Chapter 1

Scott’s POV

Something was ... cold? No, not cold, but cool. Breezy. Yeaah, that was the word, breezy. Why was it breezy? What was going on? My eyes were closed. The bed felt scratchier than normal. I pushed my arm towards the breeziness, ughh thinking is hard, and that word sounds dumb.

Thunk! Pfffffffbbbbbbbbbttttttttttttttttt!

I opened my eyes just in time to see that my blind groping had found the source of the breeze and created a god-awful clatter. Yay for multi-tasking.

Someone had placed a mini fan near my head, blowing straight down the blankets. It was the kind you hold in your hand, portable enough to take anywhere. My reach had knocked it over, and the fan blades, thankfully flexible plastic, were now beating a staccato tattoo out on a wooden table. I heard a soft, high-pitched giggle that sounded extremely familiar. “Hi Scott”, another giggle followed this greeting.

Tina! That’s whose voice it was. What the hell was Tina doing in my bedroom? That thought made me finally fully open my eyes, bolt upright in bed, and throw back the blanket, determined to find out what was going on. Oh, not my bed. That was my first thought, Tina beat me to my second.

“Oh, good morning, Scott”, Tina’s voice was sultry this time. “I thought I’d get a little rise out of you with the fan, but I didn’t think it would be that big. Or thick.”

Yep, I was naked. Naked, in the front room of my house. Which made some sense as I didn’t have a table at the head of my bed where a fan could be placed. The nightstand was too low and not at the right angle, the dresser too far away and too tall. But having fallen asleep on the couch, yep, there was a table where a probably evil-minded person could place a fan that would blow straight down an innocent man’s blankets.

But getting back to naked. I had thrown off the blanket, which meant that Tina, easily my wife and I’s best friend, was now treated to the sight of my very naked body, and something I’m normally proud of, my morning wood.

“Shit”, I screeched, manfully hopefully. I grabbed the blankets in a wad and thrust it into my crotch. Well, such was my rush that blanket or not, I had basically just punched my family jewels. Great way to start the day.

Trying to keep my breath even and forcing an embarrassed smile on my face. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your lovely company this morning?” I asked Tina. “And why on God’s green earth would you put a fan blowing down a man’s blanket when he is sleeping?” I grabbed the still-running fan with my non-blanket-holding hand and switched it off.

“Remember last night when I told you my coffee maker was broken and you said I could use yours? Well, I thought I would take you up on your offer. But when I came over, you were on the couch, I assume Lauren is upstairs in bed, and the fan was just lying around. I was hoping it would be funny.” She ended with a bit of a blush and a bashful glance at me.

“I, oh yeah, I do remember”, I lied lamely. I didn’t actually, but if she had told either Lauren or me anything was broken, we definitely would have offered our own. That’s what you do for your best friend. If she had just been a neighbor, probably not, but best friend, yes, obviously we offered.

I took a deep breath. Here I was, in my own home, with only a blanket covering part of me, and a woman who was not my wife sitting across from me. Another deep breath. The adrenaline rush would wear off in a few minutes at most, and until then, I just needed to control it. I had plenty of practice with that. Lots of practice that I hated every second of and wouldn’t wish on anyone else.

Focus on something. That was easy, Tina. I could tell it was early because the sun was just beginning to peek through the large front window. Tina sat just to the side of the window, curled up on the chaise. She was cute, that was the universally agreed-upon way to describe Tina. Short, barely 5’2” on a good day, petite everything. Red hair just brushed her shoulders, a small, round face, button nose, brown eyes, small mouth, and what I called a ballerina’s body. This morning’s pre-coffee outfit was a deep violet t-shirt and navy running shorts. Like I said, cute, even when blushing after seeing me naked.

“Since when do you make dirty jokes?” I said in a teasing voice.

Tina blushed again. “Since you and Lauren told me not to take other people’s crap and fire it back at them”, she said.

