Chapter 4
FITZ
“It’s fucking bullshit! One of you got me banned from the Brew & Browse.” Hawthorne storms into Salinger’s living room.
I scrunch down on Salinger’s couch and kick my shoes off because I know it will piss my oldest brother off.
“You.” Hawthorne rounds on me.
I look up at him, pointing to my chest. “Me? I didn’t do anything.”
“What did you do?”
“Blame Faulkner.” I gesture at our youngest brother. “He has anger management issues.”
“No, I don’t.” He takes a swing at me.
I laugh, ducking him.
“McCarthy’s the one with a criminal record.” Salinger snorts.
We’re all byproducts of our father’s polygamist cult. In the irony of ironies, he seemed to be only able to create sons. Not what you want when you’re running a patriarchal doomsday cult. Boys are a liability for obvious reasons.
Our handful of sisters live in Manhattan. “Spirited” is what their school called them before expelling them for fighting.
Love my girls.
Our younger half brothers live upstate in New York. Christmas with dozens of younger siblings? It’s chaos of the best kind. I buy mounds of presents. Kids are so awesome. I want ten of them.
Hunter and Greg are always pissed, though, for some reason. I make a mental note to add loud, obnoxious toys to my Christmas shopping.
“He’s not even paying attention,” McCarthy, the third youngest, sneers.
“Fine, be a dick. I’m not putting your name on any of the Christmas presents I buy for the kids.”
Salinger sighs and rubs his face, like he’s old or something. “You know it pains me to say this because I live for making Hunter and Greg’s lives miserable, but you have got to tone it down for the holidays this year.”
“No one cares about Christmas.” Hawthorne, the second oldest, pulls out a folded flyer.
He ignores my indignant noise. “I tried to take my newest VP to the Brew & Browse after a meeting, and imagine my surprise when the cashier told me I was banned from the premises. I didn’t even get my smoked swordfish BLT.
They only sell them once a month, and I fucking missed it. ”
“Oh man, sounds like Faulkner really screwed you over.” I stare up at Salinger’s ceiling. He should really think about painting that green.
“This”—Hawthorne slaps the flyer to my chest—“is you.”
“Nooo,” I drawl. “That looks just like Salinger. See the gray hairs, the wrinkles?” I ball it up and throw it at my eldest brother.
“That wasn’t me.”
“Wait, is that why they were mysteriously out when I tried to order a coffee?” Whitman is pissed now.
“So he got everyone banned.” Faulkner sneers.
“Oh, look. It thinks it’s a real boy. Salinger, children shouldn’t drink coffee. Faulkner, geez, why do you have to ruin everything? Since the day you were born.”
“Me?” My little brother has that eat-shit glint in his beady demon eyes. “You’re the one stalking a poor innocent girl.”
“Um, okay, I didn’t raise you to be a snitch. And Winnie’s not a girl, and based on her internet search history, she’s not that innocent either. She’s got a kinky side.”
“Dude, I thought you were going to stop stalking people,” Salinger snaps. “Fucking idiot.”
“I’m not stalking. It’s not stalking. I’m doing nice things for someone. She likes it,” I protest.
“…disturbing pattern of behavior…”
“Fuck off, McCarthy.”
“Call Crawford,” Hawthorne barks.
“What am I supposed to do? Salinger won’t let me actually run my sports teams,” I whine.
“You’re moving players around at random.
” Our oldest brother doesn’t look up from his laptop.
“You traded one guy back and forth three times in five weeks to that Florida team. The GMs are going to revolt,” he says flatly.
“I put money in your stadium. I don’t want the NFL to snatch your football team and ruin my investment. ”
“No one’s investment is getting ruined. You always think the worst of us. Doesn’t he?” I nudge Hawthorne with my foot. “Huh, Hawthorne, doesn’t he?”
Hawthorne ignores me to address Salinger. “Do you have a fund set up for his inevitable legal fees when Fitz gets arrested for stalking?”
“It’s not illegal if you’re rich. I’m showing my affections.”
“You’re gonna show your affections from prison.”
“Can I have his sports teams when he goes to jail?” Faulkner snickers.
“No, no one touches my stuff.” I bristle, tense up.
“Then you better get me unbanned or learn how to cook authentic French bistro food.” Hawthorne growls. “Or I’m going to kill you and give all your shit to Faulkner.”
“I said don’t touch my shit.” Hawthorne flinches slightly when I stand up abruptly and get in his face. “That’s my stuff. Don’t touch my stuff.”
“Okay, no one is touching your shit. No one wants all the garbage you have piled up in your house. You’re like the Little Mermaid if she had anger management issues and an unlimited credit card and even lower impulse control than the chick in the movie.” Whitman kicks the back of my chair.
