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CHAPTER

TWELVE

CONAN

I wasn’t a fan of school, but I’m even less so of these mundane lectures, it’s why I didn’t further my education once I received my high school diploma.

I’m slouched back in my seat, my head tossed back staring at the ceiling as the speaker drolls on and on and on like the motherfucking Energizer bunny.

His voice is monotone, no animation in it whatsoever to make the bullshit he’s spewing more interesting and noteworthy.

We don’t have women in our business to worry about sexual harassment accusations.

And as brothers, if one of us was to swing for the same sex, we wouldn’t disrespect them by making passes at another one of us, especially if they wouldn’t reciprocate.

Respect is a big thing for us, most importantly, when it comes to his extra-curricular activities that take place behind his bedroom door, that’s his jam and has nothing to do with who we are or what we stand for.

One of my closest friends in high school, Teddy, batted for the other team. We met when I stood up for him after I walked around the corner in the locker room and noticed he was cornered by the jock squad, they were saying some nasty, homophobic comments and it had me seeing red.

Some people are just born assholes.

I nearly got expelled for dishing out a little justice, but I gained a friend and shadow from it. It felt good to use my brawn and bravado for something other than intimidation.

Damn, I miss that fool but last I heard from him, he was traveling abroad, looking for a place where he could make a stamp for himself on the world.

I think, if memory serves, he was hitting up some fancy township in Italy next.

I’m a bad friend for not reaching out and staying in touch but life took us in two different directions and we drifted apart.

“Snap out of it,” Marcum orders, his voice low to where it doesn’t carry throughout the auditorium as he, not too gently, elbows me in the rib cage. “We have to be able to participate if we get asked any questions.”

“This is all common sense shit, Marcum,” I whisper back.

“According to the instructor, it’s not,” he comments, releasing a deep sigh. “Where did your thoughts lead you to anyhow?”

“Teddy,” I answer beneath my breath so we don’t draw an audience.

“I got an email from him the other day,” he confesses. “Did you see yours?”

“What makes you think I got one too, Marcum?”

My brother dramatically rolls his eyes and says, “He never sends one without sending us both one, and you damn well know it.”

Teddy managed to earn himself a duo of crazy ass brothers when I took him underneath my wing.

If anyone was scared of me if they had the audacity to either physically or verbally attack Teddy, it was nothing compared to when Marcum went charging in to save the day. He was brutal and ruthless in his protection of our adopted brother.

“I didn’t get a chance to check them before we left and hadn’t thought about it since we’ve been here,” I admit. “What did he have to say?”

Thank fuck our group is in the back of this room so we can carry on with our chattering, all by our lonesome selves, otherwise, everyone would be up in our business and we’d be shushed plus called out.

“He found himself a man and he was all Manny this, and Manny that,” he growls and huffs, unhappy about the fact that he’s not there to interrogate Teddy’s new love interest.

“Manny and Teddy?” I ask, snickering. “It couldn’t get any more perfectly matched than that. I’m gonna give him hell.”

“He’s bringing him to meet us around the holidays,” my brother informs me.

“Which one?” I ask.

“Don’t know, he didn’t say.” He shrugs his shoulders.

“Leave it to Teddy to be mysterious. He loves to catch us off-guard and surprise us.”

“Let’s make things more interesting!” the instructor shouts, gaining our attention. “We’ve put together a little sketch act of different scenarios and how they should be handled.”

“For fuck’s sake, if they break out in song and dance, I’m outta here,” I grumble.

As soon as break was called, I hauled ass out of that conference room faster than a lightning strike.

The play, if you can call whatever that disaster was that, didn’t become a musical, but what it did do was give me a raging migraine—those actors and actresses didn’t talk in any sort of normal pitch, they damn well screamed their lines and their voices became scratchy, which to my pounding head, was worse than nails sliding down a chalkboard.

I lit up a cigarette as I was walking out of the lobby doors.

Several employees gave me a condescending and scathing look, but I’m a rule breaker and couldn’t care less if I wasn’t where I was supposed to be when I took my first drag.

After what I just had to sit through, mass murder was on my mind so this was the higher road to take, so they should be thanking their lucky stars I had this vice of mine because they wouldn’t appreciate my other one.

By the time I fire up my second one, and ash the tip, I’m joined by Midas, Liam, Niles, Rev, and Risk.

Marcum gave up the habit after the smell made Luna sick.

This pregnancy hasn’t been easy on her, no doubt about it, she’s nauseous more often than not.

I told Marcum it's because she’s carrying his spawn and seeing as I firmly believe we’re direct descendants of the underground, it makes sense.

At least it did to me.

Marcum doesn’t think my theory holds any merit and gave me hell for saying that in front of his old lady.

She thought it was funny, my brother however, did not.

There are times like that one when I wonder if we’re actually related.

He sometimes has a dry sense of humor—that’s not something I suffer from, thank fuck.

“What would happen if we skipped out on the second half of that… whatever it is?” I ask, being dead serious.

“Wish we could,” Niles complains. “What was that anyway?”

“I don’t think there’s a word in the dictionary to explain what that was,” Midas says.

“Excruciating comes to mind,” Liam murmurs.

“It was painful to sit through,” I input. “When do we get to the more physical aspects of this retreat?”

“Trust building exercises begin tomorrow,” Midas tells us, holding up his phone to show us.

On the screen, I see the agenda pulled up and know that he is just as bored as I am. Why Auto signed us up for this course is an enigma. We don’t have any female employees, so there’s no valid reason for us to have to sit through it.

Before I know it, our time is up and we head back in to ‘discuss’ the right and wrong ways to handle the situations we watched. I’d rather put a bullet between my eyes than have to sit through this ‘informative’ seminar.

“If you answer correctly, your team earns five points on the leaderboard. Don’t forget, at the end, whoever has the highest points will earn your company a gift to pass out to every member of your organization,” the lecturer reminds us, as if we need a set of prissy shirts that are imprinted with ‘We Care’ because quite frankly, I don’t give a shit.

The day drones on, and none of my brothers nor I raise our hands to earn any points. We’re not here to be the top dogs, our reason for joining these clowns is to earn the trust of a select few.

As we sit at our table, the four imbeciles take the extra seats. David, the pseudo leader of the quadruplets, raises the question, “We’re going out tonight, you guys wanna come with us?”

“Where are you going?” I ask as I attempt to gnaw my way through the stale bread wrapped around even staler lunch meat.

“There’s a bar in town that all the locals have been raving about,” Joey answers. “We thought we’d head up there and check it out.”

“Is it a bar or a club?” I ask. “I have a migraine and couldn’t handle the heavy bass of music, but if it’s a bar, I could do that.”

“Just a bar from our intel,” Liam pipes in and tells us. “Clubs aren’t our thing.”

Of course not, they’re too high maintenance and would blend in easier at a club. They want to stand out so they draw the eyes of the ladies and won’t have much in the way of competition.

“I could use a beer, a draft, not the gaudy bullshit they serve here,” Marcum adds. “I’m in.”

“Me too,” I agree, already licking my lips at the thought of drinking good, straight from the tap beer.

My palate will never be the same after attempting to drink the hotel’s schmancy label shit. I mean, since when do these places not serve a good Budweiser? Hell, I’d even settle for a Michelob light, and I can’t stand the taste of it.

I push my food away and sneer at it. “Plus, at a bar I can get a greasy burger and fries.”

“Chicken wings,” Rev says, practically salivating. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I’m game,” I say, gathering my tray and heading to the trash bin. I don’t ask the others if they’re coming as well, I can hear them stomping behind me.

Time to blow this popsicle stand, even if it is only for a couple of hours.