Second Chance Mess (Bad News Billionaires #1) - Lucia Jordan Page 0,7

on your bullshit if necessary. When I had told him of Brooke breaking up with me, he was sympathetic as any good friend would be, but he also let me have it for my obstinance in bringing the whole issue on myself.

We both stood around the oversized drafting table in my studio and started sketching some plans for the Spokane project. The new project was a huge contract for the company, and if it went off successfully without a hitch, it would bring a substantial amount of good press to Cubed. The project entailed the designing and building of a new, hip collection of container homes that would be used to start a tiny home community in Spokane. Until now, it was nearly impossible to get the right zoning permits to build tiny homes in Spokane. This project was the first to acquire the permissions to do anything of this nature and would open up the possibility of other tiny home communities that were self-sufficient and economical worldwide.

I’d had lots of important contracts and projects before, but this one was by far one of the most exciting and high-stakes. It had to be executed perfectly, which was why I tried so hard to keep my mind on the task at hand and not on Brooke. My attempt immediately failed when Max brought up her name as he started laying out a build model onto the paper with a thick, dark piece of charcoal.

“I think you should reach out to Brooke,” he said without looking up from the design concept that he was drawing out. “She really seemed to care about you, man. She was really good for you, I think.”

“Yeah, I know she was. I cared about her, too. But I don’t think there’s a way for me to appeal to her now. I’ve let too much time pass.”

Max looked up from the paper just long enough to roll his eyes at me dramatically.

“Yes, I know,” I said. “It was my fault. Regardless, what’s done is done.”

“Not necessarily.”

Max loved to do that. He loved to play devil’s advocate and try to goad me into things. I could never seem to resist taking the bait.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It’s only done between you two because you never really talked to her about it. She thinks that you cheated on her with Chelsea.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Chelsea isn’t even my type, even if I hadn’t already been dating Brooke. I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time for that picture.”

“That may be true, but you never told her that, so she doesn’t know. To Brooke, it looks like you were allowing a pretty woman to rub her hands on your pants. Besides, even if you hadn’t intended for things to get out of your control, you were still inebriated, and you didn’t remove yourself from the fiasco. How could you expect Brooke to think anything else?”

Max always seemed to be right about matters of the heart. Sometimes it drove me absolutely crazy, but he was right. Maybe I should go try to talk to her. Hell, I probably should have already gone to try to talk to her as soon as I had gotten back into town, but instead, I chickened out again.

“You might be right,” I admitted to him as I watched him work his magic with a nub of charcoal and turn a blank page into an entire scaled blueprint. “I practically ignored her before I left on my trip to Spokane. I was so busy preparing for the trip that I—”

“Compartmentalized?” Max asked as he finished my sentence. “Dude, you really need to stop doing that when it comes to human beings. Compartmentalization only works with container homes, not people.”

Ugh, could he stop being right all of the time? It made me wonder why I was the billionaire, and he was the vagrant wanderer. Perhaps I was living my life all wrong and that Max really had it all figured out.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to talk to Brooke.”

“About time,” Max sighed.

5

*** (Tim Continued)

When I left work that day, I headed straight to Brooke’s apartment. Since she had blocked my number, there wasn’t any way for me to get a call or message to her. I had even tried through social media, but she had apparently very efficiently blocked that as well. So I knew that the only option I had left was to show up on her front door and stand there until she