2. Brennan
two
Brennan
A Few Days Later
W TF could Astrid Gustafsson possibly want with me?
For the past few days this thought has whirled around in my head on an endless loop.
I couldn’t believe it when my brother, Connor, casually mentioned she was his realtor. Then he told me she asked for my number. Something about having something of mine from back in high school.
Oh, I was obsessed with her, but I can’t recall ever speaking to her.
Believe me, I would remember.
Astrid had me hooked from day one, the way she seemed so flawless, like she’d been born for the spotlight. I memorized her schedule, her classes, her cheer practice—everything. And while everyone thought she lived like a queen, I caught the details: the thrifted designer clothes, the way she'd sneak out alone after school to catch the city bus.
Once, I even followed her, thinking she lived somewhere glamorous. Nope. She got off at a rundown house in the Central District. Hid her real life from her so-called besties, but I saw it all. Learned everything I could. Wrote it all down in my journal.
It made me want to know her for real.
My brother Cillian got wind of how engrossed I became in her life and gave me some tough love. Warned me of how it might look if she—or anyone else-- ever caught me basically stalking her. To be fair, I wasn’t a creeper. My concentration on Astrid—or anything else that catches my attention—is how my brain works.
Anyway, he helped redirect my energy into computer programming and I thank God for him every day. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be sitting behind my desk in my company’s Belltown office.
I’m in between meetings, staring at my phone. Every so often the screen lights up with a new What’s App text or Slack message. Most of them will go unread for days, but I can’t help but pull up Astrid’s text and look at it for the umpteenth time. Unknown: Brennan, it’s Astrid Gustafsson from Garfield High. I’d love to catch up. Can you give me a call?
Innocuous. Bland. Formal.
Fucking intriguing.
Should I call her? Or reply to her text? I mean, initially I was intentionally ignoring her. Now, the prospect of “catching up,” whatever that means, is never far from my mind. The problem is, something always pulls me away—juggling product development deadlines, managing investor expectations, trying to keep my best engineers from burning out. Blah. Blah. Blah.
The pressure to innovate while staying ahead of the competition is relentless. One wrong move could cost my company everything. The fires never stop, and lately, it feels like I’m holding a damn extinguisher 24/7.
During my freshman year at University of Washington, I founded CognifyAI when artificial intelligence was still a hazy, futuristic concept people couldn’t quite grasp. While most students were busy coding simple apps or dreaming up the next social network, I was neck-deep in algorithms, trying to figure out how to make machines think like us.
Well, actually, how to make them think for us.
I come from a big, complicated family with some fucked-up problems and a whole lotta love. My natural tendency is to isolate and find a solution to the problem. It’s how my mind works. I can’t stand to see the people I love struggle—and for a long time my family was in free fall.
Connor, my oldest brother, became head of our household after Da was injured in a car wreck and couldn’t run the family business, McGloughlin Construction, anymore. Cillian, my Irish twin and savior, took it over when Connor became a bona fide rockstar. The twins, Liam and Padraig, followed in Connor’s musical footsteps with their band, Fireball. Finally, there’s Seamus, the youngest. He’s deep into his surgical career.
Anyway, my road to entrepreneurship was inadvertent. All I wanted was to earn a few bucks to pay my own way. To take some pressure off Connor. Turns out concentrating on technology development changed my life. I was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and I’ve never looked back.
Fast forward to now and CognifyAI is truly changing the world. We employ ten thousand people throughout the US and Europe. My AI platform has revolutionized the realty industry and we’re on track to do the same in travel and transportation by the end of next year.
As most founders will tell you, the road to success is not a straight line. It’s full of twists, turns, and pivots and requires singular focus—which is perfect for me. I’ve learned how to navigate a million different moving parts at any given time. Investors are hungry for results, and I’m expected to deliver quarter after quarter.
The stress is unbelievable. We can’t hire executives fast enough. Coders are burning out and the AI market is as volatile as ever. Every other week, I’m back and forth between Seattle and Silicon Valley, not to mention the international trips. My purpose in life, at this point, is convincing the world we’re the next global powerhouse.
Truth be told, some days I’m barely holding it together.
I don’t tell my family any of this, though. No need to worry them. Besides, as Cillian always tells me when I start to spin a bit, I need to get laid.