Oh right. Tina was cute, with a heart of gold, very smart, and painfully reserved. It wasn’t shyness necessarily. Shy people usually just take more time to get comfortable with people or prefer smaller, more intimate groups. Tina just had trouble with everything when it came to herself. Asking for help, standing up for herself, and offering ideas as her own. She was one of the most amazing, beautiful souls I had ever met, and Lauren was determined that others would see what we saw in Tina.

“Ha, good for you. I’ll take the compliment to my size as payment for sticking a goddamn fan down my blankets.” I was chuckling now and shaking my head. Only Tina would come up with such an innocent prank and have it turn so dirty.

“Cool. I thought it was good. But why are you naked on the couch?” She gasped and covered her mouth after she said that. “Oh no! Did Lauren kick you out? Was it something I said last night? I should go, right? You two probably need to talk.”

I started to raise my hand in astonishment at the sudden flood of words. But she talked right over me.

“Wait, no! Oh, I saw you naked. I need to talk to Lauren.” She jumped off the chaise and moved towards the kitchen and presumably the stairs. “I’m so sorry, Scott. I’ll tell her it was my fault and you were asleep.” Her voice had gotten progressively higher-pitched and panicked sounding.

I had been trying to get a word in somewhere during her increasingly panicked word vomit, to no avail. So I whistled. Not low and soft, or even the universally despised “looking good babe” whistle men do at women. Nope. Two fingers in the mouth, fill the lungs as much as possible, and let out a piercing, shrill, attack on every eardrum within 100 yards. Lauren was going to kill me if she were still asleep.

“Tina”, I said gently after my very rude whistle stopped her in her tracks. “Lauren is going to laugh her ass off when we tell her what happened this morning,” I emphasized we, trying to make sure she understood this had been a team effort. After all, I was still trying to figure out why I had slept naked on the couch when my front room has a gigantic window that faces a busy street.

“Laugh my ass off at what you perv”, came Lauren’s voice from the stairs.

Lauren’s POV

I let them explain what had happened in the kitchen, planning to avail myself of the coffee Tina had so fortuitously started. Well, I was standing behind the island facing Tina, who was sitting on a barstool. Scott had bashfully wrapped the blanket more fully around himself into something like a toga, if togas had 90% of their material stuffed around your crotch and ass. Lucky for Scott, that left many parts of his upper body and legs sticking out, and those were always nice eye candy. He was sitting at the kitchen table, seeming to feel that keeping distance between himself and Tina was best.

I tried so hard to keep a straight face. I almost got to the end. They were so adorable, stumbling over each other’s words. Jumping in anytime they thought that there might be any potential for misinterpretation of what the other said. I think I had heard seven different attempts to explain Scott’s nakedness and what exactly Tina had seen for exactly how many seconds before I couldn’t do it.

I grinned. That led to me trying to hide the grin behind a hastily grabbed coffee mug that just happened to say “Freak in the Sheets” with an Excel symbol on it. I couldn’t take it anymore. I almost threw the mug back on the counter as I doubled over, holding my belly while laughing.

“Oh my fucking God”, I wheezed between full-throated out of control laughter. “Your faces. Your fucking faces.”

Tina looked even more like she wanted to die, and I almost got myself under control, feeling a rush of sympathy for her. Almost, because Scott was scowling, and that set me off on another round of howling laughter.

“Lauren...” Scott said in his “I’m a scary adult and you need to act your age” type of voice. Too bad he wasn’t a father yet; his kids were going to get never-ending enjoyment out of absolutely ignoring the big softy’s attempt to be scary.

“I’m sorry. Ok, no, I’m not, but that was amazing.” I mimed wiping a tear from my eye. “Oh, you guys, that was even better than I hoped. I mean Tina, I’m so sorry but I knew Scott was down here and you were coming over, I just-”. My voice was drowned out by Tina.

“What do you mean you hoped?” she screamed. “You planned this? You wanted me to ... I saw Scott’s ... How could you do this?” Her eyes were tearing up by the end, actual tears this time.

