’t be very beneficial. The newspaper business is dying. Even I get all the news I need from FoxNews.com and CNN.com. I mean, unless they own News of the World, but he’s obviously not Rupert Murdoch.

“What are you going to do there?”

“President of Marketing and Advertising, so it’s actually very creative, and I’ll be using a lot of my degree.” He turns his head, staring into my eyes, running through thoughts in his head.