I'm a fucking mess. Then again, spending the entire weekend drowning yourself in whiskey will do that to you. It doesn’t help that my entire day has gone from controlled chaos to out-of-control hot mess the second I step foot in my office.
I can’t actually believe what I’m hearing when I walk into the boardroom. Both of my asshole brothers are forcing me to get an assistant to help manage the workload for when Reed takes off for the birth of his son. I’m not one bit amused by it, not even as Reed stares at me, a stern look on his face, while Remy twirls a pen around his finger, neither of them caring how pissed off at them I am.
“This is for your own good. You skipped out on the funeral, and I can’t have you doing the same to the company while I’m gone. It’s business, nothing else,” Reed insists, trying to fool us both into believing the crock of shit he’s telling me.
“I didn’t skip out on the funeral,” I answer with a heavy sigh. “I just wasn’t going to stand around and mourn the loss any longer than I already had. Dad’s gone. What else do you want me to do?” Anger fills my words.
Reed sags down into one of the rolling chairs and looks out over the Chicago skyline. He’s grown quiet, and that kind of scares me. If he’s quiet, he’s thinking, and if he’s thinking, well shit is about to go down.
“You know Dad loved you too,” he says quietly.
Remy chimes in with, “You didn’t have to skip out on the dinner party after his funeral. We could’ve used your support.” His words practically pour salt into my wounds.
Reed doesn’t sound mad, but he definitely sounds disappointed, but I shake off the guilt trying to fill the empty space in my chest.
“I didn’t want to be there celebrating at some dinner party when we lost the most important person in our lives.” That’s the truth. The bottle of bourbon and the blonde bombshell, whose name I never did get, more than made up for the grief I was feeling.
If only she were here now.
Slamming a fist down on the table, Reed ignores the way Remy and I both jump. “I know you’re going through shit, but I need you to pull your head out of your ass and take this assistant position seriously. You don’t see the rest of us losing ourselves at the bottom of a bottle.” My head spins at how fast he changes the subject. And he thinks I’m being bipolar with my mood swings lately? I learned from the best.
“I don’t need an assistant,” I growl, but if I’m honest, I’m just pouting. I know I’m not getting out of this. They’ve already hired this person, it can’t be undone. “Having one is more of a hassle than I need, and I refuse to have some pain in the ass following me around while I try to get work done.” I can feel my molars grinding together. If they force this, I won’t make it easy for whoever they’ve hired.
“You might not need one now, but you will,” Remy announces, agreeing further with our brother, which only enrages me more. “It’s better to bring someone in now, so they’re ready when you do need them. You can’t expect to do everything yourself, Ryker.”
I roll my eyes, unable to hold back the insanity of these two any longer. “The answer is no, and that’s final.”
How do they expect me to deal with this right now? I’m still reeling from Dad’s death, not to mention the one-night stand I had over the weekend with a woman I can’t even try to find. I’ll be the first to admit my emotions have been all over the place due to my father’s death, and the fact that I let that woman walk straight out of my hotel room without getting even the most basic information from her has me off-balance. All I have is her memory, and that’s a bit blurry after all the whiskey I drank. I need to make better choices, that much is certain.
“The answer is whatever the fuck I say it is,” Reed informs me, like I’m a small child, his eyes glowing with disappointment. It doesn’t matter to me that he’s been running the company for a few months now, even before our father’s death. What does matter to me is the fact that he’s trying to run my life, and I’m not going to let that happen.
Ryker James Winston isn’t easily controlled.
“Hire her, him, whoever.” I stand, shoving up out of the chair and crossing the small space that separates us. My body pressing up against his, our chests touching and our faces only inches apart. A part of me wants to fight him, to stir the pot. The other part of me—the part I suppress all day long—misses the relationship we used to have. “Hire them, and I promise they’ll quit within the first hour,” I threaten. “Zero fucks given, Reed. If you push the issue, I will push back.”
I stand my ground, nostrils flaring. The thought of punching him in his smug-ass face crosses my mind more than a few times in that moment.
Something is wrong with me. I’m changing, and I don’t recognize the man I’m becoming. The words my father said to me a few days prior to his death ring out in my mind. “Everyone experiences grief in a different way. I don’t want it to change you, son. Promise me you won’t let it.”
“Push back all you want Ryker, but it’s still happening. I’m the CEO. I’m your boss, the boss of everyone who works here, and I have to do what is best for the company, regardless of whether you like it.” This is insanity at its finest, and Reed and Remy don’t care that they’re poking the bear.
They want what they want and fuck what I say. I growl, turning on my heel and walking out the door. They let me leave without either of them saying another word, thankfully, because I’m not sure I can hold myself back from saying something shitty.
Reed thinks he’s such a fucking grown-up now. He has Fallon, the woman of his dreams, a woman that he almost didn’t have because he was too stupid to realize it. Now, he has a son on the way, and a big bright future. All I have is a bottle of whiskey and a list of women to fuck.
Talk about life goals.
I enter my office, slamming the door behind me so hard the walls rattle with the surge of energy flowing through them. Pent-up aggression isn’t really my thing, and yet here I am with anger flowing through my veins.
Why did he have to die?
My fist lands against the mahogany wood desk without much thought, causing some of the contents to rattle and fall to the floor. I know I’m not handling the loss of him very well, even if he did prepare all three of us for months.
I told him over and over again there’s no way to prepare for someone’s death. I should’ve taken my own fucking advice. Slumping down into my office chair, I log onto the server to access my emails and try to get some work done.
“Whatever is going on with you, you need to get it together or swallow it the fuck down.” Remy’s voice meets my ears, and I lift my eyes from the screen and to look up at him instead. Just looking at him, one would never have believed he was our father’s son. He looks more like our mother with his fairer hair.
Though, he still has the Winston genes, with a perfectly sculpted jawline, and angular features. As egotistical as it sounds, us Winston’s are hot enough to grace the covers of GQ Magazine if we wanted to.
“Great advice, Rem, I’ll save that for next time. In the meantime, feel free to fuck off.” Neither Remy nor Reed understand how badly Father’s death consumes me. Add that to my obsessing over the woman I spent the night with, and I’m almost too pissed to function.
“Maybe you won’t confess it to Reed,” he starts, completely ignoring my comment and coming the rest of the way into the office to take a seat in one of the chairs on the other side of my desk, “but you can’t lie to me. I know for a fact there’s something deeper going on here.” His grin is sincere, not because he’s an asshole who likes to wind me up like Reed.
“How do you do it?” I surprise even myself by asking the question.
He looks a little confused. “Do what? Move on?” Just the words make emotions tug at my heart. I hate feeling vulnerable. I hate letting people know how I feel because that shows weakness, and weakness is something men don’t show. God knows Dad told us all that enough times growing up.
“Yeah,” I croak, my throat feeling like a thousand razor blades are tearing it apart.
Remy shrugs, his eyes showing his own sadness. “I’m not over it, Ry. I haven’t moved on, and neither has Reed. We want to be here for you, but we don’t know how to help you or how to make things better for you. You won’t talk to us, and until you do we have no idea what’s going on in your head.”
That’s probably the most words he’s ever said to anyone at one time. Maybe they’re right and I am being selfish, but I can’t help the way I feel.
When Remy realizes I’m not going to respond, he sighs, shaking his head and standing. He comes around the desk and lays a hand on my shoulder, giving it a brief squeeze before releasing me. “Just think about what we said, Ryker. You don’t have to go through all of this alone.” I nod in response, and he makes his way toward the door. Just before he leaves, he turns back to give me a small grin. “And I think this assistant is going to be good for you.”