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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ZANDER
FOUR YEARS LATER
Slowly, I became my dad. Most of my time was spent orchestrating new deals or sketching in my state-of-the-art home office.
I was acting Chief Executive Officer of our family firm, TM Architecture. Owen didn’t mind being second in command as the Chief Operating Officer.
My father assisted Owen and I. We designed half the skyline in downtown Atlanta.
Our lives changed in an instant. Hayden graduated from college and the war began. Vicky and Hayden fought for years to become the CEO of Gaster Enterprises. She and I traveled for work, rarely spending quality time together. Our work helped us avoid the elephant looming its huge head over our relationship. Hayden.
Probably should have told Vicky to let him have the company, so we could enjoy our life. Instead, I was swallowed into my family’s business too.
Hayden’s cousin Bryce decided it would be cool to take him out to a strip club for his twenty-fifth birthday. Not just any strip club. The best strip club in all of Atlanta, Make It Rain.
Alex and Troy were down to hang.
We sat in V.I.P. The disco strobe lights flashed across the room and the music blared through the speakers.
Bryce paid ten stacks to have a stripper dance for Hayden. To say Hayden was awe struck was a fucking understatement. The stripper led Hayden into a private room. Strippers clapped their asses in our faces. We poured hundred-dollar bills over their bodies.
Secretly, I was texting my woman.
“Vicky, I miss you. I’ll fly out to Cali to see you.”
Vicky oversaw the L.A. office, lately. The distance between us was gnawing at my nerves.
“No, baby. Don’t do that. I’ll never get any work done.”
“We are at the strip club celebrating your brother’s birthday.”
“Whose idea was that?”
“Bryce.”
“My cousin practically lives at the strip club. I’m not surprised.”
“Flash your tits then send me a video of you playing with your pussy. Baby, I’m horny.”
“You better not fuck a stripper, Zander!”
“What the fuck?” I huffed aloud.
“Your brother’s birthday?” Troy gasped over my shoulder.
I pressed the side button on my cell, locking the screen. “Troy, mind your fucking business!” I yelled in his ear.
“Dude, I thought, you and Hayden worked out your differences and you agreed not to talk to you know who.”
“I didn’t agree to shit. I told him we’d been friends too long, and I wasn’t seeing her. At the time that was true. But months later things changed. Troy, she’s my woman. Hayden doesn’t need to know right now. But I’ll be the one to tell him.”
He raised his hands as if he was surrendering. “That’s between you guys.”
“Were friends no matter what, bro.” He pulled me into a bro hug and we slapped hands.
“I’ll be in the limo. I have to calm her down.”