“I want my food,” Hawthorne warns. “Tomorrow is galette day. I better be eating one, or I’m taking a piss on all your shit.”
“Fuck you. I already have a plan in the works.”
“I sent my girlfriend to get my food.” McCarthy smirks, pulling out the quilted pizza-warming bag I’d given him as a gift last year and gotten a lot of shit for, might I add.
“Pastries!” Faulkner makes a rush for the bag.
McCarthy snarls at him. “Back the fuck off.”
“You owe me!” Whitman tackles McCarthy, and he goes down swinging.
The rest of my brothers raid the bag.
“Goddamn, they’re still warm.” Hawthorne groans. “I need to find the girl who makes these and marry her.”
“You fucking go anywhere near her—” I advance on him.
Whitman grips his croissant stuffed with brie and jam. “You can’t just claim every woman in this city as part of your hoard.”
“She doesn’t even like you if she banned you from the shop,” Faulkner adds, tearing into another pastry as McCarthy fights him for it.
“Don’t touch my stuff.” I grab my youngest brother by the collar.
He licks my face.
“Yuck, you have his spit on you.” McCarthy makes a face.
“Little shit.” I grab my phone.
I have a new email. I can practically feel the GM’s annoyance when he responds to my trade requests.
“I’m telling Salinger,” Faulkner hollers, glancing over my shoulder.
“It’s my sports team. I can do what I want.” I clutch the phone. “These guys make millions. They know the deal. They can get traded at any time.”
“Okay, have fun when the NHL yanks your hockey team.”
“L-O-L. You don’t know how these sports franchises work. The NHL commissioner works for the owners, not the other way around.”
“Really? Because your GM looks angry.”
“Ooh. He CCed legal.” Hawthorne looks over my shoulder.
“Fine.” I talk as I type. “You don’t want to trade Connor, then let’s take Knox Yandle and bring him to Seattle and send Bedsy and Jack Abraham to Boston and see if the Harborwolves will do a three-way trade to Minnesota.”
“Salinger, do you see what he’s doing?” McCarthy protests.
“You need to stop making impulsive decisions.” Hawthorne tries to grab my phone.
“Oops. Too late. I just bought a new quarterback.”
“I’m sure your football fans are really going to love that one.”
“He lost the last two games. They’re rabid.”
Salinger finally looks up from his laptop. “Yeah, this is what I thought.” He turns his computer toward me.
“Winifred Peterson,” I read. There’s her headshot on the Rainier Investment website.
“Wait. She’s one of your investment bankers?” McCarthy is confused.
“Former.” Salinger turns the laptop back around.
“Oh shit.” Whitman smirks at me.
“She was one of my best investment bankers.” Salinger smirks. “She’d deliver someone’s bloody balls on my desk along with a suitcase full of cash. Then she just quit one day to start a bakery. At her exit interview, HR asked if she was burnt out. She replied she was bored.”
“Charming.”
“There was a bet in the office that she’d fail. Now she’s got a franchise. I think she’s going for a monopoly in the city.”
“So I’m never ever going to get another bagel in this city. Great.” Whitman throws up his hands.
“Fuck you, Fitz,” McCarthy adds.
“Just for that, I’m asking her out.” Hawthorne smirks.
“I’m warning you. Stop starting shit, Hawthorne.”
“Fitz, dude, you need to fix this.”
Winnie’s not peeking around a doorway to stare at me when I walk into her café.
It’s galette day. The whole place smells like caramelized onion and buttery pastry and delicious bubbling cheese.
She seems slightly nervous when she sees me. She smooths her palms down the apron that’s snug around her waist. Guess buying her café out from under her wasn’t a bad idea after all.
“Creampuff. Queen of pastries.” My grin broadens.
Ignoring the grumbling from the people in line, I waltz up to her.
“Now, this is how you greet your favorite customer. I’ll take two of the savory galettes and a sweet one.
Peach, in your honor, I’ll add his onto my tab,” I tell the furious customer behind me.
“Sorry, but she really wants to grovel for mercy.”
Fury skitters across her face, then it’s gone. “I thought maybe we could work something out. A little quid pro quo.” For a brief second, her fingers flutter along the sleeve of my suit jacket.
She’s flirting with me. It’s thrilling, and so unlike the blatant interest of the supermodels I usually date. “What kind of bargain are you proposing?”
“I assume that you’re not seeing anyone currently?” She raises an eyebrow. Coquettish. In honor of the French galettes.
Winnie draws back when I lean in to grab the apron string. I let her, not wanting what we have to end.
That was easy. I’m almost sad that the chase is over. Still, her being wrapped around my every word will be entertaining enough for the next month, at least.
“Are you asking me out on a date, Creampuff?”