Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 62095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Asshole. Like Darius wasn’t spending his evenings doomscrolling YouTube for prepper videos.
Whatever. It could wait. At the sound of cars pulling in, we turned around and spotted the next guests to arrive. Our folks and Gray’s mom and stepdad. And brothers, I noticed.
“How many did you invite?” I asked. Darius hated having too many people on his property.
“Enough to feel sympathy for our septic tank,” he grumbled.
I laughed. “What the fuck are you planning on feeding us?”
“Food,” he shot back. “Not that you know what that is.”
There we go again.
I rolled my eyes.
Not long thereafter, the property had filled up with guests, I’d given up on their shitty Wi-Fi up here, and I’d dutifully ratted out our brother to Ma, who’d jumped straight into fussing and digging for information. A bunch of kids were running around too, so I stuck close to the barbecue area where they weren’t allowed.
It helped that I had a beer in my hand too, and Avery was here as well.
My only issue now was that Natalie hadn’t responded to me.
I checked my phone again just to make sure.
Nothing. But the connection was utter shit.
She’d started the teasing, goddammit. I’d continued. She was supposed to return the banter so we could go back and forth until I’d gotten my fill.
Something was seriously wrong with me. Was I actually getting worked up over a client not replying in a timely fashion on a fucking Saturday?
On the other hand, she had to be playing a damn game with me.
I brushed my thumb over the screen and couldn’t help but scowl. She’d read my last message. I saw the read label. Half an hour had passed since she’d read it, for chrissakes. What was her problem? What was my problem?
“Who pissed in your low-calorie, organic beer, little brother?” Darius asked, loading food onto the grill.
I fired off my scowl at him instead, and I couldn’t help but get irritated. More so than before. It was his fucking beer, and it sure as hell wasn’t organic. Or low-calorie.
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” I told him. Unfortunately, I might need it. Because I sure as shit wasn’t going to figure Natalie out on my own.
Avery snorted, and Darius gave me a no-doubt unhelpful wisecrack. I missed the exact words, because the pressure had officially built up enough for me to let it all out there.
“It’s just…” I sighed heavily and scrubbed a hand over my face. Goddammit. Was it so wise to come to these two for advice? “I have a new client at work. She’s…” Fucking infuriating. “She gets on my nerves. She doesn’t react the way other women do, and she’s sitting on a high fucking horse if she has the balls to tell me I’m pretentious.”
There we go. That was my problem. It still bothered me that she’d called me pretentious. Arrogant, I could get behind.
Avery stared at me. “You are pretentious, Ethan.”
What the hell?
Darius evidently agreed. “Yeah. You’re without a doubt the most pretentious guy I know. You’re the one sitting on a high horse, for chrissakes. Can you even breathe up there?”
“Fuck you, fuck you both,” I told them. I couldn’t believe them. Did they understand the definition of pretentious at all? “I’m not going to apologize for having standards. Some of us strive for perfection.” Just because I didn’t believe perfection existed or should be attained didn’t mean we couldn’t try to get closer.
You don’t even want what you’re striving for, jackass.
I clenched my jaw as Avery and my brother merely found me funny.
“Thanks, buddy. I needed that laugh,” Avery chuckled and clapped me on the shoulder. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna check in with the wife and tell her she’s not perfect, according to her own brother.”
He was joking, I hoped. That wasn’t what I’d meant at all, and I prayed he fucking knew it. This was the culmination of years’ worth of semi-good-natured mockery. They saw me as a gym bro. I saw someone who constantly wanted to improve himself.
Yet you’ve called yourself a god who walks among men since you turned thirty.
It was called being funny. Kind of.
“Be very clear about which brother,” Darius told Avery as the guy headed off.
Wait, he was serious? Goddammit. He was gonna tell Elise some shit, and then I’d have to explain to her and give her context. We weren’t bitching about others’ ideas of perfection. It was mine. Or the one I’d claimed to be mine for years. Fuck me, the internal voices could suck my balls. I’d come too far to change everything.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it!” I called after Avery.
Asshole.
I blew out a breath and felt pressure rising in my chest, and it pissed me off. Teasing among brothers and buddies was one thing—I could handle that, and I gave as good as I got—but the doubts that’d started piling up lately put me on edge.