“Brady?”
“Sure.” I kept my focus on Annika, because something clearly troubled her.
After Walker left, I said, “What’s on your mind?”
“I’m tired of Mom harassing me.”
“What’s she harassing you about?”
“You name it, I’ve screwed it up somehow. That’s why I didn’t bring anyone today. With the rate she’s been going the last week, she’d tear into me in front of my friends.”
“You know Mom wouldn’t do that.” My gaze searched her face. She looked more tired than usual. “What’s this really about?”
She shot a look over to where our parents stood. “Not here. It actually has to do with work. Can we go to lunch next week?”
“Sure, but since it’s your idea, you’re buying.”
That got me a quick smile. “Deal. I also pick the place.”
That meant I’d be eating quinoa salad or quiche or some girly shit. “On second thought . . .”
Walker returned with beer.
“Three minutes to kickoff,” Dad announced.
We took our seats.
At the end of the first quarter the Vikings were up three to zero. Jensen hadn’t played.
A wild second quarter put the Vikings ahead seventeen to ten.
My cousin Nolan finally appeared at the start of the second half with a skinny blonde. But since Jensen played the third quarter, I paid attention to the game, ignoring Nolan when he motioned me over.
When the fourth quarter started and the Texans had possession, Nolan approached me where I stood at the bar by myself. “Brady. Got a second?”
I faced him. “Sure.” I angled my head toward the blonde. “You got her to wear a jersey? I’m impressed.”
“Just had to show her firsthand how much fun it was for both of us when I put in on her.” He grinned. “She’s something, huh?”
“Yeah. Where’d you meet her?”
“Out and about.”
His standard response. For once, I didn’t give him shit about it.
Nolan leaned in. “Look, I’m going to do something that I swore I never would.”
“That’s a short list, cuz,” I said before taking a sip of my cocktail. “What are you going to do?”
“Offer you my help.”
“With what?”
“With showing you how to cut loose, find some loose chicks, and demonstrating how to have a life outside of work. It’s time. Actually, it’s past time.”
I wasn’t expecting that at all. Then I knew. My face heated. “Goddamn Selka said something to you about what happened to me last night, didn’t she?”
He nodded. “I thought maybe you’d come to me long before this. But you haven’t and your mom is worried, Brady.”
Fucking awesome.
“I’m worried too. So are your brothers and Ash. It’s been going on for too long. Now you’re working seven days a week.”
I raised a brow. “I’m here at the game, aren’t I?”
Nolan poked me in the chest. “Because Selka would skin you alive if you weren’t. And you’d be talking business if we didn’t have the ‘no work talk’ rule at family things. It just reminds me that you weren’t always all about work all the time. It changed—you changed—when you set your sights on the CFO position.” He swirled the ice cubes around in his glass as he studied me. “But you were—what, twenty-eight?—when you started down that path.”
Wrong. I’d made that decision at age eighteen after a particularly nasty conversation with Grandpa Lund. “Around thereabouts.”
“You’re thirty-two. You’ve been CFO two years. I don’t gotta tell you what a bang-up job you’re doing. You hear that every damn day from your dad, my dad and Uncle Monte. But that doesn’t mean you should work even harder. That means you should take the time to enjoy the station you’ve reached at your young age.” He pointed at our cousin Ash. “Between us, Ash had this same kind of crisis situation two years into his stint as COO too.”
“It’s not a crisis situation,” I said with an edge. “And this has nothing to do with a woman. He was messed up during that time about Veronica.” My cousin’s ex had been a real piece of work. No one had been sorry to see the ass end of her except for Ash.
“But it’s a woman—a blind date who ditched you—that has you here looking like a pathetic bum and drinking. But I suppose that’s better than you working.” Nolan plucked the half-finished drink from my hand and passed it to the bartender. “I’m done watching you wallow. Your life is about to change, my friend. Friday night you, me, Walker and Ash are going out.”