When I finally peeled my body off of Cole’s and went back to work, I kept moving nonstop until close. It was hours before the bar even remotely began to settle down. This night had been one for the record books. At least we were making money, because my feet were definitely going to pay for the effort the next day.

The good thing about being so busy was that except for the occasional, disgusted glance from my brother, we didn’t discuss what he’d witnessed in the office. Neither one of us had time to think, let alone talk. The bad thing was that my news about quitting the bar, let alone sharing news about my reconciliation with Cole, had to wait for almost four and a half hours.

Ward was taking the last tray of glasses to the kitchen when I finally had a chance to drop my tired ass into a chair around the table where Lucas, Emma, and Cole were already sitting.

“Mazel tov!” Lucas said to Cole and I, toasting us with his last sip of beer. “Glad you two idiots figured it out.” He was somewhat drunk. He’d been celebrating all evening.

“Thanks Lucas,” Cole said, brushing my hair back from my tired face and kissing me on the forehead. “Tonight is a night for all kinds of victories. You have your deal, I got my girl--”

“And Kate has her new business!” Emma chimed in. “Don’t forget about that.”

Neither Lucas nor Cole looked surprised. “Wait, you guys know?” I asked. “How?”

“I learned from Ivan,” Lucas said, shrugging. “Why, was it a secret? I think it’s great you’re opening a lingerie boutique. I’ve seen too many beautiful women wearing ugly panties in this world. Life is too short for ugly knickers.” He said this as if it were a very profound insight. Some genius he was.

“What about you?” I asked Cole. His answering smile was mysterious. “Tell me!” I squealed. I looked at Emma, but she shook her head innocently.

“I know how to keep a secret,” Emma insisted. “Unlike Lily, apparently.”

“Well then how did you figure it out?” I asked Cole. I frowned at him until he cracked.

“Jolene,” he finally admitted. “She heard that you’d listed your condo. I put two and two together. Who do you think helped drive up the price so high on your place?”

My jaw dropped open and Cole and Lucas both snickered at my expression. “You bought my condo?” My shock was complete. Not that there was a thing in the world wrong with my condo, but it didn’t exactly scream millionaire athlete bachelor pad. Even on its’ best day, my little condo was several hundred thousand dollars below the very bottom of Cole’s budget for a place to live. We were on totally different planes of existence when it came to finances.

Unexpectedly, Cole shook his head. “I tried to buy your condo,” he corrected. “Somebody outbid me.” He looked annoyed. “I had this whole plan to buy it and give it back to you if I managed to get you back, but now it’s ruined.”

“You know that you drove the price up way beyond what it was worth,” I told him. “You’re lucky that you didn’t win.”

Cole looked unconvinced. “I wanted to buy it for you. I knew that you didn’t really want to sell it. You were only selling to fund your business.”

“I’m glad you didn’t buy it,” I told him. Secretly I was sad that I’d come pretty close to having both my beloved condo and my business seed money, but it didn’t really matter. I had Cole. He was better than anything that money could buy.

“At least it was some other dumb shmuck that overpaid for Kate’s condo,” Emma said. “I wonder who it was?”

A familiar voice cleared his throat, and all four of us turned to see Ward approaching with a fresh pitcher in one hand and something small in the other. “Emma, my love, that dumb schmuck would be me,” he announced. All four of us stared at him in shock.

It took the entirety of the pitcher, but we eventually pieced together what happened.

“I can’t believe you outbid me,” Cole groused, looking at Ward with annoyance.

“I’m not as dumb as you thought I was, huh?” My brother was preening disgracefully. “I called Kate’s friend Tiffany and had her do a little extra reconnaissance on my part in exchange for a small, off-the-books commission. Let’s just say that I made extra sure my final offer was higher.” That sounded vaguely unethical, but given the circumstances, I’d let it slide.

“How come your name wasn’t on any of the closing documents?” I asked. “I thought I was selling it to some real estate company.”

“You did. My new holding entity bought your condo,” Ward said matter-of-factly. “I needed to reorganize all my rentals anyway, and some expansion was in order as well.” Sometimes I forgot that Ward had business savvy buried deep in skull beneath all the brain damage. He was doing pretty well financially, though, so I supposed it made a bit of sense that he’d want to invest in the booming Austin market.