There are two people in this world that I will defend against everyone else. Two people to whom everyday I promise that their happiness comes first. One of them was Scott, who the world knew that I had publicly promised everything I could give him. The other, I made the same promise to, though they didn’t know it. But I had silently vowed the same for Tina many times. When I saw her in tears because of me, I broke.

I rushed around the island, enfolded her in my arms, and started stroking her hair. “Oh Tina”, I almost wept with her. “I’m so sorry. No, I didn’t actually plan for this to turn out this way.” I kept stroking her hair, but pulled back just a little so I could look in her eyes. I could see how vulnerable and confused she was, but she was at least meeting my gaze.

“Honey, please forgive me”, I said. “Scott was drinking last night with us, remember? Well, when you left, he stopped moderating himself and went all in. He tried to do a sexy striptease for me, but once he was naked, he fell over on the couch and then started telling me about how nice the pillows were.” I didn’t bother to glance over at Scott to see his reaction. I wasn’t judging him for getting that drunk; it had been a hell of a week at work, and I knew that sometimes you needed to mute life’s volume, so to speak. Plus, all that mattered right now was Tina; Scott would be fine.

“I tried to get him up to bed, but he was really into the pillows”, I continued. “So I grabbed some blankets and tucked him in. You know he’s too heavy to try and wrangle up those stairs when he’s a limp noodle. I thought that you would probably come over while he was passed out. You would either turn around and leave or be quiet as a mouse so as to not wake him. At most, he might wake up, and he would be embarrassed hiding that he was naked until you left or I brought him some clothes.”

I dropped to my knees and grabbed both of Tina’s hands. “I promise that’s the truth, and I am so sorry for putting you in this position.” I held my breath, waiting for her response.

She nodded gently and sniffled. “It’s ok. I was just so worried because he was naked, and you weren’t here. I didn’t want to lose you or cause a problem between you two. Then you said it was planned, I guess it threw me off.”

I started to take a deep breath...

“But now that I’ve seen it, I’m renaming my dildo Scott”, she squeaked out.

... and suddenly I was choking because trying to take a deep breath and comprehend what just came out of Tina’s mouth was too much to do all at once.

The kitchen was deathly silent for a moment after I got my choking under control. Then, Scott cleared his throat and stood up from the table. Clutching the toga blanket contraption, he tried to imitate a gallant bow.

“I would be honored, my lady”, he said with an attempt at a posh British accent.

Scott’s POV

“So why is Philip having a party this time?” I asked Lauren. I glanced over at her in the passenger seat of our 4Runner. She had been deeply engrossed in her phone ever since Tina had left that morning. It wasn’t all texting, as there were long bouts of slowly scrolling like she was reading something. I assumed at least some of the texting was with Tina.

I shook my head. This morning had been a lot. The cold air, Tina, me naked, Lauren scaring the shit out of us, yeah it had been a lot. At least it distracted me from my hangover for a while. Maybe that would be my billion-dollar idea for hangover cures, but nah, too much planning required the night before.

“Believe it or not, I think this party is actually more for Marianne”, Lauren said after finishing typing on her phone and tucking it against her stomach. “Philip hired their son to be the new international legal director. So it’s a welcome home party and welcome to the company all in one.”

“Wait, son”, I asked as my memory struggled to catch up. “I thought they couldn’t have kids or refused or something?”

Lauren took a deep breath, and I could see her face settle into business mode.

“You’re right. They had some issues and chose not to have kids. But Marianne’s kid sister was killed, Marianne’s nephew was nine at the time. I guess they were the closest family, so they took the kid in and raised him. Not sure if they adopted him or not, but Marianne calls him her son. Philip doesn’t talk about him, but Marianne does.”

That got a raised eyebrow out of me. Philip loved boasting about anything he could claim credit for. Hell, Lauren had only worked for him for two years now, and by the end of the first year, Philip would lecture me on how he had turned Lauren into the world’s next great business tycoon. I smiled during these talks, knowing that Lauren had been capable of anything she wanted long before Philip was involved.

