Chapter 25
Noah
Running was alwayssomething I did alone, but not today. Today I was running with Alex Blake, Tower’s partner in Dallas. He was in L.A. for a short visit, and he joined me in Griffith Park.
Even though I hadn’t seen him in a while, we did most of the run in silence. This was how it was with the partners and me. These guys were my brothers, and we had the kind of friendship that didn’t require nonstop talking. We were both winded anyway, because Alex was a competitive asshole who was trying to beat my pace and kept us both running faster. By the time we got to the end of the trail, we were both soaked in sweat and winded.
“Nice run,” I croaked, bending over and putting my hands on my knees.
“Piece of cake,” Alex gasped back, pulling his shirt off and mopping his face with it.
This, for us guys, was quality time.
When we could breathe again, we went to Shakey’s and got a drink. The sun was up now, but it was December and the breeze was cool. We grabbed our drinks and took a walk on Venice Beach, because even though Alex was quiet, I sensed that he wanted to talk about something. He hadn’t told me why he had come to L.A. I let him come around to it on his own time, and as we walked, drinking and cooling off, he did.
“I talked to Aidan last week,” Alex said.
“Yeah?”
“He’s got some concerns about the business.” An insanely beautiful woman rollerbladed past us, giving both of us a double take. Her gaze moved appreciatively over the tattoos on Alex’s arms, but he was deep in thought and didn’t notice. As for me, I didn’t look at women anymore, even surrounded by some of the most gorgeous women in the world. I had Emma, and she was more than enough for me. I had her every night, in every possible way we could think of.
For now. Until she packed her bags and went home.
I shook the thought away. “What concerns?” I asked Alex.
“Dane is mostly out of the company now,” Alex said. “Ava’s baby is due next month, and when that happens he’ll be MIA for a while. Maybe a long time. Which leaves the three of us.” He took a sip of his drink. “You’ve never been as committed as Aidan and me. Aidan thinks I should take on more responsibility. He thinks that we should consider closing the Dallas office and moving me to New York.”
I blinked behind my sunglasses. I knew I was more disconnected than Aidan wanted me to be, but it still shook me that he hadn’t included me in this conversation. Did he think I really didn’t care?
“He wanted to get my take on it before he brought it up to you and Dane,” Alex said as if reading my mind. “He wanted to know if I would even be agreeable to it. If I did the move, we could consolidate Tower and simplify things. We’d have the New York base and the LA base, plus the office in Chicago to manage the Chicago project. We could focus on fewer projects and make them bigger. That’s the way Aidan sees it.”
Yeah, it was a fully thought-out plan, one that had never been mentioned to me. “And how do you see it?” I asked Alex.
“It’s a decent plan,” Alex said. “It makes sense in a lot of ways.”
And yet he was here, in L.A., talking to me instead of saying yes, and his dark eyes were scowling behind his sunglasses. “You don’t want to do it,” I said.
“It isn’t that I don’t want to do it. New York is fine. I’m not really attached to Dallas. The plan has logic to it.”
“Then spit it out, man. There’s something you hate about this. You know you can say it to me.”
Alex sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He was leaner than me, darker, and the tats made him look dangerous. They reflected the fact that he was the only one of us with a prison record. He’d done eighteen months of time when we were nineteen, after getting in a fight with his own brother and putting him in the hospital. That fight was one of the two things Alex never talked about. The other thing was his ex-wife, Kat, who he’d married after getting out of prison and divorced eight months later. I wasn’t the only one who had shit in his former life that he’d decided to bury and never think about again.
“It isn’t that I don’t like the idea,” Alex said. “But I’ve been thinking about something for a while.”
“Thinking about what?”
“Taking a vacation.”
I stared at him, surprised. “A vacation?”
“Yeah. You know, vacations? Those things none of us ever take? We’ve been working nonstop for over a decade, Noah. We’re all richer than we ever needed to be. I’ve been wondering lately why the hell we never take a break, never stop to enjoy life. And then I realized that you’ve had that mindset all along. You’re the only one of us who does take time off. And we’ve given you shit about it all this time, but now that I’m over thirty I’m realizing that you were the smart one all along. You were the only one of us with the right idea.”
I had no idea what to say to this. It was true—I got nonstop shit from the guys about being a flake, about not being serious. I’d never let it bother me, or so I thought. Hearing Alex say those words hit me by surprise in the gut, like part of me had wished to hear that for longer than I wanted to think about.
I cleared my throat. “I’m not sure you should be taking life advice from me, considering what a fuckup I am.”
“That’s just it, though,” Alex said. “I think the rest of us have actually fucked up more than you have. Life is short. If I kicked the bucket tomorrow, what would I have to show for it? A bunch of business deals, and that’s all.”
“You’ve been thinking some deep stuff.”
“I know. I must be getting old.” Alex shook his head and took a sip of his drink. “I don’t want to quit the business. And I know Aidan loves what he does, and if I left, it would be hard on him. But I need something. I want to start with a vacation. A real one. A long one. Not just a week on a beach somewhere. An actual break.”
It was a good idea. “You should travel,” I said. “You could go anywhere you wanted.”
“Exactly.”
“You could find a woman, too. Or lots of them. Whatever floats your boat. There are women all around the world, you know.”
Alex scowled again. “I’m better off alone.”
He’d been alone since his divorce years ago. He hadn’t had a girlfriend, at least one that I knew of. All four of us might be successes on the business front, but we were all screwups in our personal lives. There was no other way to put it.
“Whatever,” I said. “So you want to take a vacation, and Aidan wants you to move to New York. You don’t want to tell him?”
Alex blew out a breath. “I don’t want to let him down.”
“I know that feeling. The difference is that I let Aidan down regularly. Letting Aidan down is a part of life. You get used to it after a while.”
“So you don’t think I’m crazy?” Alex asked.
“Is that what you came all the way to L.A. to ask me?” I clapped him on the back. “Jesus, man. Take a vacation. Drink some fruity drinks. Bang some women you’ll never see again. See some sights. I’m the last guy to tell you that you need to work more, not less. And when you get back, whenever that is, we’ll deal with the New York thing. Maybe you’ll do it, and maybe you won’t. I love Aidan, but we don’t answer to the Man in Black. He doesn’t get the final say.”
Alex shook his head. “I don’t know how you do it. Everything’s so simple for you, Noah.”
That gave me a shot of pain, because I only made everything look easy. Underneath, I was as confused as the rest of them.
But Alex had come here because he needed easygoing, don’t-think-too-much Noah. So I would give that to him.
Besides, the guy really did need a vacation. And a woman. Maybe not in that order, and maybe he wouldn’t admit to the woman part. But I’d never seen a guy more in need of getting laid in my life. Maybe a vacation would wake him up.
I didn’t have everything figured out. But that part really was easy.