2
Weston
“Damn, that was the best food I’ve eaten in a long time,” I told Sharla.
“Really?” she wrinkled her nose. “It seemed a little rustic.”
“That’s the best kind,” I raved. “I’m so glad I moved my company back to Harrogate. And just in time for all the festivals.”
“I thought you were going to keep a ThinkX office in Manhattan,” Sharla remarked.
“Just a small one,” I told her.
She wrinkled her nose.
“Oh, come on, you can’t tell me you don’t love it here,” I exclaimed.
“It just feels like being back in high school,” she said.
“Harrogate has changed since then,” I told her. “Besides, you and I just randomly saw each other today walking down the street. And now we’ve had a chance to catch up. That doesn’t just happen in Manhattan.”
Sharla kissed my cheek then stepped into her little yellow sports car. I waved as she drove off.
I supposed anyone else might have been livid about moving back to their small home town, but not me. I loved Manhattan, and the city had helped me turn my boutique consulting firm into a billion-dollar juggernaut, but the hustle and bustle were starting to wear on me. When my brother and cofounder, Blade, and I had run the numbers and realized we could save a fortune by relocating our headquarters, I jumped at the chance.
The small, quaint town of Harrogate was about as far away from the international airport as Manhattan when one accounted for traffic in the city. The majority of our employees traveled most of the time anyway, and they were all excited about the better schools, natural surroundings, and cheaper property in Harrogate. Plus, with my other brothers’ companies located there, the small town was booming. Harrogate was a great place to raise a family. A number of my brothers were already shacked up.
My bright mood dropped a bit. My Irish twin, Blade, had recently found the love of his life. I’d played third wheel a bit—Avery was nice and fun and didn’t want to come between my brother and me, but it wasn’t the same.
It was dark as I drove back to the estate house. I had my own apartment in town, but I wanted to see my family. All my little brothers lived in Harrogate, and I was happy to be able to spend more time with them.
Thunk.
“Shit!” I yelled as the high-pitched hiss of a busted tire sang out over the music on the car radio.
I stepped out of the car to inspect the damage. I had hit the gnarliest pothole ever, and my tire was shredded. Fuck. I was only a few yards away from the front gate of the Svensson estate too.
A car pulled up behind me, and my older brother, Hunter, stepped out. “It’s that fucking pothole,” he yelled.
“Hello to you, too.”
“I fucking hate this town,” my older brother growled.
“It’s not the town’s fault…” I began.
“Meg is doing this on purpose. I have filed so many complaints about this pothole,” he interrupted, tapping a number into his phone and angrily waiting for the person on the other end to pick up.
“So I guess you’re not helping me change my tire,” I said to the sky. “Great.” I took off my suit jacket as Hunter paced around in the light from the car headlights.
Another sleek black Tesla pulled up in front of me. Garrett opened the driver’s-side door. “Why did you run over the pothole?”
“I didn’t know there was a pothole there,” I seethed as I dragged the spare tire out of the trunk of the car.
“Everyone knows there is a pothole in this location,” Garrett said in a monotone, walking over to me.
“I haven’t driven here since Christmas,” I reminded him, trying to find the car jack.
“That’s no excuse. This pothole has its own Facebook page. We are low on cars as it is. You cannot tear up another car.”
“This is my car,” I said as I finally found the jack.
“Yes, but now you will have to borrow someone else’s car while we wait on your car to have maintenance done,” he continued. “You’re not borrowing my car.”
“I didn’t ask to,” I said.
“Yes, I’m calling for the mayor,” Hunter’s voice broke in. “No, I don’t want to talk to…” He cursed then stood up straighter. “Hiii, Meg. I called to speak to Mayor Barry. Yes, I know it’s dinnertime. That’s not…” Hunter paced angrily. “The pothole, Meg! My little brother almost died because of the pothole that you refuse to fill. Put Mayor Barry on. I don’t care if he’s eating. This is a travesty. I pay taxes. I—hello? She hung up on me!”
“Imagine that,” Garrett said, watching me struggle with the spare tire.
I grunted as I slid the new tire onto the axle and bolted it into place.
“Your shirt is dirty,” Garrett told me, stepping back into his car.
“I love my family,” I chanted to myself as I followed him down the drive.
Hunter was still complaining about the pothole as we walked inside. I was immediately bombarded by my little brothers.
“Weston! Weston!” they yelled. Around two dozen or so of my youngest brothers lived at the estate house. Originally built in the Gilded Age by the Harrogate industrial scions of old, it now held my family—well, parts of my family, ranging from the smallest, cutest preschoolers to my older, more trying brothers.
The younger ones, with their chubby cheeks and big eyes, were all my half brothers, products of a polygamist cult-leader father and his many wives. The adult ones were my full brothers.
Remy was the oldest and sported a bushy beard and the scars, physical and psychological, from his time in the Marines. Though Remington—Remy for short—was the oldest, Hunter liked to act as if he was. He was arrogant as a default and could be downright evil, especially now that his unrequited-love situation with Meghan Loring had escalated into a pothole cold war.
Then came Gunnar, who, with his shaggy hair and stoner attitude, was a reality TV producer. The Great Christmas Bake-Off was popular, and now he was busy with various reality TV spinoffs, one of which included a dating show.
The next oldest were Archer and Mace, the twins. Leif Svensson’s genes were strong, and he also only took blond women as his wives. As a result, my brothers and I all looked eerily similar, but Mace and Archer were identical. Though they were twins, their personalities were polar opposites. Mace was the CEO of PharmaTech and straitlaced, deliberative, and irritatingly risk averse. Archer was covered in tattoos and slept until two in the afternoon.
Coming in behind me and scooting an errant child out of the way with his foot was the worst: Garrett. Classic middle child, he was younger than Mace and Archer and older than Blade and me. Chief financial officer of Svensson PharmaTech, he probably had all our phones tapped, deals cut with various government agencies, and multiple parallel plots for world domination. He was, in short, a dick.
Blade and I, owners of the ThinkX consulting firm, were Irish twins—only nine months apart. Blade had never met a spreadsheet he didn’t love, and I was a generous human being who cared about friends and family. In fact, I was regularly told that I was everyone’s favorite Svensson brother.