Page 39 of The Fate Factor

He tosses a spreadsheet on the bar in front of me and it lands in a drop of water, the top corner shriveling like my good mood.I wish he wouldn’t do this here. He has a fucking office with a door.

At least Em’s the only one here as I climb onto a stool and set my crutches against the bar, scooping up the paper. Wes watches me read the columns, sorting the numbers slowly so they don’t evaporate into my brain. I know he does this on purpose. He could bullet it for me, give me the info he knows I want, but he keeps control where he can. Always has.

When we were kids, it was trading chores in exchange for him doing my math homework so I wouldn’t get benched from hockey. He’d make a point to keep my grade just barely passing. If I’d come home with any higher, he reasoned, no one would buy it. Now that we work together, it’s this shit. The little reminders of why I need him.

Focusing on the bolded numbers at the bottom, I note they’re all black, every single one, and this part I understand. “Looks like we live to see another day.”

Wes leans back on the stool and crosses his arms. “That was never in question. It’s how well we want to live that’s up for debate.”

“I think we have different ideas on what living well means, bro.” I fold the paper in half, tucking it in the pocket of my hoodie. I’ll go over the lines later when I can focus. “There’s something to be said for making a decent living while staying local, true to your roots.”

Wes rolls his eyes. “Stay broke for the pride of it all. How noble of you.”

“We’re hardly broke.”

“We could be a lot richer.”

“We don’t have to makeForbesto be successful, Wes. If we can maintain what we have, I’d call it a win.”

He huffs. “You would, Jameson.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It’s just telling where you place your bar for success is all.”

The throbbing in my head settles behind my eyes, and I press my palms there. There goes all of the relief I got from Noel last night.Didn’t I just say I wasn’t going to get into it with him?

Em clears her throat. She plays the de facto referee between the two of us enough that she can sense we’ve turned an unpleasant corner. “Speaking of the launch, Jamie. The woman whose drinks you were buying that night—is she the Kelly rebound?”

Shit. If Em was trying to steer Wes and I away from an argument, bringing up Noel was a wrong turn. I haven’t told Wes that she’s back in town for a reason. He’s not going to like my plan to spend time with her in hopes of another tip, and I’m not going to like whatever he chooses to say about it.

“I don’t need to rebound from Kelly,” I say, hoping that will be the end of it.

Em’s smile tells me it’s not. “I haven’t seen this one before. She’s not one of your usual groupies.”

I frisbee-toss a cardboard coaster at her. “Her name’s Noel. She’s an… old friend.”

Wes’s eyebrows do a slow ascent to his hairline.Fucking Em. “I’m assuming this is the Noel I think it is.”

“One in the same,” I admit. I’ve smartened up in the last five minutes, though, so I’m not telling either of them that she was at my apartment last night, or that I’m seeing her later today.

“How did you get back in contact with her?” Wes asks.

The hazy, concussed memory of Noel staring down at my broken body comes back to me. The way I was sure I was dead. “Weird coincidence.”

Wes huffs a laugh that grates at me. “I suppose you still think she’s some magical angel from destiny land because she warned you about Becs.”

The careless way he says this hits my stomach like a punch. That’s the thing about working with family, everything is personal even when it’s not. Like a secret hand signal only we understand, Wes knows bringing up Becca is the quickest way to remind me of my biggest shortcoming—misreading a situation, getting important things really fucking wrong. That’s why I can’t rest on the courage of my conviction about declining this offer from NEBev. He’s reminding me that my conviction has a piss poor track record.

“Wait,” Em says, her eyes going wide. “That was the girl from the party? The psychic?”

I give herdrop iteyes but she either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. “All the times I’ve heard this story and you never mentioned she’s freaking gorgeous? No wonder you’ve been obsessed with her for two years.”

“I wasn’t obsessed with her,” I fire back.Okay, maybe a little. Maybe I spent more time thinking about her than made sense, given the briefness of our first meeting, and maybe those thoughts weren’t alwaysbusinessrelated. Em’s making it sound creepy, though. It’s not like I built a shrine to her in my loft, sacrificing shots of Jäger to summon her back. I was just… intrigued. Who wouldn’t be in my position? She gave me everything good that I have. It would be impossible not to hold affection for her. That’s the extent of it.

Or it used to be. It was a lot easier to remind myself that I know better when she wasn’t right in front of me.

For a woman who boldly demanded a shot in exchange for a moment of her time, Noel’s adorably awkward—sitting all prim and proper at breakfast, fingers twisting in her skirt. And last night, those apple-round cheeks with their easy blush that’s becoming my new favorite game, her bare thigh touching me every time she moved. My daydreams about the girl from the roof and her pretty smile had nothing on the real thing.

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