Page 133 of Broken Brothers

“Deal,” I said, moving past Morgan and into my bedroom.

I plopped onto the bed and was half a second from falling asleep in my clothes when my phone buzzed. I looked down and saw that Sarah had messaged me again. Deciding there was no harm to answering, I looked.

It was either the best decision I made all night or the one that would keep me up, because she had sent me a classy nude that had her face hidden and her groin covering her legs but had her breasts for my entire eyes to see.

“Oh, damn,” I said.

“Your turn,” she wrote back.

Well, damn, what was I supposed to do at that point? I wasn’t going to deny a lady a fair trade, most especially a fair trade like this.

Still, I wasn’t quite ready to send a dick photo on Facebook, not with everything going on. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t take a conveniently placed photo of my naked body.

And so, stripping down, I posed in front of the mirror, taking care to just tilt my front leg forward enough to hide my hardening cock. I snapped the photo, examined it carefully to make sure nothing of my junk showed up, and smiled. I may have had a lot of shit in my life, but I took damn good care of my body, and it showed. Sarah would thoroughly enjoy what I had to offer.

I clicked send and sent a kissy emoji—which was rather unlike me, but it only seemed appropriate.

“Mmm,” she wrote back. “Can’t wait to take advantage of that.”

I laughed, but fatigue was now really getting to me. I wrote back, “And the same to you ;-)” and before I could write anything else, I passed out naked on my bed, not even making it under the covers.

54

Iwoke up to a couple of missed phone calls from the previous night, and as soon as I saw the number, I hated myself. I knew I had missed something critical from Andrew Patel, or, in other words, the one client MCH had left in its pocket.

It was 9 a.m., which meant that it was already too early to call. I shot him a text message saying I was sorry to have missed his call but could talk at anytime. After I finished sending the message, I went to my Facebook to see if Sarah had said anything in response to my last message.

Surprisingly, she had not. In fact, she looked like she hadn’t even logged on since our conversation. I chalked it up to her having her own plans, but it was kind of weird. Maybe her phone had died, or maybe the image of my naked body had so aroused her that she could barely contain herself and would have to save the photo for later.

Well, that was kind of wishful thinking and probably a little cocky on my part. But hey, it was Sarah Hill—whatever you believed about her, you had to believe to the fullest. For a girl as attractive as her, I had to do it.

But the illusion that life was good ended as soon as I closed out Facebook. I wasn’t hungover, but I had a tinge of a headache and general weariness associated with having drank the night before. I just didn’t have much desire to do anything, even though Morgan was likely in the kitchen already at work. In an ideal world, he’d have someone lined up to go talk to to replace Rising Sun, but our world was anything but ideal.

I had no women in my life anymore. I’d pushed Layla away by circumstances arising at the worst time, and Claire had pushed me away after her business had crumbled. All of that could be attributed to…

I didn’t even want to think his name, I thought of it so damn much. I just wanted a day without the name “Edwin” crossing my mind once, but such an occasion was at least years away, if not impossible to achieve.

My next step was decided for me, though, when my phone started to ring. I grabbed it, saw Andrew calling, sighed, and answered.

“Hey, bud, how are you?”

My voice sounded far groggier than I had hoped. I tried my best not to sound too annoyed with myself, but as usual, I wore my emotions on my sleeve and had very little in the way of subtlety.

“I’m, I’m good, thank you Chance,” Andrew said, a bit nervous as he usually was. “You sound sick, are you OK?”

Sick? I hope he’s being sincere. I hope he’s not being sarcastic. If he’s being sarcastic I do deserve it, but goddamn I can’t handle yet another person hating on me now.

“I’ve had a long couple of days, that’s for sure, but nothing unbearable,” I said, collecting myself. “Why? What’s going on?”

“Oh, well, I thought we were going to talk strategy last night.”

Oh. Oh, fuck me. We were. And I just ditched…

Sex really is killing my business life. The pursuit of it is, at least. I need to stop. I wouldn’t have missed it if I wasn’t a horndog for Layla.

“My bad, I’m sorry, I know this is the second time, it won’t happen again,” I said, but I knew my words rang somewhat hollow. I could only say so much before Andrew would just simply find a way to negotiate our ownership stake to lower—and the worst part was, because Andrew was kind of passive, he wouldn’t approach me about it first. It would just happen and then I’d be in a world of hurt.

“OK, well, that’s good,” he said, which almost drew a laugh from me. It wasn’t good. Nothing about this was good. “Anyways, is now a good time to talk?”