Cam groaned, folded his arms on the table, and put his head down.
Aiden chuckled. He couldn’t believe his badass, tattooed and pierced friend, who had plenty of women who wanted to ride his motorcycle—literally and metaphorically—couldn’t get over this woman. But if Aiden kept joking about it and kept the Whitney-incidents light, he hoped one day Cam would be able to do the same.
“So, being a gentleman, of course Cam helped her clean everything up,” Aiden said.
“I couldn’t just drive off,” Cam muttered into the table.
“Of course not,” Ollie agreed.
“But now you can’t stop thinking about how you never thought you’d touch her panties and…cookies…again, right?” Dax asked.
“You’re an asshole,” Cam said, also into the tabletop. But his words were clear.
Dax grinned. “And, if you were me, you would have been thinking of how symbolic it all was. How sticky and sweet those panties could get—”
“I hate you,” Cam said.
Dax’s grin grew. “But you’re not me, so that’s good.”
“Okay, enough,” Grant said. He was always the one to pull them back to business.
Of course, ‘business’ was a loose term around the thirty-ninth floor of the office building in downtown Chicago that housed the Fluke, Inc. offices—named because all of their success really did feel like a fluke a lot of the time.
They met around this table every morning they were all in town. They’d been working together for nine years and it was a rare morning that they missed this ritual. It was less about actual business and more about touching base with one another. And giving each other plenty of shit before they went their separate directions to do their individual jobs.
They’d met in college and the five of them had accidentally created the decade’s most popular online video game. They were millionaires. Famous in the video game world. They were stars at gaming cons, even Comic Con in San Diego. They had a huge fan base online. They were wildly successful.
And it had all started in a dorm room at the University of Chicago.
“Oh, hey, gift exchange,” Dax said, dropping his feet to the floor and reaching under the table to pull out a package.
Grant sighed.
He really would like to talk numbers and get everyone back in the work mindset, Aiden knew. But Ollie and Dax were always barely in that mindset anyway, Cam was obviously in bad shape, and Aiden was so distracted that he wasn’t sure he was going to get anything done today.
He’d told Zoe no.
She’d come to him in lingerie, slipped into bed with him, kissed him, and asked him to be her first. To take her virginity. To have sex with her.
He’d never wanted any woman the way he wanted Zoe McCaffery.
But Zoe was never leaving their tiny hometown. Which made it clear that he was now going home. To stay. He was more sure of that now than he had been after she’d kissed him. Even after she’d tricked him into getting up at four-thirty a.m., hidden the coffee from him, and threatened to knee him in the balls.
He grinned at that. He did like her feisty side.
“Aiden?”
He jerked his attention back to the Chicago conference room. Dammit.
“Yeah?”
“Merry Christmas, man,” Ollie said, pushing a wrapped gift toward him.
“Aw, you shouldn’t have,” Aiden said. But they always did. They exchanged gag gifts every year after Christmas.
They were millionaires. They all could, and did, buy whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted it. So this was more for fun than anything. But he did enjoy seeing what his best friends picked out for him.
Aiden pulled a coffee mug out of the paper gift bag. It was black with two simple words in white block letters. HEAD DICK. He grinned, glad the words weren’t reversed. “Thanks.”
He was the head of these dicks, that was for sure. Grant was CFO, but Aiden was CEO of Fluke, Inc. His position as head of the company wasn’t because he was smarter or more driven than any of the other men. They all worked their asses off and every one of them was talented and smart and gave their all to the company. But they needed someone to bring them together. That was Aiden. He saw every one of their strengths—and weaknesses—and was a master at putting those puzzle pieces together into one awesome big picture.
Cam was the attorney and had never backed down from a fight. He protected their copyrights and trademarks like a bulldog, he negotiated kickass contracts, and he was always the go-to guy when someone needed yelled at.
Ollie was the visionary. He was the creative juice behind the game and all the products and events that Fluke did to promote their brand.
Dax was their graphic designer and computer geek. Though he was the least geeky geek Aiden had ever met. Dax took Ollie’s ideas and made them tangible things. He made the scribblings on their white boards into the people, places, and things in Warriors of Easton, their video game. He also charmed Comic Con crowds and did hilarious YouTube videos.
Dax and Ollie were the faces of the company. They were the ones that could talk story and character arcs and all of the details and nuances that the fans raved about—and bitched about—on social media.
Grant was the money guy, the one who made sure that Dax and Ollie didn’t blow through every penny of their profit with their grandiose schemes. He was also the one made sure that everything they wanted to do would, actually, get funded while also paying their employees well and making sure all of the partners would retire young with healthy investment portfolios and a chunk of cash in the bank.
Aiden was the people person. Not with the fans, not like Ollie and Dax, but he dealt with their merchant accounts and their employees. And his four partners. He mediated arguments, made sure they were all fully utilizing their talents, and made sure they were happy.
They were a well-oiled machine. They all fit together perfectly, and they accomplished amazing things together.
How as he going to leave them? Leave Chicago? Leave the company? Aiden ran a hand through his hair. This was complicated.
He wanted Zoe. But Zoe was in Iowa. His business, his partners, and his life were here.
He had no idea how to work this out.
“This is for you.” Aiden slid a wrapped box toward Ollie.
Ollie tore it open immediately. Inside was a case of Fudgie Fritters, Ollie’s favorite snack cake. It was from the Hot Cakes factory that was located in Appleby, Iowa.
And run by Whitney Lancaster’s family.
Cam just growled.
“Hey, you are absolutely forbidden to eat a single one of these,” Ollie said, holding the box against his chest protectively.
Cam wouldn’t touch Hot Cakes products if someone offered him a billion dollars.
“You can only get them by the case from the factory,” Aiden told him. “And those are the freshest Fudgie Fritters you’ll ever eat.”
“You’re a man among men,” Ollie told him. He held out a bag to Dax. “For you.”
Dax immediately turned the bag upside down, shaking tissue paper and his gift out onto the table. He held it up. It was a necktie. With gummy bears on it.
He grinned. “I fucking love this.” He immediately pulled the tie he’d been wearing—the red one that was covered Christmas lights and actually lit up if he pushed the button—from his collar.