Page 27 of On the Wild Side

“What, I can’t just hang out with my brother?”

Ryan smirks as I park in front of the house. “Sure. Wanna play pinball or something?”

“No. We need to go to your office.”

His eyes sober as he watches me, and then he nods and pushes out of the 4Runner.

I follow him up the stairs of the porch and inside, where we shed our coats and boots. Polly comes around a corner and smiles when she sees me.

“I thought you’d be working today,” I say as I catch her up in a hug. “What with it being almost Christmas.”

“I wasn’t feeling well this morning.” She shrugs. “My girls are covering for me.”

“Are you okay?” I frown down at her. Polly is a tiny little woman with fiery red hair, and she’s currently pregnant, which has all of us brothers on edge.

“Oh, I’m fine. It was just a horrible bout of morning sickness.”

“You might have caught a bug.” I tell them about Holly and Daisy getting sick. “Could have been a stomach thing.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” Polly admits with a shrug. “Could have been, I suppose.”

“You need to be in bed,” Ryan reminds her, kissing her on the head.

“I was just grabbing some water when I heard the door. Don’t worry, I’m taking it easy.” She smiles up at me. “He hovers.”

“I’m allowed to worry,” he replies before Polly leaves to go sit on the couch, cuddled up with a blanket and the remote. “We’ll be in the office.”

Ryan’s office isbig.And it should be. As the owner of Wild Industries, he has a lot of responsibility and a lot of work to do, most of which he does out of this home office.

“Have a seat,” he offers, and I lower myself into the chair on the other side of the desk from him. “What’s up?”

“Well, it looks like I’m about to come into a lot of money, and we’ll need to invest.”

That piques his interest, as always, and I fill him in on the sponsorship opportunities that Sandy called about just this morning.

“You’re pretty fucking badass, Brady.”

“Yeah, I know. Now, let’s make this money grow because this is my last year on the circuit.”

That has his head whipping up. “What? Why?”

“I’m old,” I reply.

“You’re thirty-three.”

“In the rodeo world, that’s old as fuck. You know my list of injuries, and I’ll only injure easier as I get older. I don’t want to be forced out, I want to leave on my own terms. I’m sore, and I’m tired. Hell, sometimes I have the walk of a sixty-year-old man, and I knew that I was signing up for that, but it’s time to step down. And given that I’m retiring at the age of thirty-three, half the age of normal retirement, I have to make the money stretch.”

“Rem would pay you for the work you do at the ranch.”

“Fuck that.” I shake my head in disgust. “That’s my family. I don’t get paid for taking care of my family. Besides, I live there for free. That’s all I need.”

“You’re really going to live in that tiny cabin for the rest of your life?” The look he sends me says,get real.

“Probably not. Maybe I’ll build something out there.”

“Well, you’re a wealthy man, Brady.” He taps the keys on his computer, logging into my portfolio, which I let him dick with. Having a billionaire brother has its benefits. “Even before being paid for these new sponsorships, you’re well into the eight figures. Rodeo has done well for you.”

“Yeah. It has.”

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