Page 24 of Broken Brothers

“Sure seems that way, huh,” Morgan said. “Mom’s gonna be so mad. Dad’s just… whatever.”

I didn’t bother to say anything else. Even with my work on Tracy over the last couple of years, Morgan had won her heart and procured her between the sheets. But her father and our father had had a falling out, making Tracy’s appearance that much less frequent, if not soon all together eliminated.

I hated that Morgan had won that battle for the redhead’s love. He won as always and, as usual, he didn’t understand why that would aggravate the hell out of me. The privilege that boy had, I fucking swear… but he was my brother all the same. As long as I had the last name Hunt and as long as Morgan treated me as a brother should, I knew some things guys just did not violate. Mocking them for their lost love was not one of them.

“You know,” I said, a thought occurring to me with a laugh. “We could have just called the number and seen who it was.”

“Would’ve saved us some scars, huh,” Morgan said. “Yeah, sure.”

“I’ll call,” I said, preempting Morgan from doing anything. I needed some victories here and there.

I whipped out my phone, dialed the number, and listened to the ring tone.

“Hello, Chance,” Elizabeth’s sexy voice said on the other line. “I was thinking about you the other day.”

“I was thinking—”

“I’m sorry, Kate?”

“Morgan?”

The two of us looked at each other in shock. I looked back at the phone and saw that “Elizabeth” or “Kate” or whatever the hell her real name was had hung up. I looked back at Morgan, and we did the only thing we could think of.

We laughed our asses off.

That girl had played us like a fiddle, making us compete for her affection, going so far as to give us separate names. We didn’t even know we were competing with each other, though we both knew other guys were in the picture. Her flaw was not realizing we would speak so closely.

In some ways, it was kind of remarkable how effectively she had controlled us. I had very little choice but to admire her daring and audacity to control us. But, fortunately, we’d emerged on the other side.

“I told you, girls suck,” I said, laughing. “I told you that four years ago.”

“It’s hard to argue with that now,” Morgan said.

“Let’s make a deal. No matter what, we’ll never let a woman get between us. Ever. Deal?”

“I don’t think we’ll ever have a woman give fake names to two of us and then have us compete quite like this again, but I get what you’re saying. You’re my brother, Chance, and family matters more than anything else. Deal.”

We shook hands, a rather stark contrast to what we had used our hands for literally less than two minutes prior.

“I’m sorry for throwing a punch,” Morgan said. “My dad… he just fucked things up for me with Tracy.”

“It’s all good,” I said, and feeling unhinged, I said something that thankfully would not yet come back to bite me. “The old man’s kind of a douche anyways. Let’s just take over the company together in two years.”

We laughed once more, brothers and boys making up and bonding instead of conflicting. Truth be told, I hated the idea of taking over Hunt Industries. I still wanted to make my own name.

But having to share the name I had with Morgan was all right. It was just fine. It was one part of the Hunt name that I relished, one of the few such features.

Present Day

Once more,Layla seemed to have perfected the art of teasing me sexually and then disappearing for a period of time. At least this time, she had made me come, it had only been a few days, not a whole week, since I’d seen her, and I knew what to expect. I knew I’d see Layla again, if for no other reason than that her family business had deals it had to finish with Burnson Investments.

I looked at the clock and saw that it was 12 p.m. As usual, I would head out for my lunch break, but today brought something unusual—a meet-up with Morgan.

Ever since we had taken jobs after graduating from Columbia and he had gone back to Hunt Industries and I to Burnson Investments, our interaction had taken a backseat to work. We’d seen each other maybe twice in the last two months, a stark contrast to our upbringing.

Still, nevertheless, I loved Morgan and he loved me, not like a brother but as a brother, and so I had no qualms putting in something for him.

When I saw him at the sandwich shop, we exchanged hugs, quickly ordered our food, and got right down to our business discussions.