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With this thought came an overwhelming rush of adrenaline.
Screw planning. Screw doing things the right way.
I deserve this.
I looked up at my friends and smiled at them. “All right,” I said. “I’m in. Hawaii, here we come!”
ChapterTwo
DAVID
“Kyle wants to go get drinksagain?”
Matt and I were getting ready in our suite at the seaside resort in Waikiki, while our younger brother, Adam, was sitting on the bed complaining and popping two ibuprofens into his mouth. “I just don’t get it, I mean he’s your age right?” Adam looked at me. “How can he keep up like this? I’ve been drinking with the guy for two nights in a row and I’m done.”
“That’s your problem,” I told him. “You can’t try to drink like Kyle when you’re out with Kyle because…” Matt and I shared a look and spoke at the same time. “Becauseno onecan drink like Kyle.”
“The man’s a machine,” Matt said. Matt and I were in a frat with Kyle back in college, and I think we were both still a little shocked that the kid whom we used to call ‘The Beer King’ was getting married. And to a nice girl, no less. A woman, I should say, who had a high-paying job, a sweet smile, and who was, for reasons I didn’t fully understand, completely in love with my idiot best friend, Kyle.
“Matt, I saw you drinking quite a bit last night,” Adam said. “How are you not like totally wiped? You didn’t go up to your room until like 3 am!”
Matt shook his head. “I’m a single dad who works full time,” he said. “You have no idea what exhaustion feels like, my friend. Do you know how many times Will kept me up until 3 am, when he was a baby or when he would get sick as a kid, and then I’d have to be up bright and early at 6 am to get him ready for school before heading into work? Trust me, it takes a lot more than a late-night of drinking to knock me down.”
I smiled at my younger brothers, then looked at the younger of the two. “Word of advice,” I said, putting a hand on Adam’s back. “Take it easy tonight. For every three drinks Kyle has, you have one. That’s the only way you’ll make it through.”
“He can’t possibly go as hard as he’s been going,” Adam said. “Not tonight. The wedding istomorrow.”
Matt laughed. “Even more reason for him to drink. It’s his last night of freedom.”
I frowned. “Nah man, that’s not how Kyle sees it. I talked to him at breakfast this morning, and believe it or not, that man is so excited to be married. He was even talking about having kids. I think this is going to make him happy.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll just see about that.”
Matt was a little bitter having been married once before himself, so I decided to change the subject before I reminded him too much of the short, but tumultuous time he spent as a wedded man. “Let’s get down to the lobby,” I said, looking at my phone. “Ezra and Jeremy are waiting for us.”
“One drink for every three Kyle has,” Adam repeated to himself as he stood up and headed for the door. “That’s the rule.”
“The good thing is,” I said as we walked down the hallway towards the elevator. “This luau is on the beach at this resort, so we don’t have to go anywhere. If you do drink too much, it’s just a short elevator ride up to your room.”
We got in the elevator and I hit the button, but then I heard a high-pitched voice calling to us. “Hold it!” I saw a tall woman with fiery red hair waving from the door at the end of the hallway. “C’mon, Lily!” she said to someone I couldn’t see. “We’re going to miss the—”
The doors began to close, and I tried to push the button that would keep the doors open, but I ended up pressing the wrong one and the doors closed immediately. Matt laughed and glanced at me over his shoulder. “Nice one,” he said.
“I didn’t mean to,” I said. “But it didn’t look like that girl’s friend was coming out any time soon anyway, so whatever. They can catch the next one.”
“Are you this polite to all the ladies?” Matt joked. “Or just the cute ones?”
Adam nodded. “Yeah man, really, no wonder you’re single.”
I gave Adam a light shove but then grinned. “Hey, no better place to be single than a wedding, right?”
Matt raised a brow at me. “Who are you and what have you done with my uptight brother? Really—I thought you’d be spending this whole trip holed up in your room working and checking your email, making sure you didn’t miss a single call from dad.”
“Nope,” I said with a casual shake of my head. “Dad has made it abundantly clear that he is capable of running Becker Technologies far more effectively than I can, so I might as well let him go for it.”
“But you’re the CEO,” Adam said as if I was unaware of my professional title. “Technically, it’syourcompany.”
“I know that,” I said. “And I plan on making sure dad knows that too. Once I get back to San Francisco. But for now, I have all my brothers here, and the drinks are being paid for, so as far as I’m concerned, our father and Becker Technologies do not even exist. Until Monday morning, that is.”