He’s not wrong. I’m horny as fucking hell with no outlet other than my hand. Lately, the only women I come in contact with work for me. There’s no way I’ll risk the future of CognifyAI on a potential sexual harassment lawsuit.
As it’s been drilled into me by the board, I can’t be too careful. Especially because, as one of the world’s experts on AI capabilities, I know the risks too well.
So, I’m back to staring at the text from Astrid, sipping on my third caramel macchiato since lunch. Contemplating. Weighing my options.
Fuck it.
I get up and lock the door to my office.
A quick search conjures up a few images of Astrid, mostly her professional real estate pictures. She’s beyond stunning now. Long, shiny blonde hair. Legs that go on for miles. Plump, juicy lips. Sexy curves perfectly encased in a sleek, form-fitting dress. A subtle hint of cleavage. I find myself fantasizing again about the color of her nipples. Are they pink? Brown? Rosy red?
My dick fills at the thought of pinching them. Licking them into peaked points.
It’s like high school all over again, but so fucking be it.
Scrolling through the pictures, I find it’s her eyes that shred me to the bone. Emerald-green orbs bore into my soul through the screen, daring me to… Fuck . It’s like she’s challenging me without saying a word. Damn if my cock isn’t now hard as a pole.
Before I can stop myself, I’ve unzipped my jeans and my dick’s in my fist. I pump slowly. Shut my eyes and visualize.
My sex-deprived mind conjures up a scene where Astrid, wearing skimpy black lingerie, is kneeling before me. I can practically feel the silk of her hair when I fist it at her nape and push her mouth toward my shaft. She utters a needy whimper when my crown breaches her lips and a guttural moan when I thrust to the back of her throat.
Ahhh , my hand glides up and down my swollen cock. Soon, I’m jacking myself hard, imagining her laving my balls. Swirling her tongue along my dick like a lollipop.
Using my thighs as leverage, Astrid stands, pulls her panties down and steps out of them. She keeps on her sky-high black pumps and straddles me. Runs a finger along her pussy. Sinks down until I’m buried into her velvety heat and pulls the cups of her bra to the side so her breasts spill out.
Ohhhhh . Pale-pink nipples, puckered sooooo tight.
Jesus Christ . I spurt a gallon of come all over my hand and make a mess of my shirt.
Thank God for my private executive bathroom. I clean myself up. Change into a new shirt from the stash of clothes I keep on hand for all-nighters. Contemplate my situation. Feel a bit foolish and not at all satiated.
The thing is, Astrid’s name alone brings back shitty memories of high school. Years filled with loneliness. Isolation. Tension. I thought I’d done a pretty decent job of putting everything behind me. The bullying. The insecurities. The longing to find people who understood me.
It never fully goes away, though, does it? No matter how many covers of tech magazines I’m on or how much money I have, the guy who’ll never fit in lives inside me. Taunting me. Telling me I’ll never be enough.
I mean, look at me. What a loser. Instead of manning up, texting her, taking her out and fucking her for real, I’m in my office, jacking off to a picture of her on my phone like a real loser.
Who am I kidding? Astrid has no romantic interest in me. She’s the kind of woman every guy notices and every girl wants to be. Born to be admired. Coveted. Cherished. She’s also very successful. She sold Connor a fifty-million-dollar house, for fuck’s sake.
Aha .
Yep. I figured it out. Chances are, she has some ulterior motive related to my technology. She’s a realtor, after all.
“Brennan? You should head out if you’re going to make dinner.” Brenda, my assistant, knocks on the door. She’s a fifty-something dynamo who knows a thing or two.
Sheepishly, I unlock it and brush past her. “Thanks for the reminder. I was changing my clothes. You’re welcome to go, I’m heading out.”
It’s rare I leave work before ten p.m., but I always make an exception for my family. Tonight everyone’s in town to celebrate Connor and Ronni’s permanent move to Seattle. It’s a beautiful evening. I’m not used to being done at the office in time to feel the warm glow of the sun.
The second I open the front door to my parents’ Craftsman mansion on Capitol Hill, Connor and Ronni pounce, each holding a twin nephew. Toran and Tristan are their names. I can never tell who is who.
“Did you text her?” Ronni hugs me tightly. “I’ve been dying to find out what it is she has of yours.”
