Chase

I open my front door Thursday morning expecting to see the car I ordered to take me to Crunchy, and instead find myself facing the blond-haired, blue-eyed Berger brothers. In a lot of ways, the family resemblance between them and Bro is strong. Norwegian coloring, the same mouth—though Bro’s might be bigger—and they all piss me off by just breathing.

My stairs flare out to the ground until they’re wide as the brownstone, but these two yahoos are completely blocking the sidewalk. I ate at their house as often as I ate at my own growing up, but whatever Mrs. Berger fed me couldn’t have come from the same stock as what she fed her own boys.

Ares cracks his knuckles.

“You got a thing for Ambrosia?” Zeus asks.

If by thing, he means a confounding, raging hatred combined with a reluctantly growing amount of respect and an uncontrollable hard-on every time she opens her fucking mouth, possibly.

But I also still have a thing for breathing.

“If I say yes, are you going to pound me into the sidewalk?” I will not be a pansy-ass billionaire who needs a personal bodyguard. I won’t.

Zeus studies me. “No.”

“If I say no, are you going to pound me into the sidewalk?”

“What’s wrong with her?” Ares growls.

Zeus puts a hand to his chest and keeps him from charging up the stairs. “We were talking. Got to remembering all the pranks we pulled on her. How half of them were your idea.”

“Sunny said you like her,” Ares says.

I don’t know who Sunny is, but based on the way they both smell faintly of whiskey and Ares’s hair is standing on end, I’m going to guess they had a good time with her last night. And look at that, another two-syllable word.

“And considering how many times you’ve slept with her…” Zeus lifts a brow, asking me silently to give him a number.

Except there’s a problem.

There’s no sleeping where Bro and I are concerned.

Nope, that’s all fucking. We’ve never even been close to a bed. No pillows. No sheets or blankets either.

Which I can’t say to her brothers if I want to stay intimately acquainted with my pulse.

“What do you want me to say?” I ask.

“We miss you,” Ares grunts.

I open my jaw, but no words come out.

“Used to have fun,” Zeus says. “World’s a lot more fun now. But it’s missing something.”

“Bro—Ambrosia doesn’t like me,” I say carefully.

These guys don’t have guns for arms, they have Navy-issue, long-range cannons, and they simultaneously fold them over their barrel chests. Because I’ve just told these men their sister is fucking me despite her aversion to me, which more or less translates to me calling her a whore in bro-speak.

“Like that,” I add quickly. “She doesn’t like me like that.” Bro’s a lot of things, but she’s not…that.

Their eyebrows simultaneously lower, and I realize I am not making this better.

“Yet?” I add.

For all I know, these two had a threesome with some random chick named Sunny last night. They’re the it boys of the National Hockey League. If they’re not getting laid regularly by puck bunnies, I’ll suck my own dick.

But I can’t have a night or two of mind-blowing sex?

Zeus breaks first. He drops his arms, but he’s still giving me the big brother I will tear your limbs off, starting with your dick, and make you eat them before I extract your teeth with a pair of rusty pliers glare. “Got four tickets to see the Yankees tonight. Gates open at six. Be there.”

Four tickets could mean one of two things. Either the two of them are squishing into three seats and leaving me the fourth, or Bro’s coming too.

She might have a point about there being other organic grocery stores I could invest in. Unfortunately, this one is best suited for my long-range plans. I made my money in tech with the sole purpose of getting here. Coding is easy. It’s logical. And—thanks, Dad—I have an intimate working knowledge of the psychological power of gaming addictions, which made Frenemy Crush a game I could’ve coded in my sleep.

My experience in the food industry, on the other hand, is limited to watching my mother almost kill herself working at the baloney factory. But I know logic, and I know social media, and between the in-house greens and the fucking amazing social media campaigns Crunchy runs, there’s not another grocery store on the planet that I could’ve bought to position myself to change the world.

I salute the Berger brothers. “Looking forward to the game.”

Ares snickers. Zeus grins. “Got some glitter in your fingernails, dude.”

“Suck my dick.”

They both snort like we’re best buds again and amble down the street.

The Bro part is messy, but Zeus and Ares were my brothers. I spent the better part of the last decade getting to this level of professional success, and now that I have the world at my feet, I’ve realized I have very few friends I can trust implicitly.

My childhood buddies are successful in their own right. They don’t need my cash. They don’t need my connections. They don’t need anything from me.

But they’re willing to give me a chance.

I start to smile as I make my way to the car. As the driver holds the door for me, my phone rings.

Mom.

She knows.

I don’t have to pick up the phone to know she knows. Her cruise ship has internet. The Mediterranean, the South Pole, hell, she could be on the International Space Station and the gossip would still reach her.

And I thought dealing with the Berger brothers would be tough.

How am I going to explain this to my mother?