Page 4 of Endlessly Yours (The Wilder Brothers #10)

CHAPTER TWO

RORY

H ow many penises did this Minotaur have?

I shook my head and looked back at my notes, nodding that the author in question did indeed request two penises.

Or was it penisi? I also marked down the title of the novel again, so I’d remember to read this book when it released because I wanted to know if a Minotaur ended up with new characters or maybe there was going to be a little fun later with both of them.

Or maybe I really needed to step away from my drawing board and take a walk.

A smile playing on my face, I clicked through to my next request, making sure that my calendar was up to date. I was my own boss, and that meant sometimes I had to be malicious to myself in order to get things done.

It was funny to think that nearly five years ago, I had been working full-time for another company, drawing exactly what they told me to, stifling my creativity, and yet thirsting for more within that job sphere because that’s what I thought you needed to do.

But as a digital graphic artist and illustrator, that meant sometimes I got to dive into drawings I would never have thought of. And it meant that I added to my Tbr.

Next on my list was a drawing for another for a book box. They would use the character and setting art for numerous items, and readers would be happy. Then later in the day, my project was for the series that had allowed me to be self-employed.

A children’s series about a young boy, his goat friend, and raw apples that had saved the world.

I, of course, did that art under a different name because a website with both of those in my portfolio didn’t really go well for some clients.

My lips twitched, and I penciled off something else in my calendar, knowing that we might be on book thirteen in this children’s series, but the consultations for books fourteen and fifteen were coming up soon.

If I worked for a publisher or the author themselves, each timeline was different, but I didn’t mind. That just meant I could spend a little more time with my spreadsheets and calendars.

It was funny because most people thought since my job had mostly to do with art, that I had to be the ditzy woman who had to thrive in art and only focused on drawing. That none of the analytical side of my brain would be useful.

At least that’s what the one serious boyfriend I’d ever had had thought.

Even my sister had told me that a few times until we had both backed off and settled into our relationship. She had been the bright star, the logical mind who had thrived in math and science.

I had indeed been the artsy one who liked history and English, but I had been good at everything, at least good enough to get straight A’s just like her.

I rubbed my fist over my chest, wondering why I was thinking about Beth.

It had been at least a week since I had thought about my sister and the pain that came with the fact that I hadn’t spoken to her in six years.

I frowned as I looked at my calendar, at the color-coded projects lined up for the next few months.

Six years. That couldn’t be right. That meant it had been six years since I had laughed and joked with my big sister.

No, that wasn’t even right. Because it had been long before that time since we had truly laughed with each other.

And even though I called her my big sister, it was only because she had beaten me by three minutes.

My twin, the woman who was the other half of my soul, had cut me out of her life with a scalpel and had done the same for everyone else in her past life. Any connections to the world that weren’t from her husband’s influence had been shorn away without a backward glance.

She hadn’t even shown up for our parents’ funeral four years prior. I knew that the funeral company and hospital had contacted her, but she had ignored my calls and emails. And it wasn’t as if I even knew where she and her husband Nolan lived. Where the girls lived.

I got up from my desk and began to pace. Cameron would be what, twelve now? Alice, seven. I had barely even held Alice as an infant before she had been ripped from my arms by Nolan, the man overbearing and asshole-ish like usual.

I still didn’t know what my twin had seen in him, but she had fallen head over heels for Nolan Roberts and inch-by-inch had been turned into a person I hadn’t recognized.

I let out a shaky breath and tasted salt on my tongue.

“Damn it, Rory,” I growled at myself as I furiously wiped away my tears.

I hadn’t even realized I was crying until the tears were down my cheeks, and here I was once again, trying to remember a woman who didn’t want me in her life.

She hadn’t agreed with my lifestyle, a single woman who had sex before marriage and had even lived with a man for six months.

Ben and I had been serious enough to live together but not serious enough to get married.

I had bored him and had dealt with too much drama, according to him.

