AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Odd.”
“Yup. Anyway, what’s on the agenda for the weekend?”
“I need a break.”
Greer laughed. “Don’t we all, brother.” He gripped my shoulder, giving me a gentle shake. “If you wanted a break, we should have hopped on the Altair jet and hightailed it out of here.”
My shoulders slumped. I needed the break. I couldn’t take it though. “I have too much going on.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not yet.”
“When you do, you know where I am.” With that, Greer walked off with his beer, leaving me the only one standing in the expansive kitchen. I didn’t move for a solid five minutes. The money the company needed to climb out of its hole was a weight on my shoulders, keeping my feet rooted.
Millions. That was what it would take to at least get us back to steady ground. Not ahead. Level. I didn’t want a loan. I wanted a solution, a way to make money for years to come.
If our patents were licensed properly, we’d have more money funneling in that way. If our R&D team stopped trying to make shit for sedans, we’d be able to produce new products. If my dad hadn’t made it so I couldn’t move money from one business to another, I could handle this myself.
I reached into the laptop bag slung over my shoulder, found one of the pencils Dominic kept there, and snapped it in half just for something to take my frustration out on. I wouldn’t be surprised if he lit up my phone to inform me he knew of the crime I’d committed.
The pencil flew from my fingers as I launched it across the breakfast nook. It clattered against the windows and fell to the ground.
PJS was sinking instead of thriving and it scared the ever-loving shit out of me.
Greer appeared again and leaned against the doorway. “You need to get laid.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “When the hell do I have time to find someone to sleep with?”
“There are services.”
“Fuck you, Greer. I’m not hiring a woman to join me in bed.”
“You need to do something. You’re strung so tight you’re about to combust. And Pey’s walking around like the Hulk looking for something to smash.”
I frowned. “He is not.”
“Okay.” He rolled his eyes. “If you think I don’t know my brother, then I question where you’ve been all our lives.”
“I have a company to run. People who depend on me. I’m not watching Pey every second.” That reminded me… “He got scared by a spider earlier today. He was so pale, I thought he saw a ghost.”
“Peyton’s not afraid of spiders. Don’t you remember the summer we had them in the house and he kept killing them, but they kept finding ways inside. He refused to call an exterminator. He went around to every possible crack on the exterior and sealed them.”
“He spent a week doing it.”
“Yup.”
“Then why was he scared today?”
“You’d have to ask him.” Greer took a drink from his bottle, swirling the remainder around the bottom. “Either way, something’s going on with you and him. Hopefully, you both can work your separate shit out this weekend. If not, it’s going to be a long week ahead of you.”
I was the worst friend ever. I noticed Peyton was off today, but I chalked it up to the spider, which in hindsight, was ridiculous. Greer was right. Peyton wasn’t afraid of them. The only thing that scared him was someone he loved getting hurt or worse, killed. Did he know something I didn’t?
I dropped my bag on the counter, and went in search of my best friend. He wasn’t in his bedroom, though his clothes were scattered on the floor, which meant one place.
Descending two flights of stairs, I found him in their basement gym, beating the hell out of a heavy bag. There were no gloves on his hands, and they weren’t taped. Peyton hit the bag like it had personally offended him.
“Hey,” I said when I walked over, noticing the blood on the bag and his split knuckles. How long and how hard was he doing this that he was already bleeding? “Pey.”
