Chapter 2
Rhett – a man who wishes he could strangle his brothers without his mother finding out
Rhett
I slap the switch to turn on the lights when I enter Buccaneer’s Whiskey & Distillery. Despite being thirty minutes late, I’m the first one to arrive at the offices. My brothers and punctuality do not go together. Whose bright idea was it for the six of us to own a business together?
Oh, right, it was Eli’s. Easy enough for my oldest brother. He lives in California for the most part. He doesn’t have to try and wrangle our brothers into behaving on a daily basis.
Except Eli is returning home next week and he claims he’s going to stay. I’m not certain I believe him. He hightailed it out of Smuggler’s Hideaway for college and has barely returned since.
I pass the offices of my brothers Miles and Zane. Both are empty. No surprise there. I keep going until I reach the door to the distillery. My two other brothers, Kai and Jaxon, should be in here.
I locate Jaxon in his lab. He doesn’t bother to look up from labeling the small bottles filled with whiskey samples when I enter.
“Jaxon,” I call.
“Busy.”
“Is Kai in yet?”
“I am not Kai’s keeper.”
I sigh. I don’t know why I bothered to ask. Jaxon lives in his own world as the master distiller. I’d complain about him being anti-social but this is just the way he is. His concentration skills are legendary. Anyone who can manage to study for a physics test while his three younger brothers wrestle on the ground in front of him has my admiration.
I don’t bother to say goodbye as I leave and go in search of Kai. Kai is the operations manager for Buccaneer’s Whiskey and should be here to manage the logistical and organizational aspects of the distillery.
I fought Eli long and hard when he appointed Kai as the operations manager. Kai is the youngest of the Raider brothers and he believes being on time is for boring old men.
But my oldest brother wouldn’t change his mind. He wanted all of the management roles for the distillery – our distillery, according to him – to be filled by his brothers. And since Zane is a marketing whizz, Jaxon is a scientific genius, and I’m the numbers guy, there was no one left.
Except Miles. But he flat out refused to accept the position. He told Eli he didn’t want any part of the distillery. He’s the sales manager when he deigns to come into the office. He can usually be found in the ocean on his surfboard.
I’m not surprised when I can’t locate Kai anywhere in the distillery. I return to the offices and nearly bump into Zane.
“You’re here.”
“Where else would I be?”
Who knows? Zane could literally be up to anything from hitchhiking across South America to holed up in a kibbutz in Israel when he’s not at work. He’s a free spirit who’s determined to try everything at least once in his life.
“I need your help.”
He holds up his hands. “Dude. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you twice, I am not checking your junk for signs of an STD.”
I glare at him. “I do not have an STD.”
Zane snorts. “What about the time you got dots on your junk and were convinced you had genital measles?”
“Genital measles isn’t a thing.”
“Which is what we told you at the time.”
“You shouldn’t have crept into my room and drawn dots all over me.”
“It wasn’t me. Kai did it.”
“I deny all responsibility,” Kai says as he strolls into the building. “Unless it was awesome, in which case, it was probably me.”
“Good. You’re here. I need your help.”
Kai rolls back on his heels. “It’s good you finally recognize your limitations, old man. But I am not helping you go to the toilet.”
“I am not an old man,” I grumble. “And I don’t need any fucking help going to the toilet.”
“Good. I should probably get to work.”
I shackle his wrist before he can escape. “I need your help bringing some furniture inside.”
From the corner of my eye, I catch Zane trying to sneak off. “You too,” I bark at him.
His shoulders slump. “Moving furniture is boring.”
“Boring is not being able to travel because your car doesn’t work.”
He narrows his eyes on me. “You wouldn’t dare pour sugar in my gas tank again. I’ll tell Mom.”
I shrug. “Tell Mom what you want. Let’s find out who she believes.” Since Zane thinks telling lies is fun, Mom hardly ever believes him – even when he’s telling the truth. “Or you can help me move some furniture and we can get back to work.”
“You’re going the wrong way,” Miles says as I walk outside with Kai and Zane on my heels.
“We’re moving furniture,” Zane says with a distinct pout in his voice.
“What furniture?” Miles asks as he follows us to my SUV.
“It’s not much. A desk, chair, and filing cabinet.”
“If you’re getting a new chair, I want a new chair,” Kai says.