Lauren responded to my non-verbal question, “Yeah, it’s a tough situation. I mean, how could it not be? His biological mom died when he was a kid, there must be something with bio-dad for him not to raise him. Marianne considers him her own son, then you’ve got the weirdness of Philip and Marianne’s relationship.”

Lauren paused at the end for almost a full minute. For all of his faults, we both liked Philip, and I knew she tried not to speak ill of him as her boss. But where she liked Philip, she adored Marianne. The woman was beauty, grace, class, and warmth. Moving out here had been hard on Lauren, and Marianne had been a great help getting us settled. I didn’t know Marianne nearly as well as Lauren did, but what I did she was good people.

“Philip said he plans to make him his successor. How that works with the board, I don’t know, but it was weird. He didn’t seem excited. I mean, I know he wants to retire, but can’t bring himself to admit he’s old enough and is no longer the great titan building the company from nothing, but it seemed like this was ... I dunno; it was off. No boasts of how great this guy was or how he finally found someone worthy to take over the company he built. Philip just said he was keeping the company in the family.”

“I mean, nepotism isn’t always bad”, I rejoined lightly. “It got me out of the Army after all.”

“Haha”, she said in a flat voice. She patted my knee. “You got yourself out of the Army and were going places regardless of your dad.”

She paused again. “Let’s just hope for minimum drama today. There’s enough of that at work with the split and Philip hiring his nephew, who might be his son.”

“So, does nephew have a name, or do I get to call him wonderboy?”

“Edward”, Lauren responded.

Philip’s POV

I had considered whether I should make a big deal about Edward’s entrance to the club. In the end, I went with the path of least resistance. I knew no matter what I did, it wouldn’t be well received by him, so I didn’t bother to do anything. Besides, of course, pre-tipping the valets, coat check, and reception to text me when he showed up. It was both a payment for services and also my apology to them. Marianne paid all of her staff well, took care of them beyond just money, really, and it showed, but you could never do too much to compensate for my nephew.

I was therefore well forewarned when he showed up and made his way to our little party. I watched him make his way immediately towards Marianne. That was no surprise. She was the only person he actually cared about. Marianne had been speaking with several of the newer staff of Durant, trying to make them feel welcome, no doubt.

When Edward approached, she welcomed him warmly. I felt my stomach clench. Decades later, it was still the same reaction. I thought I could have gotten over it if I actually liked the kid, but from the very start, he did everything he could to ensure that would never happen. His loss, I was amazing if I said so myself.

I left Edward and Marianne alone so that they could catch up. I knew how much it meant to her that he was back. Meanwhile, I mingled with all of my employees. I tried to emulate Marianne and find the newer staff, but I had my favorites, and it showed. It was much more enjoyable to throw back a beer with a guy I had known for years than get to know yet another my shit doesn’t stink fresh law school graduate.

Eventually, I had to grab Ed and do at least a bit of an introduction. Not that either of us wanted it, but this whole thing was about him after all. I figured short and sweet would be best, so I didn’t punch him, and he would have less to nitpick about.

“Thank you very much for coming here today. I know it’s Friday night, but I hope the free booze and amazing food courtesy of Marianne and her excellent staff have made this at least a little worthwhile. Anyone who disagrees will be fired on Monday.” My joke got a few courtesy chuckles, as it should, since I was the boss.

“Well, I know none of you actually came to hear me gab, so let me just introduce our guest of honor today. Edward Rogle will be joining Durant starting Monday as a Director of Legal. I’ll let him tell you of his many accomplishments so that I don’t embarrass him. I hope you all give him a warm welcome and help him get up to speed with not only our business but all the exciting changes we are undergoing.”

There was a brief applause as I stepped away from the microphone. Several people saw that as their opportunity to leave and promptly ducked out the door. Lucky bastards.

I spent the next hour introducing Edward to everyone who remained. I tried to be gracious and mostly act as conversational grease, but damnit, the kid was the worst. You could see the stick up his ass from space because he flaunted it. His time away had only made it grow from ginormous to truly legendary proportions. Oh well, not my ass.

