“You were supposed to,” Morgan quipped.
“Y’all can keep being jealous of my awesome fucking life.” She flipped the classic Wright dark hair, though she’d died the ends blonde for the summer, and then barged between us.
I always wondered what would have happened with Sutton if she’d finished college and worked for the company. I suspected she’d have been a force to be reckoned with.
“She’s got me there,” Morgan said.
“I’ve got an awesome fucking life.”
Morgan laughed. “Yeah, I bet you do, Austin.”
Her laugh haunted me as she walked away toward Jensen at the front of the living room. Everyone else had made themselves scarce. For the first time in a long time, it was just the five of us again. Jensen and Morgan looked like two peas in a pod. Bonded over their love and dedication to the company…and overall sarcasm. Landon was tilted back in a recliner and offered me a beer. I willingly took it and plopped down next to Sutton on the couch. She had her legs crossed underneath her and was staring down at her phone.
“Is this going to take long?” Sutton asked.
“Have somewhere to be?” Jensen said, crossing his arms.
“Besides enjoying my vacation?”
“You don’t even work,” Morgan pointed out.
“Um…hello? I have a one-year-old,” Sutton said, looking like she was going to toss her phone at Morgan.
“It won’t take long,” Landon said.
“You don’t even know what it is,” Morgan said.
Landon shrugged. “We can’t all be in the same room together without ripping out each other’s throats. So, I’m assuming Jensen is having this meeting for a reason and will get on with it.”
I popped open my beer and took a long drink. This is going to be fun.
“I can’t believe you’re enabling him,” Sutton muttered to Landon.
“Not you, too,” I said.
Everyone needed to get off my back about drinking. This was who I was. Fuck.
“Can the meeting be about that?” Sutton asked. “I’m supposed to be the party animal. I’m the age to constantly be fucked up. You’re…not.”
“Yet you’re the one with a kid, and I’m not. Seems to have worked out better for me than you.”
Sutton glared and straightened. “Austin, I might be little and not give a shit about a lot of stuff, but if you insult me again, I will kick your ass.”
“Enough,” Jensen spat. He had his fingers on the bridge of his nose and sighed heavily. “I love you all, but can we have peace for five minutes?”
Sutton looked at Jensen, as if to say, He started it, but one look from him, and she kept it to herself.
Fine. I’d have it out with Sutton later. She, like Morgan, could shove her pretentious, preachy bullshit up her ass.
“Are we all done?” Jensen asked.
“Can I ask a question?” Landon said, raising his hand with a giant grin on his face.
Jensen looked up to the heavens for help. “What is it?”
“Are you and Emery getting married?”
“Oh!” Sutton gasped, sitting up. “And babies? God, please say there will be babies.”
“You are so gross,” Morgan muttered under her breath.
“Look…normal women like babies, Mor!”
“Thank God I’m not normal. Everyone else here is baby crazy, except me.”
This time, I raised my hand. “Um…me either.”
“Could we all please stop?” Jensen asked with an exaggerated sigh. “Emery and I are not getting married.”
“This seems like an egregious oversight,” Landon offered.
“Just because you rush into things doesn’t mean that I do,” Jensen said. “Marriage and…babies are high on your priority list. I’ve already done both of those things and…not that I need to explain that to any of you, but Emery and I want to wait.”
“Well, can we cut to the chase then?” I asked.
“Yes. Back on track,” Morgan said with a barely contained smile.
“The real reason we’re here today has nothing to do with my marital status,” Jensen said. “It’s because…I’m stepping down as CEO of Wright Construction.”
Six
Austin
The silence in the room was deafening. Vicious.
What the hell?
Jensen isn’t going to be CEO? My brain couldn’t logically wrap itself around that concept.
Our father had died when Jensen was twenty-three years old. I was twenty and had been in college at Tech, partying and living the life. Then, with one phone call, everything had changed. Our father was apparently dead of alcohol poisoning. The newspapers had reported it as a suicide. I still wasn’t sure. But, with our mother dead from cancer when we were kids and our father gone, Jensen had taken over the company. He’d been successfully running it for a decade. He was the face of Wright Construction. He was what people thought of when they saw the motto, What’s Wright Is Right.