“So, you’re going to rent it out?” I asked, wondering if I could rent it back from him. Having Ward as a landlord was not exactly ideal, but since he was already the person I called in the middle of the night if the toilet broke, at least he was used to it.

He gave me a disbelieving look. “No.”

“Oh, are you going to flip it then?” I’d thought I’d done a fairly good job with the improvements to my condo, but what did I know? Ward was the property guru here. Maybe he was going to paint everything beige and turn a huge profit. HGTV was always telling people to paint shit beige. Apparently, that’s what normal people liked.

Ward shook his head at me. His grin was wide. “Wrong again.” He was enjoying this way too much. Teasing me had always been one of his favorite games. I’d venture he liked teasing me even more than he liked football, and he liked football far too much.

Lucas, Cole, and Emma were all hiding smiles at this point. I hated being the last one to figure something out. It made me feel dumb.

“Well then what are you going to do with it?” I asked Ward, annoyed. It wasn’t my fault I didn’t have the same level of real estate knowledge as the rest of them.

“I’m going to give it back to you, you dummy!” Ward looked exasperated that he had to spell it out, but he was also fighting chuckles. “I swear, you telepathically seem to know if I change my brand of breakfast cereal, or need some life coaching, but you are not very self-aware. If someone wants to help you, or god forbid, cares about you, it’s just freakin’ mystifying to you, isn’t it?” After his outburst, he shook his head at me in a mixture of affection and annoyance that I was very used to seeing from him. He and Cole exchanged a look that bordered on camaraderie and I wasn’t sure if I could handle that. The last thing I needed was those two bonding about how hard I was to deal with.

“Shut up. I’m plenty self-aware,” I snapped. It wasn’t true, but I had to defend myself anyway. Otherwise Ward would think that he could just walk all over me. “So, you knew I wanted to start a lingerie boutique?” I’d never told him about my ambition. I hadn’t even told my diary, since I didn’t keep one anymore after that time Ward read it when I was in high school. The only people who knew were Lily and Emma.

He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Nope. I had no clue about that. Sounds like you though. You have good taste. It’ll be successful. I’m sure of it.”

His support was welcome, and I smiled a shy little smile at him. Then another thought intruded and I wrinkled my nose at him in confusion. “Ward, you were going to buy my condo just ‘cause? That hardly seemed like a good investment of money, even if it would be nice for me to have it.”

Ward chuckled at me and clearly thought he was very clever. “I knew you weren’t going to work here forever. I’m always monitoring the local real estate listings for good investments, so when I saw your condo come up for sale, I figured that you were going to do something big with the money. You’ve never been irresponsible with money. I knew it had to be business related. So… I decided to help.” He glanced over at Cole in clear annoyance. “I didn’t expect to help quite so much, but some asshole decided to bid against me and run the price way up. Thanks buddy.”

“Oh yeah, blame me,” Cole said sarcastically. “All I was trying to do was win the love of your sister by helping her achieve her dream the same exact way you were. That Cole, what a gigantic, fucking asshole.”

Ward’s reply was typically childish. “You said it, not me.”

Their exchange was funny, but another piece had just fallen into place for me. “Hold up. So, you knew that I was going to quit the bar today?” I asked Ward. His face was guilty enough to tip me off.

“Well… not today, but I figured you would soon.” Oh he definitely knew.

“But you let me worry all day long about how you were going to handle it? I was seriously concerned you were going to have a nervous breakdown if you lost me and Willie at the same time.” My voice had become annoyed. Ward smirked at me. What an ass. Lucas and Emma were highly entertained by this entire exchange between Ward and me. They watched the two of us fighting like it was a movie.

“You made me witness whatever the hell you and Cole were doing in the office in my desk chair. Let’s just call it even, how about that?” His face betrayed how traumatic he’d found the experience. Emma reached over and patted his arm comfortingly.

I looked over at Cole and we both nodded. Considering that Ward didn’t know what Cole and I had done on his desk a few weeks back, I was willing to let that statement stand. There were things my brother just didn’t need to know, and the fact that I’d been fucked within an inch of my life in the exact spot where he signed my paycheck was one of them. “Ok. Fine. You win.”