Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Myles
Cruz flicked the edge of his menu with his finger. The sounds of tinkling glasses and silverware on plates resonated around us. We’d been seated at a table between two empty booths. I studied my own menu, not seeing a damn thing except for Cruz and Lane exchanging questioning glances.
I’d communicated in little more than grunts since I’d walked in. The older server had even given me a censuring look when I ordered a water, the one word sounding more like fuck off. Wynn’s kiss tingled across my lips, taunting me.
I wanted to show you what a proper goodbye looked like.
…a selfish man.
What the hell had I been selfish about? I left all my foster homes with nothing more than what I brought, except for the Baileys’—and the car had been given to me. I’d tried to pay Darin back for it when I’d returned his investment. I’d set up a foundation to pay my success and wealth forward.
But my talk with Mae came to mind. When she’d told me that Gianna had found them, it’d been anticlimactic despite my fears, despite the fact that I had avoided everything about my childhood I was fond of for nothing. Because I hadn’t avoided them all to protect them.
I’d done it for myself.
Selfish. That was how Wynn saw my behavior.
Cruz pushed his menu to the edge of the table. “Did your bae not give you a little—”
“Think hard before you finish that sentence,” I snarled. They didn’t know her.
And whose fault was that?
“Bruh.” Cruz held his hands up. “Oh god, you’re being a real dick. You go from buying the biggest and best at the funeral home to ordering water and glaring at the world. Something happened—or didn’t happen, since she was a tight ten out of ten.”
I glowered at my youngest brother. Something had happened. She’d fucking broken up with me.
We weren’t even fucking together.
Weren’t you?
Had I been as into anyone in the last year? Two years? Ten?
Christ, my entire life?
“Since we’re talking about her.” Lane smirked when I switched my glare to him. “How old is she anyway?”
I curled my upper lip. She was closer to his goddamn age than mine.
His smirk widened into a full grin. “So, she’s back on the market?”
I narrowed my eyes, the urge to bring death and destruction onto this old diner sweeping through me. “She’s too good for all of us.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I can be a pretty nice guy.”
“You want me to evict you?”
The way Lane sobered was unexpected. “We’re just playing. Isn’t that what brothers do?” he asked bitterly.
Yeah. And I knew that because of Tate, Teller, and Tenor. Goddamn it. I couldn’t relax, but I could remember these guys hadn’t fucked up with Wynn. I had.
What was there to fuck up? I hadn’t even gone on a real date with her. She got me. We had sex—when we were in the same zip code. I thought about her every second of the day.
Fuck.
I pushed a hand through my hair. “Yes, she broke up with me.” I blew out a breath. “We weren’t even really together.”
Lane let out a whistle under his breath.
“And that’s why I’m not a relationship guy.
” He was eighteen years younger than me, yet he was spouting the same mantra I had my entire life.
When he was forty, how goddamn depressing would that be?
Because that was me. An idiot who thought shunning relationships was the only way to deal with life.
“She must’ve thought you two were together if she broke up with you.” Cruz took a long drink of his piping hot coffee.
The server had poured me some when I’d given her no indication I wanted any. Yet, I took a drink. The coffee was scalding and bitter. My tongue wasn’t numb from smoking like his, but I relished the pain. “It’s complicated.”
“You two were fucking, she got attached, but you have mommy issues and won’t commit?” Lane unwrapped the napkin from around his silverware.
I blinked at him. What the hell?
His chuckle was dry. Cruz grinned and leaned on the back two legs of his chair.
Since they thought they were so smart, I added a fact that’d throw them. “Her family fostered me.”
The legs of Cruz’s chair thunked down. “Bruh, you were sleeping with your foster sister?”
The couple two booths over glanced at us.
“Be quiet,” I hissed.
Cruz only grinned bigger. “Did you?”
“She’s twelve years younger than me. No. She worked for me last summer, and I…” What the hell was I telling them for? But I couldn’t stop. “…didn’t recognize her.”
“Looking at dat ass,” Cruz said, and Lane snickered.
“You couldn’t even see it.” She hadn’t turned around for them to see it. Though she’d been bundled up and so damn cute and sexy in her winter gear.
Lane lifted a shoulder. “Didn’t have to.”
The server stopped by, and the guys ordered a shitload of food. They didn’t ask if I was paying. I assumed I was—and they probably did, too. When she left, they turned back to me.
I’d said too much. “Enough about Wynter.”
“It’s cool,” Lane said. “We’re all left with baggage. I guess ditching a hot girl who really cares about you is yours.”
“My baggage is focusing on a thriving business so I can give to the world instead of shitting on it.” Prickles ran down my spine. I hated explaining myself, yet that was all I was doing for these two.
Cruz held up a finger. “About that. How does a kid who grew up with a mom who abused every substance she could get make and sell liquor?”
“I prefer to call it spirits.”
Lane tapped the table. “And Mom preferred to call her pills treats.”
More explaining. “Gianna kept her worst habits away from me. She preferred to be gone and pretend she didn’t have a home.
Or a kid.” Their interest was focused on me, and I continued, unused to having the other party know exactly what I was talking about.
“I was put in the system when Gianna was arrested, and I was found alone. I’d been alone for a week. I was eleven.”
“Only a week?” Lane tipped his head from side to side. “I guess Mom waited until we were teens before she ditched us longer than a weekend.”
“How long was the longest?”
They exchanged a look, and Lane answered. “Six weeks? I finally got ahold of her and said we needed groceries, or I was going right to the police station to tell them she gave us drugs.”
“Did she try to sell to your friends?”
They both snorted.