“You’re not getting a new chair until you apologize for what you did to mine,” I say.
“No one touched your chair,” he claims.
I fist my hands on my hips. “It got shorter and shorter every day on its own?”
I seriously thought I was losing my mind until I examined the bottom of the chair and realized someone was messing with the settings. My money’s on Kai.
Zane shrugs. “Maybe you’ve been gaining weight and the chair couldn’t handle it.”
I grunt. “I haven’t been gaining weight.”
Kai sighs. “It’s normal to gain weight as you get old.”
“I’m not fucking old just because you’re a baby.”
“I’m not a baby.”
Miles clears his throat. “Technically, you are the baby of the family.”
“I’ll show you baby.” Kai flies at Miles and tackles him to the ground.
“I don’t have time for this shit,” I mumble as I grab both of them by the back of their t-shirts and shake them. “Enough or I’ll tell Mom.”
“Tattletale,” Kai snarls as he yanks away from me.
“I wouldn’t have to tattletale if you’d just listen to me.”
“Why should we listen to you?” Miles asks. “You’re not the boss of us.”
I rub my neck, but it doesn’t relieve any of the tension building there. My brothers all love to remind me how I’m not their boss. I’m not their dad. I’m not their parent. The list goes on and on.
But who was the person who made sure they finished their homework every night? Who made sure they made it to school every day? Who made sure they got to sports practice every afternoon?
It sure as hell wasn’t our dad since he took off when I was fifteen and never looked back. And it wasn’t our mom. Don’t get me wrong. She did the best she could. She worked two jobs to give us a roof over our heads and provide food on the table.
But when she wasn’t working, she was falling apart. Dad's leaving broke something in her. Something that couldn’t be fixed until Stuart entered our lives.
And it wasn’t my big brother Eli. Eli did his thing. He worked two or three jobs to make sure my brothers and I could buy new clothes and join sports teams, and have a bit of extra money to go out on a date. But he wasn’t there every day. I was.
And I’ve been listening to my brothers bitch about me ever since.
“The furniture is for Eli’s new assistant. She’s starting tomorrow,” I explain, since trying to talk sense into my brothers is a waste of time and effort.
Miles rubs his hands together. “I hope she’s sexy and wears tight skirts and high heels.”
I slap him upside the head. “You are not going to seduce Eli’s assistant.”
He widens his eyes and feigns innocence. “I don’t seduce women. I can’t help it if they fall into my lap.”
“None of you.” I glare at them. “Is going to seduce or date or flirt or whatever you want to call it with Eli’s new assistant.”
Zane’s nose wrinkles. “Whatever we want to call it? Are you having memory problems?”
I swear, if Mom wouldn’t haunt me, I’d strangle my brother. Having siblings is a pain in my ass.
“Mom should have stopped having children after me,” I mutter as I open the door of my SUV and start pulling boxes out.
“Don’t be jealous, Mom loves me more than you,” Kai says as he picks up a box and carries it away.
“Mom loves all of us equally,” Miles hollers after him.
“I’m the favorite,” Zane claims.
I ignore them as we carry the boxes into the office side of the distillery building.
“You’re welcome!” Kai shouts as he drops his load in the empty reception area and walks away.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
He taps his empty wrist. “Need to get to work. Don’t want to anger the boss.”
“Me too,” Miles says as he aims for the door.
“Your office is in the other direction.”
“Dude, the waves are calling my name.”
I bite my tongue before I lash out at him. Eli hired Miles knowing he didn’t want anything to do with the distillery. I can threaten to fire him all I want. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t want or need the money from this job. All he needs is a surfboard and the ocean. If he hadn’t injured his shoulder a while back, he’d be a pro surfer.
Zane sighs. “I’ll help.”
I shoo him away. “Not after the last time you ‘helped’ put a bed together and Miles ended up with a concussion when it collapsed.”
“It’s not my fault he was jumping on it.”
“Except you dared him to use the bed as a springboard to fly out of the window.”
“He didn’t have to accept the dare.”
None of my brothers can refuse a dare. It’s why I know the ER doctor by her first name and am intimately acquainted with the jail cells on Smuggler’s Hideaway.
“Go. I’ve got this.”
He ambles away and I open the first box and get to work. The way I always do. I’m always the one taking care of my brothers. And I always will be.
Eli returning home won’t change a thing.