More tears cascaded down my face. I swiped angrily at them, vowing to show no more weakness. I took a deep breath and stood tall. My uncle may have banished me from my birthright, and the only home I’d ever known, but I’d be damned if I was going to let his malicious coup be the end of me.
There was only one thing I could do now.
I would survive.
1
Tanner
January, Present Day…
After five hours on the road, for what should have been a two-hour ride, tops, I arrived at the hotel. Snuggled at the base of Mount Washington, New Hampshire’s tallest peak, was the Presidential Hotel. Completed at the turn of the last century, the hotel had been in continuous operation for one hundred eighteen years. Neither world wars nor blizzards had closed the mighty hotel, named for the mountain range which served as its backdrop.
As I turned right off Route 302, and down the winding drive to the Presidential, my mouth dropped open. The hotel was more than impressive, it looked imposing. I supposed that was why it had been Stephen King’s original inspiration for the famous Overlook Hotel featured in The Shining.
The Presidential was a soaring, four-story building, complete with large turrets topped with stunning, peaked red roofs. I thought it looked like a castle, but I was admittedly as prone to whimsy as I was to being late.
A porter met me at the door, insisting on taking my small rolling suitcase, which only contained a weekend’s worth of clothes and sample-sized toiletries. I traveled light. Pierre assured me my bag would be waiting for me in my room.
I’m just a regular guy. A regular guy who designs spaceships for a living. How kick ass is that? Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been in love with the stars, and the brave men and women who reach out to touch them. I knew from the time I was twelve years old that I was going to work in the space industry. The question was, how?
Fourteen years and a master’s degree in electrical engineering later, I was living the dream. Literally.
The fifth annual reunion of Pi Kappa Phi was officially underway. If I could locate my frat brothers, which shouldn’t be too hard. All I needed to do was find the closest bar, and my friends would be there.
“Tanner Reign, checking in. Can you tell me if my friends have arrived? Cabot French, Wells Martin, and Archer McLean?”
“Yes, they arrived about an hour ago.” The front desk clerk smiled at me. “I believe they said they’d be in the Cave.”
“Thank you.” I took the small envelope with my room key card and shoved it in my back pocket. I’d researched the Presidential up and down and knew the Cave was a bar and lounge located in what used to be the hotel’s wine cellar.
We usually tried to get together once or twice a year, but with last year being a complete and total cluster fuck, I hadn’t seen my brothers since Homecoming in the fall of 2019.
The Cave was hopping. Tammy Wynette was singing “Stand by Your Man” on an ancient jukebox. Unfortunately, I had no man to stand by. I’d been a late bloomer when it came to dating. My entire focus had been on my education instead of getting as much dick as I could. My bad.
Raucous laughter erupted from a table near the bar. I stayed back for a minute, watching the best friends I’d ever had in my life laugh with each other. Cabot had been my roommate freshman year at MIT. We’d been like two peas in a pod from day one. He was short, with dark brown hair and eyes with a baby face. He was twenty-six years old, but I swear he could pass for nineteen. Wells and Archer had also bunked together freshman year but lived in a different dorm. Wells was blonde and blue eyed with an affinity for chocolate. His expanding waistline bore testament to his love for truffles. Archer, on the other hand, was skinny as a rail with the most intense pair of green eyes I’d ever seen. “Hey, guys!” I greeted when I reached their table.
“Tanner! We thought you’d gotten eaten by a bear.” Cabot gave me a rough hug.
“Not true,” Wells grinned, taking his turn to hug the stuffing out of me. “My guess was that you’d been abducted by a Yeti.”
Maybe the box of chocolates in my suitcase, with his name on them, hadn’t been the best idea. “I may have gotten a little-”
“Lost!” my three friends chimed in.
I felt myself blushing but couldn’t care less. My friends knew and loved me, warts and all. Cabot spent years making sure I knew where I was going, with varying degrees of success. All of my friends had sent me directions to the hotel, but it hadn’t mattered. I’d gotten lost anyway. Twice.
“What did I miss?” I grabbed the pitcher of beer in the center of the table and poured myself a glass.
“We’ve all been trying to comfort Cabot.” Wells winked at me.
“Jon broke up with you again?” Cabot had been seeing Jon Patterson off and on for the last three years. Just when things would settle down between them, Jon would cheat, and the cycle would start anew.
Cabot shook his head. “I ended it for good this time. He slept with a coworker of mine and that was the end of it.”
From the look in Cabot’s dark eyes, that wasn’t the end of the story, but I wasn’t going to push for details now. We had plenty of time later to hash over what happened with Jon. “I’m so sorry.”
Cabot shrugged his thin shoulders. “It’s not like you all didn’t warn me. Multiple times.”
Archer snorted. “We did everything but hire a plane to tow a banner.”
“Lord knows you did. My Mom too, but I had to learn the hard way.”
“Bullshit!” Damn, I’d sucked down that first beer faster than I thought, plus I hadn’t had any lunch, since I’d been lost and didn’t want to arrive any later than I already would.
“Two orders of hot wings and garlic knots.” Archer said when the waitress responded to his waving hand. “We all know you didn’t eat.” He rolled his eyes at me. “I believe you objected with a strong ‘Bullshit!’?”
“It’s bullshit thinking anyone has to learn a lesson the hard way. Jon took advantage of your kind nature for years. It’s not your fault that you believed him when he promised he was going to change.” Again, and again, I added to myself.
“Yeah, well, it’s over for good now.” Cabot drained the last of his beer. “I’ll get the next round.” He grabbed the pitcher and headed to the bar before I could stop him.
“Seriously, is he okay? The last time I heard from him was just after Thanksgiving when he was going to give Jon another chance.”
Wells shook his head no. “Something else happened this time.” His eyes flitted from mine to the bar where our friend was ordering more beer. “Cabot looks haunted, instead of sad or angry. I swear, if I ever get my hands on that fucker, I’ll tear him apart.”
I burst out laughing. The one time Wells got into a fight in college, he’d broken his thumb because it had been on the inside of his fist when he’d punched Douggie Smith after dear old stupid Douggie accused Wells of stealing his Star Trek DVDs. Wells had been completely innocent of the crime but ended up in the ER anyway. To this day, I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d been the one who’d stolen the DVDs. Captain Kirk was my jam. “You’re going to tear him apart?”