Connor ambles up behind her, rockstar swagger embedded in every fiber of his being. “Aye, please put me out of my misery. She won’t stop bugging me about it.”
“Who?” Cillian walks up to the three of us and slings his arm around my neck. “If you’ve got a date, shouldn’t I be the first to know? Irish twin rights and all?”
Cillian is a year older than me and we’ve always been close, though we’re as opposite as two brothers can be. Despite our differences, he and I get each other in a way none of our other brothers do. He looks out for me and I look out for him.
I swear, if I hadn’t relied on Cillian’s sloppy seconds for the past decade or so, I’d be celibate. He’s never content for me to be a wingman. If we’re out and he has the opportunity to get laid, so do I. A couple of my hookups have even become “girlfriends,” so to speak, though I’m the absolute worst at maintaining any sort of relationship.
Regular sex is great and all. The wooing and dating stuff…isn’t. I guess it’s not my jam, I don’t see the point. Consequently, nobody sticks around for long.
“Astrid Gustafsson. You remember her. She was in my class.” I shoot him a look and attempt to appear unbothered. Cillian doesn’t need to know she was my inspiration to rub one out less than an hour ago. For many reasons.
His eyebrows shoot up. “The girl you were fixated on for a while? Blonde? Cheerleader? Class President? All the guys wanted to fuck her?”
“Yeah, she’s the one,” I mutter. Hearing my brother say it out loud annoys me.
Cillian scrubs his beard. “Ah, yeah. She dated the douchey basketball player who cheated on her all the time. What’s she want with you now?”
Connor’s and Ronni’s heads comically ping-pong between us.
“She’s their big-time realtor.” I gesture toward them with my thumb. “Dunno what she wants. Anyone from Garfield who’s reached out in the past few years always has an ulterior motive. Somehow they seem to forget they treated me like shit and I’m not interested.”
Before my brothers and sister-in-law can reply to my bitter statement, Ma shouts from the dining room, “It’s time to eat; can you move your arses to the dining room please?”
Herding the growing McGloughlin clan to the dinner table is no small feat. Once we’re eating, it’s a controlled chaos of animated voices and laughter. Tonight, as we pass plates of my ma’s roast ham, scalloped potatoes, and beans with bacon, it’s quiet except for the clatter of silverware and chairs scraping against the floor.
Soon, though, we’re shoveling food into our mouths. Padraig cracks jokes with Seamus. Liam rolls his eyes like the broody rockstar he is. Cillian’s already on his second plate. Connor and Ronni try to feed their kids and themselves without getting food all over their clothes. Ma attempts to keep all of us in line while Da, who’s still recovering from his stroke, watches with a quiet smile.
It’s loud and it’s messy, but it’s where I feel most comfortable. I’m able to be unabashedly myself with my family and they still love me for it.
Despite the deep-rooted problems my da’s alcoholism and gambling addiction caused many years ago, we’re gradually healing and moving forward. Sure, I harbor a bit of old resentment—which is probably the reason I’m so driven—but these meals together are sacred. My family keeps me grounded.
After dinner we visit for a while but eventually Cillian and I depart at the same time. As I retrieve my car keys from my pocket, Cillian claps my back. “So, you’re going to text Astrid back, aren’t you?”
“Uh…dunno,” I admit. “I’m curious, of course. My mind is going in a million directions. I’d like to…”
“You should.” Cillian nods vigorously. “It’s not every day the hottest woman from school pops back into your life.” He waggles his eyebrows. “You’ve got shit under control now. It could be interesting.”
I shake my head, knowing he won’t let up until I agree. “Fine. I’ll shoot her a text.”
“You fucking better.” He points at me and peels off into the night.
Ten minutes later, I’m in bed staring at my phone.
Tapping into it. Deleting. Tapping into it. Deleting.
Finally, I stop overthinking something so stupid and hit “send” to get the whole thing over with. Me: Hey Astrid. My schedule is nuts but I’m free Wednesday and Friday for lunch if you’re available.
I stare at the screen for easily five minutes and finally three pulsing dots appear. My heart thunders in my chest. Astrid: Wednesday is perfect. It’s a date. I’ll ping you Tuesday for details .
Holy fucking shit.
How am I going to pull this off?