Page 32 of The Right Garza
True saunters into the office and staggers exaggeratedly when he sees Tripp. “Holy shit. Am I seeing this right? Too Cool is here, in a meeting,on time, beforeme?”
Tripp flips him the bird as he did me, but for him, he sets down his phone and gets up to give him a hug. “Glad you’re back home safe, bro.”
“You get a hug and all I get is attitude,” I grouse, though I’m not serious. I fucking hate that kind of open affection.
“Awe, don’t be jealous, brother,” True coos, turning to me. “Think of it this way, when someone hugs me they hug you too. You are me and I am you.”
He grabs my face and smacks a noisy kiss on my cheek. I shove him away. “Get off me, idiot.”
Laughing, he goes off and starts harassing Guy. “My favorite Italian nerd. With your bow ties and suspenders and colorful tattoos. One of these days I’m gonna figure you out.”
I chuckle under my breath. Dude’s got no chill, I swear. But he’s the only person in this world I’d kill for. I love that fucker with my whole being. Which makes sense since we shared a womb together. I’ve got a different kind of love for Tripp and Torin. We’re from different mothers with different memories to the start of our lives.
Bonding with Tripp was easy when we moved to Redlands; he was a golden-haired little ball following us around, happy to have new brothers since he was an only child at the time.
Bonding with Torin was much harder. By the time he came to live with us he was practically a man. Dark and temperamental. Each of us eventually developed our relationships with him separately and in different ways, but for the first couple of years, he and I had a lot of animosity between us—because ofher.
Even though we’ve moved past it, there’s still a gossamer-thin curtain of it hanging between us, because, in the end, neither of us has the girl.
And both of us still fucking want her.
Torin’s call finally rings in.
Guy connects the call and Torin’s face fills the sixty-inch screen on the wall ahead. Brief pleasantries are shared before we launch into discussions of current operations.
While True gives a rundown on the happenings and suggestions for the Denver branch, I pull up the surveillance of the guesthouse on my phone. I skip from feed to feed before I find her. She’s out in the back gardens with a woman who looks familiar, but I’m only seeing her side profile so I can’t place her yet. They’re laughing and talking with expressive hand gestures, and also touching each other a lot, so there’s definitely some familiarity there.
Because I’ve told her not to, she doesn’t update me on anything, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know almost everything she’s done so far.
I’m shameless when it comes to that woman.
I haven’t seen her face to face since I left her there a few weeks ago. Not just because I’ve been tied up with a job, but also because I’m giving her time to settle in and focus on the task she’s been given, to come to terms with the truth that she’s really on her own with this and there’s no conning her way out.
Once she becomes immersed in it, too invested to want to beg out, that’s when it’ll be safe to pop back in and make hermytask.
It’s a big risk throwing a project like this in her inexperienced lap, but I needed a reason to keep her in L.A. and out of trouble. Truth is, True and I had just put the place back on the market. Our agent even had a buyer lined up.
Then Vegas happened and I had to come up with an idea for her to “pay me back.”
She might screw this up and plummet the value of our investment, but it would be all on me. True was flat-out against it, so I signed an agreement which pretty much stated that if this experiment went to shit, I’m to return him his half of the investment in full.
Iwanther to do well, not because I’m worried about my bank account taking a hit, but because if she does well with it, she’ll be running it. A surefire way to keep her here forever so she can’t run away from us—me—again.
An incoming text drops down over the feed.
Amanda: Hey handsome. When am I seeing you again?
Me:You won’t. I’m seeing someone. Don’t contact me again. Thanks.
I don’t even remember who this Amanda person is.
Do I have a bad habit of having random no-attachment hookups? Yeah. That’s how I prefer it, because I’m already owned by someone.
But now that she’s within reach, these kinds of messages annoy the shit out of me. Mostly because they’re making me realize just how thin I’d been spreading myself to avoid “catching feelings” for anyone else.
A paperclip bounces off my forehead and I glance up to see my twin grinning at me from across the table. “No sexting in meetings.”
I glare at him. “Do you even know what the wordchillmeans?”
