but she’d never tried to cause him harm. For that, he would try not to cause her pain if it could be avoided.
“Helene hasn’t had it easy either,” Adam said, not wanting to cover this old ground again.
Justin shrugged, his expression morphing into the closest thing Justin ever got to serious and Adam braced for what he knew was coming. It was a well-worn topic between them—as familiar as the focus on women, sex, money and poker was in their frequent late-night cigar-smoking sessions after long days making a company run. “It’s not your job to take care of everyone, Adam. Redhawk/Ling isn’t going to rise and fall on you alone.”
“Justin, I know that but this is important. If we don’t figure this out, I’m going to let a lot of people down. People who have banked their futures on Redhawk/Ling surviving.”
“You mean ‘we,’ not ‘I.’” Justin moved even closer to shove against his chest, his glare echoing the anger and frustration in his voice.
“I know,” Adam replied, avoiding making direct eye contact. But Justin wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily.
“No, I don’t think you do.” Justin grunted out the last of his frustration and scrubbed a hand against the stubble on his cheek. “Look, I’m done trying to change you but you’ve gotta start letting some of this shit go. Rely on other people. Now you’ve got a brother and sister to help you work on that life skill.”
Oh yeah, the one subject sure to make him stress even more than usual. Now he had a family to worry about when he knew nothing about family.
“I’ll be sure to call you out of your next weekend-long poker tournament to help out at the office. That will work,” Adam grumbled, immediately feeling a pang of guilt at the jab that he knew would strike the soft underbelly of his oldest friend.
“Okay, now you’re being an asshole and that’s my cue to give you some space to brood and fixate on all the things you can’t control.” Justin paced over to the couch, grabbed his phone off the table and headed toward the door. “While you’re pondering all the shit in the universe during your ninety-mile run tonight, don’t forget to figure out what the hell was happening between you and Tess a little while ago.”
And there it was. Payback for the poker comment. He deserved it.
“I’m not talking to you about that,” he answered, not bothering to deny that he knew exactly what Justin was talking about.
He had to figure out how to navigate the fact that he’d called her baby and how hard it was to stay away from Tess. He’d failed miserably at not fantasizing about her or dreaming about her—why did he think that actual physical contact would be easier to navigate? There was no easy answer, but he had to make a decision to give in to temptation or cut Tess loose. And he knew in his gut that letting her go wasn’t the answer.
“You were leaving, right?” Adam prompted, needing time to process the day’s events.
“I was. I am. I’ll be back here tomorrow morning and we’ll find out who is trying to destroy our company.” Justin pointed at him, his grin telling Adam that all was forgiven. “And we’ll also discuss why you can’t seem to understand the difference between asking Tess out and hiring her.” He shook his head. “No wonder you’re still single.”
Four
“One day I’m going to show up and you’ll be wearing an aluminum foil hat.”
Tess put a Post-it on the file she was reviewing and looked up to find her baby sister leaning on the door frame swinging her set of house keys back and forth in front of her. Well, Mia wasn’t a baby anymore. She was twenty-one years old, a junior in college and a testament to the fact that Tess had done something right.
Except for the part where Mia was such a smartass. That part was all Mia.
Okay, maybe that was all Tess.
“Is that how I taught you to speak to your elders?” Tess asked, surprised at the stiffness in her back and the tingly sensation running up and down one of her legs. She glanced down at her watch; she’d been head down for hours. She pushed back her desk chair and shook out her sleepy leg, smacking her sister’s hand when she flipped open a file on the desk. “No peeking at stuff on my desk. I can’t believe I still have