Mr. Mitchell Billionaires' Club Book 2 - Raylin Marks Page 0,168

a cucumber. That was Collin.

“See ya, Coll,” I said, knowing my friend was probably exhausted from work. I felt bad that he had to drive here to confirm that he was good to go with his part on the new wing of the hospital. My work was hard, but I wasn’t saving and changing lives the way Collin was.

“You enjoy the guys tomorrow.” Alex sighed as he stood. “I’ve got to meet Collin’s worst enemy.”

I frowned. “You’re kidding. Tell me you’re making the mistake of hooking up with her, or otherwise I’m going to assume it’s because she’s a bitch who’s overstepped her bounds with my VP.”

“It was my idea, dip shit,” he said. “Since you and Avery split, I haven’t had time for jack-shit outside of this place. I have to go over the final numbers for the quarter with her. It’s not that big of a deal. I just didn’t want to drop it on Collin after he showed up tonight, looking tired as fuck.”

“Now, I’m definitely sucked into this bike ride.” I scratched my forehead.

“What are best friends for?” He laughed, then left my office.

I had been running hard, and so was almost everyone else around me these days. I knew precisely why Collin had driven up here, too. These guys hadn’t seen me as much because I’d been buried in work, and I knew what they were thinking—it was because of Avery.

Sadly, throwing myself into work was the best healing remedy for the pain in my chest. I was so madly in love with that woman. I still couldn’t imagine myself without her, but I couldn’t imagine myself with a woman like her either. Fucking lies and secrets? It’s all our relationship added up to be, and that was what cut me the deepest. If Avery had loved me as she said she did, I wouldn’t have been left in the dark with her past.

Maybe a fast and adrenaline-filled ride up the coast on my street bike would do me good.

We took off from Jake’s house bright and early, and the love for being on the bike, especially riding it up the coast, was coursing through me. There was something about controlling all this horsepower, bringing it and me through the turns, laying it over hard, and finding the apex to where I pulled smoothly out of the turns. It was fucking magical and made me return to my carefree days when I did this all the time with my brother, Collin, and Alex.

Pacific Coast Highway wound through the side of the cliffs above the ocean, and with the tight curves and the sea below us, it was my favorite place to be on the bike, especially on this particular ride farther north to Big Sur.

After arriving and having lunch at our favorite diner—all of us still acting like adrenaline junkies from the ride up the coast—we walked across the street and sat at a bench near a vista point, seeing the waves crash below us.

“Damn,” Collin said, leaning his elbows back to the table behind him and stretching out his legs, “it’s almost like you can appreciate the ocean more from this vantage point.”

“What, you’d rather be up here with waves violently rushing the shore instead of checking out the ladies on the shoreline?” I asked, sitting on the table and using the seat to prop up my feet. “You must’ve lost your mind somewhere back there.”

Jake sat on the far corner of the long picnic bench, sitting and leaning against the table with his legs stretched out and crossed. Being on a bike for hours made one’s body beg to stretch out after all that crouching.

My brother shook his head and pulled off his square aviator glasses. “You are kidding, right?” he asked me. “You do know what time of the year this is, don’t you?”

Collin laughed while I stare out at the ocean. “Right. My God, November came out of nowhere,” I said.

“You’re going to miss the birth of your nephew if you don’t get your head out of that company and come up for some air,” Jake said. “It’s fucking ridiculous. What is that place to you now, a hellish cocoon that you hide in since you and Avery called it quits?”

“Assume what you want about that, Jacob,” I said. “I knew your sorry ass would bring it up eventually, and how I’m the dick in the equation.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Jake stood up. “This isn’t about Avery, Jim.