Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
He didn’t like that he had been vulnerable on main, and he wished that he could take it back, but something about sex with Addison had left him feeling raw, and willing to exist in that space.
Until it had all felt like a little bit too much.
Which was why he had decided to take her into the shower.
And there, he had explored her body, every inch of it. All slick and wet and glorious and the epitome of every fantasy he’d ever had.
It was good, and so was she.
Worth all of the pent-up longing and angst that he had felt all this time.
By the time they had finished there, they were both panting and ready for another round, and he had torn open another condom and thrust inside of her just in time for both of them to come in a rush.
She had fallen asleep in his bed, and he had gotten up and gone into his office, checked a few messages, responded to some media inquiries, and fallen asleep on his couch before getting up at the ass crack of dawn and heading out to the resort hub to try and connect with Cody and see how everything was going.
The resort hub was really just one of the barns that they had remodeled. They had their horses for the trail rides stowed in there, and at the beginning of the day, that was where everyone who worked on the resort side met up.
This morning, Lila, Nolan, and Cody were out there, engaged in what looked like a rigorous debate.
“Because of the zip line, we’re attracting more extreme athletes,” Lila was saying.
“Yeah, I get that, but mostly we get people from the city coming and staying here.”
“I know that,” Lila said. “I quite literally manage all of the staff, I talk to everybody, I know who our usual audience is, but I think that we could expand our offerings to appeal more to those who like a more extreme sport.”
“What are we doing?”
“Lila is asking for funds because she wants to invest in more hardcore adventure tourism.”
Lila looked over at Walker and lifted a brow. “The hotel has been at capacity for a couple of weeks now. It’s not showing any sign of slowing down.”
“But that’s just it. We have to figure out how to appeal to people seasonally.
We need to get the skiers and the snowboarders who want to go to Bachelor to stop by here and spend some time as well.
We’re not going to be able to compete with Bend or Sun River for proximity, but we can offer other things.
I haven’t gotten as far as figuring winter out yet, but I know that we could set up some campsites and I think that if we had an endurance ride rather than just trail rides, we would bring in more people with that sort of spirit. ”
Walker looked over at Nolan, who was generally Lila’s biggest hater. And vice versa.
“She’s right,” Nolan said. “We can’t only appeal to the people with aspirations of sitting around doing nothing and taking just light trail rides.
We need to try to hit a different demographic.
And thanks to Walker and his lightning-fast roping skills, we’ve been more talked about than we could ever have hoped to be.
We’ve had a fuller capacity than we could have ever hoped.
But you know, most businesses fail at points of growth. ”
“Yeah,” Cody said. “Because they try to grow too much. My concern is we need to consolidate and focus in on what’s working.”
“I think that’s a mistake,” Lila insisted.
Cody sighed, sounding exasperated. “Lila,” he said. “Businesses aren’t run on vibes. I get that you feel this way, but you don’t have data to back it up.”
“I’m not going to provide you with data,” Lila said. “You might have had data for starting this ranch, but we didn’t demand it from you. We trusted you.”
Walker could see that Lila was upset, and he also knew Cody well enough to know when his older brother wasn’t going to budge.
Lila was spirited, and sometimes she did speak before she thought, but everything she did was carefully considered.
She was smart as hell. Cody didn’t recognize their similarities, he thought, because Lila’s personality was so different.
She was spikier than Cody. She was quick to speak.
But at the end of the day, she was bright, and she didn’t take unnecessary risks. In many ways, Walker had always felt like he was floating above his family, observing them.
It was part of his whole shtick, he supposed. That laid-back, laconic thing that he projected. What it actually allowed him to do was put distance between himself and other people, take in information while avoiding giving any information about himself. It worked for him.
But sometimes, he did it a little bit with his family.
He clenched his teeth, his stomach going tight as he realized that he had told Addison Carey that David Reynolds wasn’t his father.
Why had he done that? It was like peeling a layer of his own skin off, and he wasn’t into that.
For a moment, he had the panicked thought that she would tell somebody, and he hated that for two reasons. That it panicked him, and that it mattered.
Why? It wasn’t like he was proud of David Reynolds being his father.
But it makes you one degree more removed from Cody and Lila. It means that you don’t even have that connection to redeem you, and it did redeem them.