Which, I always felt contradicted each other.

Either I could have too much drama, or I could be boring. I couldn’t be both.

Yet Ben had thought so. Because I had been boring in bed, boring when it came to my goals. Boring in my job. And dull and lackluster.

But far too much drama with my twin sister joining, not necessarily a cult, but something so cult-like that I had been cut out.

Shamed and forgotten.

I swallowed hard, shook my head, and went back to my desk.

I had art to work on, countless emails to go through, and I needed to finally hire an assistant to help me with social media and other projects.

I’d gained enough popularity in certain circles that now I needed someone to help deal with administrative tasks so I could focus on the art.

“That didn’t sound very boring, did it Ben?” I mumbled.

Then I set aside all thoughts of the man who hadn’t loved me enough to figure out who I was, and the man that, frankly, I realized I hadn’t loved at all. We had both been at fault. Because honestly, he was just as boring.

I opened up my current project, lifted my stylus, and got to work.

While I sometimes worked with pencils and paint, at that moment, digital art was the best for me. I could focus on exactly what I needed to for these types of projects, and not get bogged down with messiness and my indecisiveness of certain mediums.

Sometimes though, the media needed to change for the project because I got too far into my head.

Currently however, the couple in a romantic tango, fully clothed for this project, shone brightly on my screen.

I worked on shading her dress, knowing that I was going to have to pick up this book as well. Usually, I had on an audiobook as I did this, but today I needed music that pounded out of the speakers and let me not think.

Because, at first, it had nothing to do with my sister or my ex or life in general. No, they didn’t earn my headspace or thoughts.

Brooks.

I forced myself to unclench my fingers around the stylus, not realizing that I had tensed until pain ricocheted up my pointer finger.

While I wasn’t sure if Brooks remembered every single moment of that night in an airport hotel, I did.

Because I had only been partially drunk.

I had consented just as much as he had. But he had blocked it out enough to never speak of it.

And I remembered every taste, every orgasm, and the fact that it had been the best sex of my life on one of the worst nights of my life.

Because my parents’ ashes had been spread over the ocean hours before and I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to move on from that.

My parents had each died from an upper respiratory infection that had taken a toll.

It had been a very bad case throughout the country, and mostly children had died from it, but in this case, my parents hadn’t been able to push through, and their lungs had stopped working.

Their oxygen had gone so low that each of them had been intubated, and I had sat in a waiting room, waiting for them to wake up. And they never had.

I could still remember the look of confusion in my mom’s gaze, and the look of knowing in my father’s. Because they knew eventually, that neither one of them was ever going to wake up.

Once again, I wiped the tears on my cheeks, annoyed with myself.

My parents had made end-of-life decisions, and I had been the executor of their will.

After all, Beth had cut them out of their lives as well.

They hadn’t cut her out of their will. But I was the one who had made the choices.

I was the one who worked on their funerals.

Had spoken to their friends and family and uncles and aunts and everyone else in our extended family that we weren’t close to but had come to give their respects.

And Beth hadn’t.

So that night, I tried to drink away my pain, wondering if I should just get on a different plane and head somewhere that had nothing to do with family.

It hadn’t helped that I had also been fired that morning because they’d wanted to cut back and use interns for my job.

I huffed and continued to draw, annoyed with myself for going down this memory lane. Of course, I knew exactly why I was thinking of that night. Because he had kissed me again. No, maybe I had kissed him?

I wasn’t sure exactly which had been the case, but in the end, his hand had been in my hair, pulling just hard enough. It had made my toes curl. And he had been rough that night, leaving bruises exactly where I had wanted them, and yet tender in ways I hadn’t thought possible.

And just that taste had brought it all back to the surface, and I knew I was an idiot.

It was my own fault for working at the Wilder Retreat. It was my own fault for thinking that that place happened to be the most peaceful place when I needed to clear my thoughts and work and not think about family or stress or money or life.