I kept a subtle eye on Marianne. She had moved to the patio with Lauren and Scott, I envied her. Scott was a good man, and Lauren essentially ran the company for me. I glanced at Edward as he made yet another condescending comment barely disguised as a joke. If there were any justice in the world, Lauren would take my place, or at least an executive position. Instead, I had to ensure the least deserving person in the room got to take over my legacy.

I sighed internally. After everything I had done, everything I had thrown away to build this company, it was poetic in a way. I cared only for building something and left everything else by the wayside. I glanced again at Marianne. Now I was forced to turn over the keys of my kingdom to someone who was both the fruit of my disregard and also the future destruction of everything I had built.

Age brings melancholy and ridiculous body aches, I thought. I caught Marianne’s eye, and she gave me a subtle nod. That was my cue that I could make the last introduction Eddy needed and end this farce. Well, end it for now. Monday would start it all over again until my eventual retirement. I steered Eddy towards Marianne, Lauren, and Scott.

Lauren was beautiful in an athletic and severe way. Deep red hair was pulled into a bun, with some left artfully curled to hang loose. A sleeveless green blouse showed that her arms were toned. She was on the taller side for a woman, 5’10” if I remember correctly. She worked hard at everything and many accused her of having a resting bitch face. Heh, that might be true, but the woman was pure gold. A sharp wit that she was happy to turn against herself as others in jest, and iron determination. It made working with her a joy.

Scott was wearing a maroon long-sleeve button-up shirt that contrasted with several leather bracelets on his wrists. Most men in attendance wore a tie; he was a rare exception, but then the bracelets and tattoos peeking out at his wrist and neck set him apart from many of the pretty-faced lawyers I thought. That was reinforced by his long beard and the shaved sides of his head. Together, I thought Lauren and Scott looked like a modern-day Viking couple. Reveling in life and impeccably dangerous when needed.

Scott’s POV

Philip was a big man. Probably 6’7” and broad-shouldered enough, you wondered how he fit through doors. Years ago, in his youth, I would have bet that much of the bulk was hard muscle. Now, it was obvious that he was not as active, and while he carried the weight well, it was definitely not all muscle.

It did, however, make a great contrast against his nephew. I had watched them make the rounds; sue me, but situational awareness is something you don’t lose. Edward, as we had been explicitly told to call him, was handsome. Probably 6’2” on most days, medium build, and wearing the hell out of a navy three-piece suit. His black hair was long but combed backwards; my first thought was Bradley Cooper: goatee, strong, prominent jawline, and the body you get from watching what you eat while hitting the gym hard regularly without being a gym rat.

He was also fucking pissed.

Situational awareness, right? This kid, guy, I amended as he was obviously about a decade older than me, was ready to stab someone. If I were taking bets, it would be Philip. Everything in his posture was rigid. He stood far enough away from Philip that it was obvious he didn’t want to be friendly, but not far enough to be noticeably awkward. Whatever Philip did, Ed had to try and make it his own. Philip introduced him with a joke? Ed jumped in before the audience could laugh with his own joke. Couldn’t let Philip lead anywhere, but was trying not to show it. This was going to be a great conversation.

“Lauren, Scott”, Philip began his intro. “This is Edward, my nephew on my wife’s side. He will be joining us as a new director of legal.” Philip’s voice was always booming and mirthful, but those sentiments were a little muted in his eyes.

“Edward, I would like you to meet Lauren Útlaga. She is my executive assistant and runs more of this company than anyone else.”

Edward put his hand forward to shake Lauren’s with a curt “It’s a pleasure.”

“And her husband, Scott, who does security.”

“Nice to meet you, Edward”, I started to say.

“Security. Then aren’t you supposed to be working, not drinking?” Edward cut me off.

I glanced at the half-empty bottle of beer, my second over the course of three hours. “Umm, not actually working today.” A light went off in my head on how to salvage this for Lauren’s sake. “Oh right, nah, I’m not fancy enough to do security for the club. Marianne has better taste than that,” I joked, trying to defuse what had abruptly become a very tense conversation.