Cillian wasn’t so personal with his hatred toward Syllie. Don’t get me wrong, he would go to extreme lengths to ruin people’s lives, but he needed them to be able to fight back. Syllie was a done deal, and Cillian was above playing with his food.
Me? I was the asshole in the cafeteria who started the food fight.
“Nicely done,” Cillian clipped, gathering all the envelopes his secretary had sorted for him alphabetically and dumping them into the trash can under his desk. “Now get out of my office. Your contentment is ruining my appetite.”
“Are you sure it’s my contentment and not an allergic reaction to life?” I pretended to salute, standing up.
“Positive.”
“Nothing about you is positive, fuckface.” I laughed.
“You kiss our mother with that mouth?” he tutted, sitting down to take a call.
“Cursing is the least of the dirty things I do with my mouth, son.” I clucked my tongue, gunning him down with both index fingers.
“Call me son one more time and the rest of your meals will be consumed through a straw,” Kill hissed. “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.”
“Aww. You said ass.” I slapped a hand over my mouth, feigning shock. “That’s a potty word. Go put a dollar in the piggy bank.”
Cillian picked up a small golden statue on his desk and hurled it at me. I dodged it by inches, laughing as it crashed against the glass wall, sending the eyes of everyone outside flying to watch what happened.
He smirked up at me, a devious glint in his eyes. “Out.”
“Don’t forget eight o’clock. We have this dinner thing with Sailor and her parents.” I pointed at him. He shook his head.
“Gread leat.” He was now throwing me out in Gaelic.
“Love you, bro.”
“I’ll call security,” he threatened.
He wasn’t even kidding. We’d been known to use security on each other multiple times during our disagreements in the last four years. I got out of his office, making my way to mine—approximately three steps away. I had my own assistant now. Since I’d graduated, actually. People actually gave a shit about my opinion in this place.
I made money for Royal Pipelines as the head of PR and marketing. I liked working with people, charming my way into their good graces. I channeled my extrovert personality for a good cause. I made serious dough, and I actually took the company in the direction I wanted it to go: greener. More environmentally friendly. True, Greenpeace wasn’t going to hit us up for drinks anytime soon, but thanks to my future projects, Royal Pipelines was no longer the ocean’s villain.
The first thing I did was stop the drilling in the Alaskan Arctic. Cillian spun it publicly that the high cost of the drilling wasn’t worth the amount of oil we’d found. It was bullshit, but it soothed his precious pride. We were no longer fucking with the world’s natural air conditioner and killing all the fishies.
Not to mention, I had friends now. With pulses and everything. The real deal.
True, I didn’t love them like brothers the way I did Knight and Vaughn, but for that, I actually had a brother.
“Hunter!” Da’s voice boomed from the other side of the floor. He was just getting out of the elevator, pacing toward his office. “A word, son.”
I made a U-turn and walked toward him. We met inside his office. He closed the door (the new one, which didn’t take a fucking century to close), because now, we met all the time to talk about everything, without Cillian as a buffer.
“What’s up?” I leaned my shoulder against a glass wall, tucking my hands into my suit pockets. He rounded his desk and sat behind it, smoothing his tie.
“What did she say?” He scrunched his eyebrows.
His firstborn was as far from marriage as The Joker was from sanity, and Aisling was still young. I was his best bet for grandchildren.
“Who?” I feigned confusion.
“I’m too old for these charades. What did Sailor say?” His eyes narrowed.
“She needs more time.”
I scanned him coolly for his reaction. His face fell before he schooled it, offering me a what-can-you-do huff. He tried so hard to keep a poker face, but the fact he reached for his handkerchief and dabbed his forehead gave away his despair.
“Buy her a bigger ring. That’ll do the trick.”
“Not with Sailor.” I shook my head, still eyeing him.
He groaned, rubbing his temple. “Probably. She’s a toughie.”
“I’m tougher.” I grinned, pulling out my hand and showing him my ring finger. “I won’t keep you and Mom waiting for long. I want to put this shit on lock as fast as I can, before she realizes she can do much better.”
Da looked up from his seat, shaking his head, and whispered, “No, she can’t.”
I believed him—not that it was true about Sailor and me, but that he meant it.
“I love you, ceann beag. More than this kingdom.” Da smirked, slow and deliberate, trying not to burst with pride.
I grinned back, fingering the Dala horse on my neck. Sailor had given it back to me the day she’d moved back in. It was no longer colorless, though. She’d painted it orange—like her hair.
“I love you, old sport. More than pu—”
“No.”
“Puppies! Chill.”
I turned around and made my way to my office, laughing.
I totally meant pussy.
The End