Chapter Twenty Seven
COLTON
"I think we should call it a day," I said.
“You mean a night?” John, my lead scientist, pulled his glasses down, rubbing at his eyes. He and I were the only ones left.
Jesus, we’d spent the whole night here.
“I didn’t pay attention to the clock,” I said. “We’re not going to get to the bottom of this today.”
“We might make more progress if the whole team participated in this stage of research,” he said carefully. He’d suggested this before, and I shot it down, but this was the first time I was considering it.
“Let’s regroup Monday. Gather the other guys, too, so we can all tackle this together."
John looked stunned. “Wow. I didn’t think you’d actually take me seriously.”
“There's a first time for everything. Have a great rest of the day, John,” I said.
After he left, I hung my own white coat by the door. That’s when I noticed my phone. I’d put it by a table next to the entrance. The screen was lit up.
Maddox: Fucking hell, man. Where are you? Did you change your mind?
Fuck, I forgot we were meeting this morning to sign over the papers. He'd sent that to me half an hour ago. I saw messages from the rest of my brothers, too, but decided to call him instead. He answered immediately.
"I wasn't blowing you off" was the first thing I said. "I was in my lab."
"Yeah, the rest of the guys predicted that was the case." There were a lot of sounds in his background.
"Are you all at Gabe's bar?"
"Yeah, it’s empty. We figured it’s as good a place as any. Everyone else has signed, so we just need yours.”
Pity this couldn’t be done with the digital signature Zoey set up.
"I’ll be there quickly. Half an hour or less."
"There's no traffic at this time."
"Sure," I said.
Maddox had been right—there was zero traffic. I stepped through the doors of Whitley Distillery and Bar twenty minutes later. For some reason, I'd expected them to be at the counter, but instead I saw Gabe waving at me from the other end of the room.
I headed straight there. My brother had made some changes in the bar. It looked good.
Leo, Nick, and Maddox were sitting on a smaller couch, my brothers on the larger one. I sat down in the free armchair.
"And he has arrived," Gabe said mockingly.
I held up my hands, "I owe everyone an apology. I went into the lab, and, well, one thing led to another."
"And yet you checked your phone," Jake said.
"I actually only looked at it after I sent my lead scientist home. We weren't going to finish anytime soon."
Cade whistled, glancing at our half brothers. "Just so you're on the same page with us, this is news. My brother has made a habit of sleeping at the office."
"All right, are we going to gossip about me, or are you going to give me the papers to sign?" I asked.
Maddox took out a thick stack of papers and put them on the table in front of me. I'd already gone through everything yesterday evening when the legal team emailed, so I signed without any hesitation.
This felt cathartic in some ways. Ryan Whitley was getting his money, and we wouldn't have to think about him interfering in our lives ever again.
"Now it's done," Maddox said.
"Fucking finally," I exclaimed.
"Does anyone else feel like we’re rewarding him?" Jake asked.
I was surprised Jake was still beating this drum. I'd thought he finally understood the benefit of ridding Father from our lives.
"I don't think so," I said. "I mean, he did run it for a while.”
"Not necessarily well," Gabe said in a clipped tone. He was usually more forgiving about Father, but he was right.
"True, but he did set it up so we could take over," Nick said. "A better question would be if he actually deserves this much money, but nonetheless, he did contribute to Whitley Industries being what it is today.”
"I think we should all toast," Gabe said. "I'd propose tequila shots, but it’s 9:00 a.m. Also, this occasion needs more than that."
"I agree," I said.
Gabe immediately brought out a bottle of champagne and glasses. He handed the bottle to Maddox.
"Want to do the honors? After all you’re the one who spoke to Father,” Gabe said.
“Sure. I'm going to send this through, and then hopefully I will never have to speak to him again."
Gabe was right. This hadn't been easy on Maddox.
"You really haven't been in touch with him all these years?" I asked.
"No," Maddox, Leo, and Nick said at the same time.
"Since we found out, all we wanted was to put as much distance between us as possible,” Leo said.
"Everything was a lie," Nick pointed out in a cutting voice. "The excuses that he had to go to Boston for work, the bogus stories he told us every time we asked why he and Mom weren't married."
I had never, not once, put myself in their shoes.
Things were different when we'd grown up.
Couples having children together and not being married weren't common.
