Page 26 of Swiped By My Dad's Best Friend
Despite the fantastic escape at night, my work troubles always waited for me the next day. Which was why I was in the office, stressed and irritable, when my phone rang. I picked it up without glancing at the caller ID, knowing better than to expect a new client. It was probably one of my guys calling in with a question.
“What’s up?”
“Trace, it’s Matthew.”
Matthew.Shit! My heart pounded in my chest as my hands went clammy. Matthew had been calling me now and then since my visit to Hayworth College. At first, it’d been nice to feel connected again. I had made other friends—guys I grabbed a beer with or invited over to watch Sunday football—but none with the close bond I’d shared with the Rutledges. It’d been easier to keep my distance to ensure I was never in the position of losing so much again.
But I’d dodged his last call, feeling guilty about how much pleasure I was getting out of his son every night.
“What do you need?”
“Bad time?”
Matthew sounded disappointed, and I reined in the urge to cut him short and get rid of him. We’d just begun to repair our friendship, and I wasn’t ready to toss it aside. I needed to calm the fuck down and play it cool.
He didn’t know about me and Cooper. He’d never have to know. It was a long-distance affair, and surely Cooper would grow tired of it before long and move on to someone who could be there in the flesh. And it wasn’t as if I were bad for Cooper. If anything, I was exactly what he needed right now—even if Matthew would never understand that.
I blew out a breath. “No. I don’t know. Just a little frazzled today.” Once again, business realities rushed in to the fill the space in my head that wasn’t occupied by a bratty college boy. “Didn’t mean to sound like an asshole.”
He chuckled. “That’s all right. We all have those days. Anything I can do to help?”
“Not unless you’ve got a lump of cash and a burning desire to invest in a landscape company.”
“Is the business in trouble?”
“Work has slowed down. I just need to man up and deal with it. I know what to do, but…”
“But what?”
“I don’t want to do it,” I admitted. “My crew works hard, and every one of them need the job. I can’t drum up more business out of thin air though.”
Not with fucking Legacy Landscapes grabbing every spare job worth taking.
“No, it’s one of the realities of owning a business. You know…” Mathew hummed thoughtfully. “This is the exact sort of thing we prepare our students for in our entrepreneurship seminar.”
I snorted. “Think I should come take your class?”
“I think you should cometeachit.”
Uh, what?
“Hear me out before you answer,” Matthew rushed on. “This is a weekends-only seminar that lasts nine weeks. We prefer to have an actual business owner lead it, because the focus of the seminar is on the practical realities of starting up and operating your own business.”
“I don’t know.”
“It’d be an influx of cash.”
“How much?”
“Nothing like an entire year’s salary. But for your time, about ten thousand.”
Ten thousand dollars. It wouldn’t solve all my problems, but it’d buy me some time. With work on the slow side, missing weekends wouldn’t be an issue, even if the drive would be a pain in the ass.
And it would bring me right back into Cooper’s orbit.
But was that good or bad? I shouldn’t pick up where we’d left off, and with our sexting sessions, I couldn’t fool myself into thinking I could resist Cooper. He’d show up at my door, as he had before, and I’d be toast.
“I don’t want you doing me favors,” I said hesitantly as my mind churned through the options.
