Page 47 of Broken Brothers

It’s too bad it seems like he’s one in a billion of a different kind.

I hailed the cab and gave the directions to Burnson Investments. My only hope, my only prayer for today was that everyone else was equally hungover and just wanted to avoid me. I could handle being yelled at and criticized on Monday. But I just prayed I at least got until then—the idea of adding insult to my own injuries today was just too much.

At first, when I walked in the office, it seemed I got my wish. I got death glares, quick glances away, and all the other tell-tale signs of an ostracized employee, but I kind of liked being ostracized. I could go into my little office, throw my little bundled up ball, and kill time until 5 p.m.

Unfortunately, one man was waiting for me to intercept that plan. And it was the worst man possible.

“So you decided to show your goddamn face,” John Burnson said. He at least had the decency to shut the door behind him when I walked in. “I should’ve known better. Let a goddamn intern take the reins on an investment deal like this. What the fuck was I thinking? No, better yet, what the fuck were you thinking? Don’t answer that, it doesn’t matter.”

Thank God. The less I have to talk, the better.

Burnson ranted like this for what felt like a good ten minutes, explicitly stating multiple times not to talk. I’m not sure if heever realized how happy I was to acquiesce to that request, but it didn’t stop him from talking.

Unfortunately, what came at the end was too scathing for me to feel anything other than shame.

“This will stick with you for the duration of your career, Chance Hunt,” he said. “You will remain aninternfor as long as you are here. You will never, ever, ever work any higher up. You made me look like a daggum moron out there, and if there’s one thing in life I do not take, it is humiliation. You will do nothing more, NOTHING MORE, than clean my office and supply our staff with coffee as they request it. Absolutely. Positively. Nothing. Clear?”

I nodded. It was the only thing I had done besides listen, but it was the only thing I could really muster at that point. All of my dreams, all of my ambitions, all of my hopes… gone. Taken.

Because I couldn’t think with my mind instead of my dick.

Because I trusted when I knew better.

Because I couldn’t compartmentalize business and love.

Fuckin’ Layla.

And the worst part of it is… she did what she had to. I was stupid. I was foolish. This is the fault of no one but me.

The entire business world is mocking me right now, I’m sure. Chance Hunt, the…

No, I don’t deserve that last name anymore. Fucking worthless. I’m just Chance Givens, foster child who needs others to get anywhere in life. What little chance I have, I’ve wasted.

This… this was the end.

20

Aweek went by in which, for some bizarre reason, I chose to stay at Burnson Investments.

The honest reason was probably I had no desire to face the outside world and I needed something to do to fill my days, even if that meant getting ridiculed by John Burnson repeatedly. At least I wouldn’t have to think about the prior Thursday night and Leyla.

How had it gone so wrong? How had I missed the signs?

Every part of me told me to stop dwelling on it. It was unhealthy for me to think about the past.

But when this created a fresh wound that had not yet settled into a scar, I couldn’t ignore it. I had to care for it and tender to it until it had healed, if not disappeared entirely. I just had to be careful that the wound didn’t turn into a scab.

I fucking hated admitting it, but I couldn’t help but think of the good times with Layla. Our first hookup at the bar. Watching Netflix with tacos. Talking about how I loved her. Every time I tried to imagine her as a lying, deceitful bitch, I came back to the fact that she was probably under enormous pressure to makeher uncle… father… whatever he was happy. It didn’t excuse her actions, not in the least, but…

Honestly, I wanted to hear from her again. I wanted a sober, rational explanation for what the hell had transpired over the last couple of months. I had a strange feeling I would get it. I didn’t think she was about to disappear from my life completely.

But boy… it would hurt like hell having that conversation. I wasn’t sure I wanted to have that conversation for what all it would entail.

The only silver lining that all of this produced was that Morgan and I began to tighten our relationship. Work had brushed it aside to some degree, and our age had also begun to separate us as Morgan would become the heir of Hunt Industries while I would do my own thing, but something about this, I could tell, had shook Morgan to the core. Maybe he would compel his father to renege on the deal; unlikely, but given how often we texted and how sincere he seemed in making it right for me, it was at least not impossible.

But work, despite being better than the alternative, still sucked horribly. Every day, Burnson came in, dressed me down, and reminded me how awful of a businessman I was. I held it in pretty well for a while.

If, of course, you accounted for the fact that time moved extremely slowly during this period, so a week really did feel like “a while.”