Five
Five
Noah leaned back in his chair, his feet up on a filing cabinet they never used. He wasn’t even sure why it was in their fairly new office space over By the Cup—Wes’s girlfriend’s salad shop. Probably just for his feet.
A piece of crumpled paper hit him in the head, knocking him out of his random musings. Brows scrunched, he dropped his feet, turned, and picked up the paper.
“You joining this conversation, or did you just show up to look pretty?” Chris, his younger brother, asked.
“If so, you failed,” Wes, his older brother, added.
Chris and Wes chuckled when Noah tossed the paper back at Chris. They’d moved into the gorgeous, high-ceilinged space that reminded him of a New York loft just over six months ago. Technically, their mom owned the space. She’d fallen in love with it and when the landlord started scamming the tenants in the businesses below, she’d seen a solid investment. Tall, narrow windows let the California sunshine light the place up.
“I’m prettier than you are. How’s wedding plans, Chris?” Noah got up and went to the small, corner kitchen area that they’d outfitted with some upper cupboards, counterspace, and a fridge.
“Everly’s pretty easy to please. She found a dress, we have the caterers, and I just paid the deposit on our venue. I wish it were sooner,” Chris said, his tone laced with love.
“I get that. I’d marry Grace tomorrow but I don’t want to rush her in any of the decisions,” he shared.
All three of them had found love. It was, in his mind, each of their greatest accomplishments. Money could be made and lost. Buildings bought and sold. For brothers who’d grown up with skewed examples of what it meant to commit to someone forever, to vow to love someone with their whole heart and promise to stand by that person through the good and the bad, finding their people was no small feat. And each of them had found a person who perfectly suited the men that they’d become. Grace had Noah’s sense of humor while Everly’s quiet, introspective nature matched a part of Chris that few saw. And Hailey, well, she pulled Wes out of his own head in a way no one else ever could. They’d done well in all areas of life, but these women had shown each of them how to realize what was most important in life. That , and their unconditional love, helped them become men who could be proud of themselves, Noah thought, regardless of how hard their father had tried to lead them down his own misguided and selfish path.
“You’re sure about the documentary? It won’t get in the way?” Wes asked, his fingers moving even as he spoke.
Their techy brother was the king of multitasking. Noah grabbed three sodas from the fridge and brought them over to the table, sitting next to Wes at the long boardroom table. The office, decorated by Grace and Rosie, was an eclectic mix of form and function, and really freaking kick-ass. The long table accommodated meetings of all sizes. Three separate workstations were interspersed around the room. There were two offices off the main room, plus a bathroom. If they went out into the hallway, it led to another set of offices.
“Grace seemed good with it. We were supposed to meet with Emily and her crew last night but she had to push it. They’re coming to the house this weekend. It’ll be fun and completely different. I want to give Gracie everything. Even things she doesn’t think to ask for. I know she worries that the success she and Rosie have found is somehow connected to knowing us.”
“That’s not true. They’re excellent at what they do,” Chris said.
Noah smiled. “I know. This series will showcase that. And if we end up with more, like some sort of fairytale wedding put on by a network, I’m down with it. I just want to make her happy.” He cracked the top on his soda.
Chris reached forward to grab his own can and Wes pushed back from the table, stretching out his arms. Even with the heat, their older brother wore a dress shirt. But he was becoming more and more casual. He’d forgone the tie today and even had a couple buttons on his pinstriped shirt open. Hailey was good for him.
“I think she’s told you more than once that all she needs is you. You don’t need to go overboard or do anything over-the-top to show her you love her,” Chris cautioned.
Noah thought of the simple but elegant wedding bands he and Gracie had chosen together. Cost wouldn’t have mattered, but they’d chosen what spoke to her, and it was another reminder of what his brother had just said. Grace loved him for him. They’d tucked those bands in their nightstand drawers. Those, the wedding attire, and the guest list were the only things not getting a jar.
Chris, with his brown hair, dress pants, and polo, similar height to Noah, was a mix of the other two. He was less uptight than Wes for sure. Not that that was difficult to accomplish, but he didn’t have Noah’s laid-back certainty that everything would work out like it should, no matter the situation. Noah stood up again, feeling restless and ready for something. Anything. But he had no idea what.
“I don’t do that anymore,” Noah said. Maybe he’d overdone it a few times with gifts and flowers.
Both of his brothers cracked up, earning a glare from him before he walked over to the large whiteboard that listed all their current projects in different colors according to progress.
“Both of you can shut it. Pretty sure both of you have been known to spoil your women,” Noah said, picking up a dry-erase marker.
Wes’s laughter stopped. “He’s right. I think we’re all so happy that women like those three are in love with us, we all overdo it now and again.”
Wes was the last to fall. He and Hailey had been going solid and strong for just over six months now. They’d met almost a year before that but Wes… well, if Noah was the fun brother and Chris was the sensible one, Wes was complicated. Chris and Noah hadn’t known the extent of the emotional baggage from their childhood that their older brother had shouldered and buried. It had made getting close to Hailey tricky. He’d almost lost her. Just like Noah had almost lost Grace by overstepping and trying to do too much.
He didn’t want to do that with the wedding. He didn’t need big or splashy. He didn’t need a documentary or to broadcast his wedding. He just wanted Grace to look forward to their wedding day the way he was looking forward to being able to call her his wife.
He shook his head. Musings about his fiancée wouldn’t help him get home to her. They actually had work to do. He added the new event space overlooking the water that they’d recently purchased to the board.
His brothers joined him, the three of them almost shoulder to shoulder staring at a visual reminder of what they’d achieved together after getting away from their father.
“The event space is going to need a lot more work than we planned,” Wes said.
Chris folded his arms over his chest. “Yeah, but we got such an incredible price on it, that once we renovate, it’s going to pay us back in spades.”
Noah grinned. “Maybe Gracie and I should put it in our venue jar.”
His brothers laughed. Chris was somewhere in between Wes’s and Noah’s personalities. Not quite as type A as Wes but not as relaxed as everyone considered Noah to be. But both of them thought choosing wedding plans out of jars was too much of a risk. Noah didn’t mind it. All the jars had things he’d enjoy, and at the end of the day, no matter how it shook out, he’d be married to Grace.
“Will the network have any say over what goes into the jars?”
Noah frowned at Chris, who’d asked. They shouldn’t. No. They wouldn’t. But what if, like Grace worried, they got too far in to back out and things got out of hand?
We’re in control. But there’d definitely been times in his life when that theory had been disproved.
He shook his head. “I was joking about the venue. It’ll take too long. I’m marrying that woman the second I can.” And no one was stopping him from giving his girl exactly what she wanted. Contract or no contact.