Here Comes Trouble Page 0,110

setting for that late-night date a guy might bring back to the room, but not much to go on for a regular conversation. He moved into the living area and reached down to turn on one of the end table lamps.

“Can we just—not,” Dan finished lamely, as Brett switched on the more high powered lamp.

He turned to see Dan squinting in the sudden light, holding his hand up like a shield. But not shield enough to keep Brett from seeing the nasty bruise on his cheek and the split at the corner of his mouth.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Ran into a door,” he retorted. “Can I get you a beer? Why the hell not,” he answered himself, “you’re paying for them. Did you know they stock the damn fridge? And I don’t mean the minibar. I don’t think this room even has one of those.” He scuffed bare feet across the thick carpeting as he headed into the more dimly lit kitchen area. It was more a wet bar with a Jennair in the middle, and a full-size Sub-zero fridge lodged at one end, then it was a full-fledged kitchen, but it screamed luxury nonetheless. “Wait, what am I saying?” he added dryly as he opened the fridge door, ducking his head a little at the bright interior light. “Of course you know they stock the fridge. You’re used to this shit. How in the hell you’re tired of the shit, I have no idea. Pretty sweet deal,” he added, fishing out two long necks and closing the door with an audible sigh. He grabbed a dish towel and screwed the tops off. “Of course, I guess there’s the irony that you score the best free stuff when you can actually afford to pay for it, but why go there?”

Brett was still standing by the couch, watching his friend. Who was clearly at least a little drunk, and definitely no less bitter than he’d left him a few hours before. Possibly more so. “Some door,” he said, gesturing to Dan’s face with the bottle he’d just been handed.

Dan turned and flopped down in the nearest chair, propping his feet up on the engraved crystal surface of the free form hardwood coffee table now situated between them.

Brett took the couch and propped his feet as well. He took a slow pull from the bottle, trying to figure out the best way to ease into any semblance of rational, constructive conversation. “Ran into Maksimov,” he said, deciding that perhaps it was better to start neutral and wind his way back around to the real topic at hand.

“I’m sure he’s been laying in wait for you,” Dan said, the accompanying chuckle carrying more than a little edge. “He try and woo you back like I said?” He took another pull.

Brett noticed he wasn’t maintaining any kind of eye contact; rather he was looking at the bottle, or staring at his feet. “At least, and then some.”

“And you said?”

“No. I told you that.”

Dan lifted a shoulder in a negligent shrug that said he really couldn’t care less. But Brett wasn’t so sure about that. He watched Dan start to pick at the label on the bottle, the digging motions proving there was more than a little tension beneath the lazy, drunken sprawl he’d adopted.

“Folks change their minds all the time.”

Brett understood the unspoken challenge. “I didn’t change my mind. Not about Maksimov. And not about coming back to work with you. I never told you I would. You do know that.”

Dan snorted. “You’ve only done two things in your life. Play poker and work for my dad, then me. When you gave up poker, what the hell was I supposed to think you were gonna do, huh? Of course I thought you’d come over full time. Hell, I was all ready to propose a partnership. I know you want to design shit, with those degrees you have and all. I was willing to accommodate that.”

“I don’t want to design homes in the desert.”

“What, not good enough for the likes of you now?”

“You know better than that. It’s just not the challenge I want.”

“And what the hell is?”

Brett thought about telling him, about the property he’d found today, about the business idea that had sprung, almost fully formed and too stunningly perfect to be anything but exactly the right thing for him to do. Or at least try. But that business plan involved him…and Kirby. Probably not the best time to spring that tidbit