I didn't even stop and think how their childhood might have been with everyone in Maine knowing their parents weren't married.
And then to find out that your father actually had another family? They probably felt exactly like we did.
Maddox popped open the champagne bottle. We each took a glass.
"I think the worst part was seeing Mom fall completely apart," Maddox said.
I froze in the act of holding up my glass.
"I don't even know how she managed to pull herself out of it," Nick went on.
I'd refused to put myself in their shoes, but now I wanted to. In certain ways, we had the same life.
"It was a horrible situation for everyone involved," I said.
Maddox looked straight at me. "Yes, it was."
I held up my glass along with… all my brothers. “To Whitley Industries belonging only to the Whitley brothers,” I toasted.
"Hear, hear."
After we'd all emptied our glasses, Cade gave me an approving nod. "You know, we really should give Grandmother all the credit there is for you and for Zoey. I know she just gave you a nudge, but man, you ran away with it."
"I did," I replied.
"This is a treat, especially because we know exactly how this day would have gone before Zoey.” That came from Spencer. "First of all, you probably wouldn’t have even shown up.”
“And if you did show up, you wouldn’t be in the mood to celebrate,” Cade added, playing right off him.
"Speaking of Zoey," Gabe cut in, "she sounded concerned when I spoke to her earlier."
I frowned. "When did you talk to her?"
"How do you think we knew you were in the lab?"
"Oh, right," I said.
"She kept asking if you do this often or if you're mad. I had an inkling what she wanted to actually ask was if you were mad at her."
"I'm not. Did she say I was? Why would she think that?" I glanced around the room.
"Hey, don't look at us for answers. I didn't know about this conversation until he just brought it up," Maddox said.
Obviously, Gabe was the best source of information right now.
"Has she said anything about why she thinks that?" I asked.
"No, I think she was just concerned that you'd been locked up in the lab for, what—I think she said she last saw you fourteen hours ago. It sounded like she was counting."
"Fuck." I played back my last conversation with Zoey. "I know what this is about."
"What's wrong?" This came from Nick. Cade and Spencer also looked at me curiously.
"Oh, now you want to chime in," I said.
"Dude, they're the ones with the women in the group. If anyone's going to be of any help, it's them," Nick pointed out.
“Recently, I went to see Browning. I took Zoey because I wanted to introduce them. The guy basically told me that he thinks I've lost my focus because I'm not sleeping at the office anymore."
Gabe shook his head. “I know. Zoey told me. That’s fucked. He’s in no position to say that shit.”
I stared at him. She’d talked to my brother about this?
"What the fuck?" Spencer asked. " I know you think highly of him, but that dude's got no right to do that."
"I do," I said, "and I told him that he's completely off base. But I think Zoey might believe that I think she's distracting me."
Jake shrugged. "Well, I mean, she is distracting you, dude, but that's for the best. That's exactly what you need. Someone to actually show you that there's more to life than work. Something that completely escaped you before."
"Like you weren't the same," Cade said, turning to him. “I like having my brother back.”
Everyone gave a resounding "Hell yeah."
Jake shook his head. "I never denied that.”
"But I didn't. I mean, I assured her that's not the case." I glanced around for a clock. "What time is it? I need to go over to her place."
Then I realized that I’d promised to call last night, and I hadn’t. Shit.
"That sounds like a smart strategy. Strike while the iron is hot and all that," Gabe said.
"You've got to revise your strategy. No woman wants to hear that you’re striking while the iron's hot," Spencer retaliated.
"I wasn't telling him to tell her that."
For so long, I'd carried this need to prove that I gave everything my best. Work was all I knew, all that mattered to me. Somewhere deep down, with every new medicine I brought onto the market, I was closer to saving someone… the way I couldn't do for Mother.
But meeting Zoey changed that fundamentally. I didn't need work or breakthroughs to feel fulfilled. I needed to be with her, and I needed her to know it.
"All right," I said, standing up, "we'll catch up another time. I need to go see Zoey."
Leo and Nick looked at Maddox and said, "Yep, you were right. Gran is going to have a field day with this."
Maddox waved his hand. “We’re toast. Colton’s a done deal."
And I was. Deep in my bones, I knew I wouldn't need anyone except Zoey for the rest of my life. And it was high time I made sure she didn’t doubt that.