Page 42 of Stuck On Them

“Let me know when the food is almost here.” I turned and sped out of the office.

My name being coughed was the last thing I heard before shutting and locking myself in the guest bedroom. The last thing I needed was his pity.

Chapter14

Puzzle Pieces

Garrett

What a fucking day. I was having a lot of them lately, and I was about to the point where I was going to throw in the towel. There was no reason any of us should have been working as hard as we did and putting more work on our plates by expanding.

We’d been working practically nonstop since we decided during our freshman year in college to go into business together. It had taken a while to figure out exactlywhatwe wanted to do, but once we did, we were all in. It was made substantially easier with Luca’s money for an interest-free loan for startup costs and free use of his family’s property.

I was one lucky son of a bitch to be in the financial situation I was in, but I wanted more than long and stressful days. The only thing that kept me coming back lately was my involvement in starring in marketing videos, but even those were bound to end sooner or later. There were only so many campaigns we could use my arms and chest for before it got old, and then what would keep me there?

I’d have loved to be able to say Ryker and Luca would be my reason to stay, but we’d grown apart over the last year. I still cooked for their lazy asses, but it wasn’t like we sat down and ate together. I prepackaged their meals a few times a week by making a lot for my own dinner.

Cooking was one of my favorite things in the world to do, but I’d never had much interest in making it a career. I just loved cooking for other people and making something boring into something delicious.

My stomach growled at the thought of the steak waiting for me when I got home. I was just about to head out for the day when a text came through from Ryker.

Ryker:Hey. What are you doing?

Me:Getting ready to go home. Why? How are you feeling?

Ryker:Like shit.

Me:I heard you have a new roommate who is playing nursemaid.

Ryker:Not a very good one. She burned canned soup. Nearly burned the place down.

Me:Do you want me to come by and make you soup?

Ryker:You’d do that?

Me:Isn’t that why you texted me out of nowhere to see what I was doing?

Ryker:I texted you because we’re bosom buddies... or would it be penis pals?

Me:What now?

Ryker:Nothing. If you want to come over and make us tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, I’m not going to say no...

Me:Anything you need from the store?

Ryker:Oreos for Paige. A rat ate hers. Well, he tried to, and I karate chopped him.

Me:Are you drunk?

The text conversation left me a little confused and quite amused. Ryker was always so serious and rarely joked around like he used to in college or the first few years after. It was like the more successful we got, the more he was like a stick in the mud.

When I left the office, it was still warm out for it being late September. The temperature had been in the eighties all week, which was nice, but I was ready for colder weather and hockey season to start. I might not have wanted to play professionally, but I grew up around the sport and my younger brother played for the Tri-State Titans.

I wondered if Paige would want to go to an NHL game. She’d mentioned her best friend being the daughter of a coach, but she’d never said if she enjoyed watching.Maybe I’d ask her to an exhibition game that was coming up.

None of us lived too far from the office, with Ryker living the closest. It took a solid fifteen-minute walk to get there and there was a grocery store on the way.

Forty minutes later, I stepped off the elevator on Ryker’s floor. Shifting the grocery bags into one hand, I keyed in his door code and let myself in. It was quiet and there was a pair of women’s Crocs and tennis shoes right next to the door.

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