He was about to open his mouth and say something, about to stick up for Lila, when, to his surprise, Nolan spoke.
“I’ll kick money in,” he said. “I think that she’s right. I think that it’s a smart way to expand the business, and she and I can be partners in that expansion.”
Cody’s head turned so fast, Walker was afraid it would snap clean off his neck. “You agree with her? Enough to put your money behind it?”
“Yes. Because it’s a good idea. And if I think she has a good idea, that ought to tell you something.”
Lila snorted, crossing her arms. “Thanks,” though she didn’t sound all that thankful.
“I’ll also help get it up and running.”
“Well, I’ll invest, too,” Lila said. “It’s not like I don’t have money. I’ll chip in the other half.”
“Fools,” Walker said. “You don’t have enough to put in half, Lila. Not and keep on living.” He was happy to have a distraction from his own internal musings. “I’ll put some in.”
“Well, now you make me feel like an asshole,” Cody said.
“You are an asshole,” Lila said. “You know, except for the part where you self-sacrificially took care of us for all of our lives.”
“I’m just cautious,” he said. “That’s all. Businesses don’t grow smoothly, and they don’t expand forever.”
He could see Cody’s own poverty trauma popping up here. That scarcity feeling. And now, he had Marlowe to think of. He knew that must weigh on him. Marlowe’s life was tied up in the hotel. She was as enmeshed in all of this as they were.
And not just because of her relationship with Cody. Because it was her livelihood, too. She didn’t have anything else other than the resort. But Walker had himself.
He ignored the thought of Addison.
“You keep to your lane,” Walker said. “We’ll fund this. If we’re wrong, the three of us take a bath.”
“And if you’re right?”
“We split one hundred percent of the profits up until we’ve doubled what we invested. And then you’ll start getting some money.”
“Termites,” Cody said.
“Well. You’re of the opinion that the ranch is doing enough as it is,” Walker pointed out. “So why take a risk?”
“I’m not like you. I don’t go out gambling philosophically for fun.”
He couldn’t deny that he was a gambler. And he had a feeling that Cody was referencing the whole ruse with Addison.
Oh, well, he wasn’t open to talking about that right now. This wasn’t about that.
“If you want to invest at any point,” Walker said to Cody, “you can. And then you’ll be eligible to recoup the amount you invested. And twice that. Otherwise... this is what we’re going to do with our part ownership privileges.”
Lila grinned at him, then lifted her hand up for a high five. He kept eye contact with Cody while he gave his younger sister one, and then she turned to Nolan, made a face and declined to give him a high five.
“Even when I back you?”
“Thanks, bunches,” she said.
Nolan rolled his eyes.
“Present me with a business plan,” Cody said. “And then I’ll tell you whether or not I’m going to buy in. Otherwise, you guys can have your scheme.”
Lila hopped up and down. “Thank you,” she said.
Cody shook his head. “Y’all are annoying as hell.”
Poor Cody. He liked a comfort zone, but being a business owner meant never quite having one.
It wasn’t that Walker had a whole heap more experience with that than Cody.
Though, he had gotten a degree that had given him a little bit of insight into different processes and had helped fix his expectations.
Cody hadn’t needed to go to college because he was pedantic all on his own and thought of all the details. But Walker just liked to decorate himself with things. A beautiful house, a degree on the wall. All the things that might prove that he was succeeding.
Maybe that was why he could accept that underneath the facade it was always going to feel terrible.
The only thing he let himself care about was the facade.
Cody, being Cody, cared a hell of a lot more about the depth of it.
Standing there looking at his sister, who was so excited, Nolan, who was trying not to smile at that excitement, and Cody, who was exasperated, but also visibly proud, yet again, Walker felt distant. Because they were not about the facade. They were real. And he wondered then if he ever had been.
“I’m going off to work on a business plan. Because I got my way already, but I want you to help me. I want you to be on my side,” Lila said, practically scampering away from the group.
“I have work to do,” Nolan said, turning away. He saluted off the edge of his cowboy hat as he left.
“Dear God,” Cody said, looking up at the sky. “What have I done? To deserve all of this.”
“Raised fiercely independent siblings?” Walker asked.
“Nolan is not my brother.”
“You helped keep him alive. Therefore, your stray and your problem.”
“Usually he takes my side.”