Page 9 of The Billionaire Experience

“It’s like in Jerry Maguire when she tells him they could end up wasting years together by being polite. That’s what Dustin and I did.”

Kelly’s mouth screwed to the side in sympathy. “I’m sorry, babe.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine.” She tapped Brody’s photo. “But he sure as hell is fine. You should pop over and offer to fix his sink. Hammer a nail. Screw something for him.” She waggled her eyebrows. “If ya know what I mean.”

Reagan laughed off Kelly’s suggestion, but her cheeks grew warm. “And then what?”

“At the very least overcharge him. He is a billionaire.”

“Are you sure you know how to do this…what’s it called, sageing?” Brody waved a curl of smoke away from his face as he followed Jaylyn through his house.

“It’s called smudging. And yes. My mom taught me. Do you question the great Vera Gray?”

“Never. I love your mom.” Jaylyn, like Brody’s brothers Dante and Zander, had a different mother than him. They all did. Their father, Octavius, wasn’t one for long-term commitment, though he’d remained close with his children’s moms after they’d parted ways.

Whenever O had been single, they’d spent Christmas at his Switzerland chalet. Four different women, the kids, and Octavius. Like a 70s commune. That’d been some real polygamy shit, though to Brody’s knowledge there hadn’t been any sex between their father or any of their mothers during those holidays. At least he hoped not.

He cringed at the bend of his thoughts.

“Stop freaking out,” Jaylyn said when she caught his disgusted expression. His younger sister by five years faced him, rolled bundle of smoking sage clutched in one fist. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m not judging your abilities about the sage—er—smudging. I was wondering if our moms and dad had more going on at the chalet while we slept soundly in our beds.”

“Ew. Why are you thinking about that?”

“I don’t know. Because I’m male and think about sex constantly?”

“That’s not true. Bennie the keyboardist was very sensitive and a good listener.”

Bennie was the guy she’d met on New Year’s Eve at Reese Crane’s party. Brody hadn’t been there in person, but he had talked to Jaylyn and Zander via video chat that night. “I don’t want to know.”

“Nothing happened. We kissed at midnight, and he gave me his number. That was it.” She peeked over her shoulder as she walked down the hallway toward the bedrooms. He followed, noticing when a floorboard creaked loudly underfoot.

“If you liked him so much, why didn’t you call him?”

“Because endings are sad. Would you like to expound on why you’re not still seeing Alexis?”

He felt his lips compress before he shook his head.

“That’s what I thought.”

After Jaylyn had finished smoking up his house—pardon him, smudging—they sat side by side on his bed facing the window overlooking the backyard. The grass was starting to turn green and grow after the cold winter. Oddly enough, he was looking forward to mowing it. Living in the city, he’d never had a lawn to call his own before.

“I like this house. It has a good aura,” she said. “Why the sage? Were you worried it was haunted?”

“No, but thanks for introducing that possibility. Tag came by earlier. Asked about the book.” He gave her a meaningful look, hoping he didn’t have to spell it out. When she returned his look with a blank one of her own, he sighed. “He mentioned a popular phrase that rhymes with lighters chock.”

Her eyebrows pulled down in confusion before it clicked a second later. “Ohh. Writer’s blo?—”

“Shh!” He looked over his shoulder, half expecting a demon to have materialized in the doorway.

“Brody, that’s stupid. Your energy’s fucked up from the move. Your concentration is on the wrong thing—you’re not blocked, you’re acclimating. Give yourself some time to find your groove. It’s not like you’re in your comfort zone.”

She could say that again. He’d become used to having a private chef or at least a meal delivery service. And a cleaner. Laundry service. His penthouse in New York had acted as a home base for whenever he returned from his most recent traveling stint. Comfort for him was having those people and services in place. He’d never enjoyed going it alone.

“I’m doing okay,” he defended. He’d been watching more YouTube than was healthy in order to learn how to update the multitude of things that needed updating in this house. Unfortunately, a lot of the videos were not only poorly filmed, but boring. Watching them had been like watching paint dry—literally at one point when he’d watched a tutorial about how long it took different types of paint to dry.

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