"Stay," I stab a finger at him. He pants, tongue lolling, then places his head on his paws.
I swerve right, walk into the adjoining room, as Damian throws his ball at a basket strung up in the corner. The ball bounces once, then rolls toward me. I pick it up, pitch it at him.
"Wassup?" His long blonde hair haloes his face.
"Isn’t it time you got that cut, Goldilocks?"
He grins, "Jealous?"
I frown, "Why would I envy your lifestyle?"
"Oh? Let’s see." He holds up his fingers, "The women throwing themselves at me, the ability to hold a crowd with my magnanimous presence, the chance to travel the world while following my passion…?" He cocks his head, "Not to mention the fact that I have more than enough to invest in our new venture, and fly down at the least pretext."
"It isn’t a pretext, douche-canoe."
"Speak for yourself." Weston turns from the window, jerks his chin. "I need to return in half an hour to prep for a very important procedure."
Fucker’s the quietest of us, the most serious, the most accomplished.
I lean forward on the balls of my feet, "Is that a surgery you’re talking about or your latest sub?"
His lip curls. "What do you think?"
"Not going there. What you do with your personal time is your own thing. We all have a dark side, but you, Weston, you scare me."
Yeah, did I mention he’s the meanest? Still waters run deep and all that.
"High praise coming from the master sadist." He smirks.
"That’s a back-handed compliment. I’ll go with the positive meaning of it… For now."
I crack my neck. "I wouldn’t have called this meeting if it wasn’t important. I realize all of you can't wait to bugger off to whatever depraved pursuits I pulled you away from."
A chorus of snickers greets that.
Like I said, assholes, each and every one of them.
I stalk to the bar, pour myself two fingers of the whiskey and toss it back.
"You gonna share?" Saint prowls over.
"Get your own."
"Why should I, when…" He snatches the glass from me, "...it’s so much more satisfying to take what’s yours?" He sets the empty glass on the bar counter with a thump.
A slow burn builds inside of me. Saint has always managed to rile me up the wrong way. Bastard enjoys it, probably because we’ve been competing with each other since the day we met. On the first day of kindergarten, when he’d been knocking a ball around the yard in front of our school, I’d taken the ball from him and run. He’d pursued me.
He hadn’t stopped since. Neither had I. No wonder he’d ended up a lawyer, and me a banker. Neither of us had much going for us in the good will department.
"Sore loser, huh?"
"I am not the one holding an empty glass."
"Because I won the last bet?" He smirks.
"I won the three before that."
"You were on a lucky streak."
I drum my fingers on my chest, "You’re hurting my feelings."
"Not since you decided to pursue Mary Jane Nokes in sixth grade."
"You barely noticed her." I crack my neck.
"I didn't... until—"
"She succumbed to my charms," I widen my stance. "which, you have to admit, was a bloody given."
He stabs his finger in my chest. "Don’t provoke me, you chutiya."
"Settle down children." A new voice sounds. "Would have thought you'd have found a more mature way to fight out your differences by now, huh?"
I turn to the entrance of the room. A tall, broad shouldered man, stands inside the doorway. He has dark, closely-cropped hair, a scar down one cheek, and a tattoo peeking up his neck, enclosed in a priest’s collar.
"Edward." I step toward him, Saint at my heels, "Didn’t think you'd make it."
"And miss the chance to redeem the souls of the most debauched men on this planet?" He clicks his tongue..
My grin widens, "Life treating you well, Father?" I grip his shoulder.
"Not as good as it’s treating you sinners, apparently." He surveys the room, taking in the furniture. The conference table that had been converted to a pool table, the deep-set leather sofa, the fireplace, the wet bar, the floor to ceiling bookcase.
"You like?"
He angles his head. "Nice one, Sin. Almost as beautiful as the woman I ran into who was in such a hurry to get away that she took the stairs going down."
Edward hates elevators because... reasons.
I knit my eyebrows, "Tiny, curvy, pink hair and a face so cute you take an instant dislike to it?"
"Dislike is not quite the word I’d use, but if that’s what you want us to believe." He raises his shoulders.
"Huh?" I tilt my chin up, "You’re a priest, not a mind reader."
"You’re a cut-throat entrepreneur, not someone who’s the best judge of character."
"Present company proves your point accurately." I lower my brows.
Edward chuckles, pats my shoulder, "Good to see you too, Brother."
"Now that you pussies have the touchy-feely stuff out of the way, can we get down to business?"
A massive monster of a man prowls through the entrance.
His blonde beard catches the sunlight, the sparkle rivaled by the golden brown of his hair, and his tan that seems to clothe him in a perpetual amber glow.
I groan, "Don’t recall inviting you here, Arpad."
"Which is why this is the place I need to be."
"Right, are we starting or what?" Weston asks from his perch by the window.
"Is this a reunion?" Damian drawls, then bounces his ball on the floor of the office.
"If all of our meetings are going to be such a waste of time, count me out." Saint swerves past me and heads for the door.
The fuck? Asshole needs special treatment, apparently. He’s not getting any from me.
"You walk out of here, Saint, and I promise I'll cut you out of future deals."
He takes another step.
"You’re going to regret it."
He twists his head and shoots me a look, "I regret being here already."
"Get your arse in gear, you tosser."
Saint turns on Arpad, who merely stabs his thumb in the direction of the room. "Surely, you want to find out what he’s up to? If you miss this, your curiosity is going to haunt you unless you commit industrial espionage and break down his plan of action."
"Hmm." Saint leans his hip against the door frame.
"Right." I pivot, then walk into the room, "Sit down everyone. Didn’t call you here to mess with your time."
"Yeah, it’d better be worth it." Saint growls.
I glare at him.
He smirks. "Go on then."
"How long has it been since you had a decent night’s sleep, huh?"
His features close. "What’s it to you?"
I glance at the doc, "And you Weston, have you spent a single day not wondering about what happened to the disaster we left behind that day?"
Silence descends on the room. I toss my head. Figures. They are like me—larger than life, big egos, razor sharp minds, the best in their fields… Yet here we were, in search of that one thing that has eluded us since the incident that changed us all.