“What friends?” Cruz asked.
I could imagine how it went. Dirty, hungry, scared.
They’d likely been walking, hormonal assholes with grungy clothes and greasy hair.
Who’d want anything to do with them? But they hadn’t been yanked from the house.
Gianna had learned by then. I’d paid the rent and bought the car and eventually ordered groceries.
I had been caring for my brothers, not her.
“I don’t see our generous mother giving up any of her stash,” Lane said sarcastically.
“For control, she would.”
They both nodded, accepting the answer.
“She told us you were jealous of us,” Lane said. “Because we worked harder to stay with her.”
Wasn’t that some shit. “She never said a word.”
“I wondered about that,” Lane said. “You would’ve taken us?”
“I was barely more than a kid when you were born.” I pointed to Lane, then to Cruz. “I was probably in jail for getting into a bar fight when you were born. But later? After Foster House was established? Yeah, I would’ve made sure you two were taken care of.”
A knowing look entered Cruz’s eyes. “Not by you, though.”
“And that’s why your foster sister dumped you,” Lane added sarcastically.
Fuck these two. “I wasn’t—I wouldn’t—” I helped others, but I did it with my money.
I formed an umbrella company to dole out scholarships.
I hired adults who’d been through some of what I had.
I threw jobs and money at them, and once in a while, we had a talk.
Short. Superficial. I got what information I needed to know, and then I gave them money.
After that, I went to my tower in the sky. Alone. The next day, I woke up to make more money.
Was this the life I wanted? “Shit.”
“Stings, don’t it?” Lane stared out the window to his right.
“He just got dumped, too,” Cruz said. “Actually, me, too. Seems to be something Foster siblings have in common.”
Wynter
The distillery bar was lively tonight. I was not.
I was serving drinks, and I was drinking drinks.
Strong ones. Not wine. My boy troubles required more than wine.
Only a day had passed since I’d told Myles goodbye.
The longest day of my life. I took a shot of bourbon knowing darn well Daddy wouldn’t approve.
Bourbon was for sipping, but not tonight.
Autumn had been called in to be my backup. Teller had said replacement, actually, but I wasn’t going home to cry. I’d given up on someone important, and the road rash on my heart hadn’t healed.
“What’s this one?” a good-looking guy asked. I didn’t know him from Bourbon Canyon, which meant he wasn’t from Bourbon Canyon.
His stylishly long blond hair was swept to the side. He had a chin that would make an NHL player jealous and shoulders just as wide. Maybe he was a hockey player. I’d never liked sports guys. Not broody enough.
But he’d sat directly in front of me and tried to make conversation every time I wasn’t serving a drink.
“Summit Sex.” I tossed my hair. Oh god. Was I flirting? My inhibitions were down, and I wasn’t interested, but my pride needed the nourishment. My empty fucking ego that had been lusting after one man nearly my entire life demanded it.
No one had measured up. No one.
Not even Myles.
“Summit Sex? I imagine that’s pretty popular around here.”
The scent of amber-laced sage reached me before Myles slid onto a stool next to the man. “She’s taken, jackass.”
The cute guy reared back. “Excuse me?”
“You were joking about how sex in the mountains must be popular over here. And then you were going to segue into somehow having sex with her in the mountains or in the back seat of your pretentious car. Or is it a truck? But she’s tipsy, and you’re an asshole for trying to get with her.”
“What the—”
“I’m sorry for the cranky man’s attitude.
” I wasn’t drunk enough not to know I had to rescue this before Myles’s big rude mouth made the disagreement physical.
“Listen, drinks are on Copper Summit tonight. We can even toss in a free bottle of Wynter Summit.” I wasn’t above needling Mr. Foster.
“Any size you want. Just let my sister know while I deal with this top-shelf asshole right here.”
The stranger’s smile turned smug. He knew Myles was in more trouble with me than he would’ve ever been. He pushed away. “I’ll take you up on that.”
I smiled at him, and just because Myles’s gaze was burning into me, I watched the man’s admirable ass in blue jeans as he walked away.
“Jesus, Frosty. Summit Sex?”
“You have no right to call me Frosty. You lost that privilege.”
Displeasure darkened his blue eyes. “We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Come on, Wynn. Just a few minutes.”
I faced him and flattened my hands on the countertop. “I no longer give my time to just anyone. You can’t charge into my life just because you thought about it for a day.”
“I didn’t need a day.”
Okay, that got to me. A small part of my resolve melted. But not enough. “A day too late.”
“Wynn—”
“If I give you another chance, then what? I fall harder and hurt even more if you haven’t changed after one day?
” His perfect lips dipped into a frown. Frustration welled hot inside my chest. He might be closer to getting it, but he didn’t quite understand how I couldn’t trust him.
“You think you’re hurting yourself to spare others, but you’re wrong.
Everyone loses, but not all of us are as good at walling off our emotions. ”
His eyes flared, and he straightened. He stared through me like I was a ghost.
Autumn appeared at my side and put her hand on my arm. “Is everything okay?” She wasn’t looking at me. She was mean-mugging Myles.
“This man was just leaving.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he replied, too annoyingly calm.
“Then I am.” I wouldn’t be able to work with him. I’d take a page out of his book instead. I gave Autumn a quick hug. “Thank you for covering for me.”
“You’re not okay to drive,” she hissed in my ear.
“Don’t worry, I won’t.” I could sleep in my office.
I went through the storeroom off the side of the bar. There was an exit into the back stairwell that I could take to my office. I didn’t have a couch like some obnoxious CEO, but I’d sleep it off on the floor. And when I woke, Myles would be gone again.