Page 27 of My Brother's Best Friends

Bryan rises and waves. Makayla bolts toward him, leaving the three of us in her dust—and I don’t mind. She needs her brother time. I tug Oscar aside, hoping to knock some sense into him, while watching Makayla and Bryan hug from the corner of my eye.

“I know you didn’t get a chance to talk to Makayla before,” I whisper.

Oscar stiffens at the sudden sidebar. Alex follows Makayla, hugging Bryan’s soon-to-be fiancée. We only have seconds before the others notice we’re whispering, but I need to know where Oscar’s head is.

“Can’t you let her decide whether she wants to get involved with us?” I ask, and his irritation is immediate.

“Now is not the time.”

“She’s a grown woman,” I argue, my emotions getting the better of me.

“We’ll talk later,” Oscar says, pulling away to rejoin the table.

I sigh. He needs time to process, and I have to respect that. The three of us share everything—business and personal. Alex and I want to move forward with Makayla, and so does Oscar; it just has to be on his terms.

I shove my hands into my pockets and walk over to join the conversation.

11

ALEX

“Ihope we haven’t kept you waiting too long,” I say, reaching out to shake my best friend’s hand.

“Are you kidding me? I’m just glad we’re all here!” He pulls me into a hug.

When Oscar and Kellan join us, a lingering tension crackles between them—lighter than before, yet unmistakable.

“So, how’s your view?” Makayla asks Callie.

“It’s amazing,” Callie says, looking up at Bryan with love in her eyes. “I can’t believe this place; it’s so beautiful.”

“I agree,” Makayla pulls out a chair and sits across from her. “The view from our balcony is magnificent. Granted, all that white can blind you in full daylight.”

I press my lips together, focusing my mind on something other than the memory of Makayla in the hot tub. She’s unforgettable—utterly fascinating. I don’t know what happened during the years we were apart, but damn, she’s returned a fully blossomed woman, blazing with the intensity of a wildfire.

“Oh, you’re sharing a room. You and the Anderson brothers?” Callie asks innocently.

“We’re sharing a suite,” Makayla responds. “Each of us has our own bedroom and bathroom. We’ve got the common areas, but that’s great because we’ve got so much catching up to do...”

“I’ll bet. You haven’t seen each other in years, right?”

“Yes—a lot of time and plenty of stories in between, it seems.”

Callie giggles. “I’m sure you’re enjoying every moment of this reunion.”

Something electric passes between the two women. If I didn’t know any better, I would swear it was some kind of unspoken communication. Callie’s lips curve in a faint smile, and Makayla discreetly nods. I’m not sure what it means, but I suspect Bryan’s fiancée has already guessed what’s going on between the four of us.

Callie doesn’t let on. She studiously unfolds her napkin and places it in her lap. Makayla clears her throat and turns to Bryan. “How was the meeting this morning?”

He shrugs. “It was fine. Pretty standard, actually. It made me think we could’ve kept the whole trip strictly leisure, though. There was nothing on the agenda that couldn’t wait for another week.”

“Everyone wanted to get it over with—it wasn’t just the partners,” I say. “We also had two Stockholm-based clients fly in. That’s why we were fine mixing business with pleasure on this trip.”

“It was nice to finally meet them in person,” Bryan says with a smile.

Makayla’s brows lift. “You signed clients without meeting them in person?”

I nod. “We do it all the time, especially with overseas clients. Sometimes they come to us for face-to-face meetings, but with Zoom, Skype, and cloud-based docs, our client pool has exploded.”

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