2021
Jackson
“To the Sullivan Empire!” Bennet yells, hoisting his glass so hard that half of it leaves without him.
“To the fucking Sullivan Empire!” Rosalie screams, and then she's popping the champagne bottle with her thumbs and shaking it over all three of us, spray arcing gold under the office fluorescents while Bennet howls and I throw my arms up like that's ever stopped anything.
Today, the three of us became millionaires.
Fucking millionaires.
The business Bennet and I started building in college with two desks, a folding table, and more confidence than common sense has taken off in ways none of us ever let ourselves say out loud.
Rose was there almost from the beginning, redlining our first contracts at midnight because we couldn't afford anyone who wasn't sisters with one of the owners, making sure Bennet and I didn't sign anything catastrophically stupid while we figured out how to turn his brain and my ability to bullshit people into an actual company.
And now there's a wire confirmation sitting in the account with several zeroes behind it, champagne is soaking through my shirt, and my best friend is dancing on a desk chair that is absolutely going to roll out from under him at any moment.
Millionaire at twenty-fucking-three.
I don't even know what to do with that.
“We're going to need better chairs,” Bennet declares from atop the rolling one, wobbling, rich and evidently fucking invincible.
“We're going to need a better building,” Rosalie fires back, wiping champagne off her face with her forearm.
Then she laughs.
Not the polite little laugh she gives clients, or the one she uses when Bennet says something stupid in front of people she doesn't know well. The real one. Big and loud and completely spontaneous, her head falling back while she tries to keep champagne from running into her eyes.
And my chest does the stupid fucking thing it always does when she laughs like that.
I ignore it. I've gotten good at ignoring it, considering I've had three years of practice.
She catches me watching and aims the bottle at me like a threat. “What are you grinning at, Jackson?”
You. Always fucking you.
“We're millionaires,” I say instead, letting the grin go wide. “I'm allowed.”
“Not anymore.”
“Rose, don't you fucking—”
She sprays me directly in the face.
“You little shit!”
Bennet nearly kills himself laughing, the chair rolling backward until he grabs the desk at the last second.
“Get down from there before our first purchase as millionaires is a fucking wheelchair.”
“I can afford one now!”
“That's not the point!”
Two hours later, we found ourselves at Santa Monica Beach, drunk off our asses after an Uber ride that mostly consisted of Bennet trying to convince the driver to invest in the company.
Now Rose and I are sitting in the sand watching the waves crash, and Bennet is passed out snoring on a towel a few feet away.
Even though we've been at it since five this morning closing the deal, she still looks fucking incredible.
Her dark, silky waves are pulled back in a carefree ponytail, loose tendrils dancing around her cheeks in the wind.
She changed into one of those long, swaying dresses before we left the office, tight around her perfect breasts and flowing loose from the waist, and I've been fighting back an erection since she walked back into the building wearing it.
Her cute little toes are buried in the sand, wiggling deeper every time the wind blows, and she's got both arms wrapped around herself trying to fight off the chill coming in from the water.
“You're cold.”
“I'm fine.”
“You're shivering.”
“It's a light tremble.”
I look down at her. “What the hell is a light tremble?”
“A very mild shiver.”
“That's still shivering, Rosalie.”
“It's different.”
“Oh, well, excuse the fuck out of me.”
She giggles, and I unzip my hoodie.
"No," she immediately puts a hand up. "You'll be cold."
“Rose.”
“Jackson.”
“Put the fucking hoodie on.”
“You're so bossy when you’ve been drinking.”
“And you're very argumentative when you have.”
I don't bother waiting for her to concede because we'll be here until sunrise. I wrap the hoodie around her shoulders and pull her into my chest, tucking her beneath my arm.
She comes willingly. Always fucking does. That's my problem.
Rose never hesitates to touch me. She doesn't hesitate to let me touch her either.
She'll curl up beneath my arm, lay her head on my chest, or throw her legs across my lap when we're watching a movie.
Half the time she hugs me hello like she hasn't seen me in six months when she saw me twelve fucking hours ago.
And I eat that shit up. Every crumb.
Because I know nothing will ever come of us. I know that. She made herself perfectly clear three years ago, and I've respected it. Never brought up that night again. Never tried to kiss her. Never pushed her for something she had already told me she wasn't willing to give.
I get the memory of one night and moments like this one, and I've decided that's enough.
