Page 42 of The Proximity Effect

“Your perception of breaking even is skewed. Maybe because half your attention is still back in corporate law?” There was an edge to Evan’s voice I rarely heard. It was serious in a way that didn’t suit him at all. “Gavin left us this place for a reason, Arch.”

“It’s not sustainable.” The words came out sharper than I intended, weighted with frustration and exhaustion and the lingering effects of last night’s indiscretion.

“And spending, what? Sixty to eighty hours a week as a lawyer is sustainable? At least with the resort, we split thingsthree ways and sure, we do have to work more now, but once we get the hang of things, it won’t be so bad.”

“I don’t know why Gavin thought this would be a good idea.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, remembering late-night conversations in college when anything and everything seemed possible. “He probably thought we would all be old men when he passed or that he’d outlive most of us.”

There had literally been no explanation included in his will, and since Gavin had been estranged from his family, we couldn’t exactly ask them. He could have done it as a precaution until he had a family of his own.

“Or he knew we needed this.” Evan gestured around us, encompassing not just the office but the resort, the mountains, this second chance none of us had asked for. “All of us. Together. Like we planned before?—”

“Before everything went to hell? This isn’t some magical fix-it solution, Evan. It’s a failing business that’s eating up our time and money.” And my sanity, especially with Tessa around making everything more complicated.

“What’s failing?” Liam appeared in the doorway, looking irritatingly refreshed with his snowboard helmet under one arm and snowboard under the other. “Besides Archer’s attempt at maintaining a normal sleep schedule?”

“Nothing’s failing,” Evan said quickly.

“The resort,” I said at the same time, earning a glare from Evan.

Liam’s easy smile faded. “Ah. This conversation again.” He propped his snowboard against the wall and set his helmet down on the edge of my desk. “What sparked it this time? The profit margins? The maintenance costs? Or are we finally admitting that forcing three guys who can barely stand each other to live together was a terrible idea?”

“I was trying to tell him that Gavin thought—” Evan started.

“Gavin thought a lot of things.” Liam sighed, and for a moment I saw the weight of the past few months in his expression. “But he’s not here, is he? We are. Stuck in this mess because he decided to play puppet master from beyond the grave.”

The truth of his words hung heavy in the air. We were stuck—with the resort, with each other, with Gavin’s final attempt to fix what had broken between us years ago. The silence in the office was thick enough to cut.

And now there was Tessa, complicated and tempting and off-limits, making everything even messier. The memory of her on my desk flashed through my mind again, and I had to suppress a groan. This was exactly what I didn’t need—another variable in an already unstable equation.

“You okay there, Arch?” Liam raised an eyebrow. “You look like you’re about to snap that pen in half.”

I glanced down at my white-knuckled grip on my favorite Mont Blanc, forcing my fingers to relax. “I’m fine. Just tired.” And frustrated. And confused. And a little terrified of how quickly everything was spinning out of my control.

“Right.” Liam’s tone suggested he didn’t believe me for a second. “Well, while you two debate the meaning behind Gavin’s grand plan, I’m going to do something productive. Like throwing myself down a mountain at high speed.”

“We could call it quits.” I cringed as the words left my mouth, but it wasn’t like we hadn’t all considered it. The thought had kept me up more nights than I cared to admit.

Liam stopped at the door, turning back to face me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. “And then what? The resort and all of Gavin’s hard work go to waste? It’s not a money pit like you seem to think it is. Just because our expenses are high doesn’t negate the fact that the profit last year was almost three millionand that if we sold it at the end of the two years, it would be life-changing.”

I could admit that three million in profit wasn’t necessarily failing, but all of the other bullshit made it feel like it. It was risky putting my life on hold and putting my trust in two men I’d stopped talking to a long time ago. All it would take is one of them to walk away before the two years were up, and it would have all been for nothing.

Evan cleared his throat and stood. “I need to go put the honeymoon suite that was just vacated back to how it was.”

“And I should?—”

“You should go snowboarding with Liam!” Evan was suddenly back to his old self.

I looked between Evan’s too-innocent expression and Liam’s raised eyebrows, recognizing the familiar tag-team tactics they’d perfected long ago. “Absolutely not. I have work to do.” A stack of invoices sat accusingly on my desk, each one representing another item on my endless to-do list.

“You mean you have brooding to do.” Evan was already moving to my desk and closing my laptop with a disregard for boundaries. “When’s the last time you went snowboarding?”

“Yesterday,” I lied, amazed at how he could still methodically dismantle all my excuses.

“Nice try.” Liam snorted, fiddling with the zipper of his jacket. “Your board’s still got dust on it from sitting in the equipment room since we got here. I should know—I organize that room.”

“Some of us have actual responsibilities?—”

“Some of us need to remove the stick from their ass,” Evan interrupted with that infuriating cheerfulness that made him impossible to argue with. “Go. Seriously. Whatever you’re working on will still be here in two hours, and you look likeyou’re about to have an aneurysm.” He wasn’t wrong, which only irritated me more.

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