Page 26 of Just a Distraction

His eyes go wide. “Really? Oh no. I feel even worse now. I’m sorry I ruined your birthday.”

I click my tongue. “But you didn’t. I don’t remember the last time I had so much fun.”

“I should have bought you a cake and presents and—”

“You bought me ice cream,” I remind him. I rub a hand across my face. “I feel like my nose is still a little sticky from it. It was so good.”

“It was good. But not enough.” He leans back against the pillows again, placing a hand behind his head. “If I make it outta here alive, I’ll make it up to you.”

“Except, our time together is almost over, remember?” I know it’s for the best, but why does a welling of regret threaten to undo me?

I trace his cheekbone with my finger, and he swallows hard. I reach down to kiss him on the cheek and when I pull away, the look in his eyes upends me. Seals me to him.

His expression is wild. Almost like the barest whiff of panic. As if he’s desperate for me to stay. I shunt out a breath, quickly and quietly. My gaze darts down to his lips.

He bridges the gap, tugging me close and crushing my mouth in a kiss.

Chapter 9

Milo

Six Months Later

I’m in my office at Tate International, trying and failing to concentrate on the task at hand.

It doesn’t help that my brothers Oliver and Alec are in the room right next to me, shooting pool and loudly discussing, i.e. arguing, which brand of toilet paper is the best. First, they were on paper towels. Now they’ve moved onto toilet paper.Fascinating.

I leave my cramped, closet-like office and enter the game room. It’s where we like to gather. It’s where we bond over watching football games on the big screen in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball the rest of the time.

“Why do you care what the other one uses to wipe their behinds with?” I growl, lifting a hand to massage the back of my neck. “Some of us have deadlines around here.”

My brothers only stare at me for a moment before continuing on, talking about the virtues of three-ply like I’m not even there.

“Did you know that the Four Seasons has black toilet paper?” Oliver asks, to which Alec whistles.

I sigh and slump down in the leather sofa. I only have about ten minutes left until my lunch break anyway. I might as well quit trying to fight it.

“You coming water skiing on the lake with us tomorrow night?” Alec asks me. “The wives can’t. Something about a big group meditation session with Sophie.”

Sophie, Oliver’s wife, is pregnant and isn’t feeling well, so she invited my mom and sisters-in-law to a big spa day.

“I can’t,” I say. “Someone’s gotta work around here.”“I said ‘evening.’ You’ll be done by then,” Alec insists.

“I’m behind. I have to catch up.”

I’m not behind on tracking reimbursement activity for the employees for all twenty-two Tate International resorts. But I am behind on my writing. I’m writing a serial story for an online platform called Turnip. People submit stories in sections. The stories are read and upvoted by millions of readers worldwide. It’s what I do in my free time.

And I have more free time than I used to. After starting a trial run at both my father’s finance company and my brother Sebastian’s resort empire six months ago, I made the decision to work for Sebastian, managing his employee reimbursements and rewards program. At least for the time being. No one knows that’s not the endgame, though. There are expectations when you’re a Tate . . . a mold to fit into. Fantasy novel writer doesn’t quite cut it. No one in my family has any idea I even write at all, let alone that I want to become a successful novelist.

So for now, I’m biding my time, writing on the side. I got accepted into the Professional Master of Fine Arts Program with a genre fiction emphasis at Greenleaf, a small liberal arts college in Denver—something I can do in the evenings and on weekends. It’s designed for working adults, so there’s flexibility there. I’m querying literary agents—only the best of the best—and have gotten some good feedback. No one has wanted to sign me yet, though.

I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen with my writing. I just know I have to do it.

I can’t not write. I tried that when I first started college. I tried to shed that part of my identity, thinking I had a reputation to live up to as the latest in a long line of Tate men at Columbia. I couldn’t spend my free time making up stories because I had things to prove and big shoes to fill.

That only lasted through the first semester. It didn’t take me long to realize writing is a part of what makes me . . . me.

This past week, I traveled to a Tate International resort in North Carolina for a work thing, as a favor to Sebastian. He assumed I stayed an extra couple of days to sightsee, but I didn’t. Not really. Unless you call going to a two-day writer’s conference on a college campus “sightseeing.”

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