I keep deciding it's enough.
“Thank you. You didn't have to do that. You must be cold too.” She tilts her face up toward me, looking through those flawless long lashes.
“I didn't bring it for myself. I knew you'd get cold.”
Her eyebrows pull together. “You brought a hoodie because you knew I'd get cold?”
“You always get cold.”
“I do not.”
“You keep a blanket in your office.”
“The air-conditioning is aggressive.”
“You wore a cardigan to Bennet's barbecue in July.”
“It got chilly.”
“It was eighty-four fucking degrees.”
“There was a breeze.”
I stare at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You think I'm ridiculous.”
“I know you're ridiculous.”
She laughs and leans farther into me. “You spoil me.”
“Somebody has to.”
“Thank you, Jackson.”
She rests her head against my chest, then her hand lands on my stomach. Her fingers move absently over my shirt while she watches the waves, tracing back and forth.
Sometimes I wonder if she does this shit on purpose.
She has to.
Nobody is this accidentally fucking seductive.
But then I think maybe she genuinely has no idea. Maybe Rose honestly believes rubbing her hand all over my stomach while she's curled into my chest is a perfectly normal platonic activity between friends.
Or maybe she's flirting.
That's the option that keeps fucking me up.
Because we're always together. Sure, we work together, the three of us, so together is technically the job.
We've spent the last three years building this company from the small startup Bennet and I started in college.
Long nights, early mornings, dinners that turned into meetings, meetings that turned into drinks.
But I'm not talking about work.
I'm talking about everything else.
She always finds me.
We go to dinner; she sits beside me. We get into an Uber; she slides in next to me. We're at somebody's house and there are six empty seats, somehow her ass lands in the one touching mine.
She steals my drinks without asking. Eats off my plate.
Holds her fork up to my mouth and tells me to taste something, like feeding your brother's best friend is an entirely normal thing to do.
She'll grab my hand and drag me somewhere, then let it go two minutes later without a second thought while I'm standing there trying to convince my dick and my heart that neither of them should read into it.
And the fucking suits.
Jesus Christ.
I've caught her checking me out more than once before investor meetings.
Not glancing.
Checking me the fuck out.
I've watched those gray eyes start at my shoulders and work their way down before snapping back to my face when she realizes I've caught her.
The first time I thought I had imagined it.
The second time, I wasn't sure.
By the fourth time? Come the fuck on.
So, what am I supposed to do with that?
Nothing. That's what.
Because every time I start thinking maybe it means something, I remember graduation.
It never happened.
Fine. It never happened.
Except everything after it keeps fucking happening.
Fuck me.
I'm hooked on this woman.
Like a drug, and she's both my dealer and my enabler. Except nobody forced me into this addiction. I've been showing up every day for another hit with a fucking smile on my face.
Pathetic. Happily pathetic, at that.
“Better? Warming up a bit?” I ask, rubbing my hand up and down her arm.
She nods, her hand fisting in my shirt where it rests against my stomach, and I glance over to make sure Bennet is still knocked out.
He hasn't moved, face half buried in the towel, snoring loud enough that I should probably be concerned about his airway.
Good. At least one of us is having a peaceful fucking evening.
I hope to God neither he nor Rose can see the tent I'm pitching, although Rose is practically curled into my lap, so there's no fucking way she hasn't noticed.
I consider shifting away from her, but then I'm going to make it obvious that I'm moving because my dick is hard, which feels somehow more embarrassing than just sitting here pretending it isn't.
Except now I'm wondering if not moving makes it weirder. Like, heeerreee's my penis. Don't mind him. He's just happy to be included.
Fuck. I'm losing it.
Her hand loosens from my shirt and starts to move, and for one glorious second, I think she's going to put me out of my misery by taking it off me altogether.
Instead, she moves it lower.
Her fingers graze my belt, then the tip of my cock, and my breath is punched clean out of my lungs. Every muscle in my body locks at once while I try to convince myself it was an accident, because it had to be. She's drunk. We're sitting close. Her hand slipped.
Then the side of her palm drags over me again.
Slowly.
Back and forth.
There is nothing accidental about it.
“Fuck.” My hips thrust up before I can stop them, chasing the friction, and I feel her breath hitch against my chest.
I look down.
She's already looking at me.
Good garden hell, I’m not imagining this.