Page 71 of My Brother's Billionaire Best Friends
“You seem like you are.”
“I’m good at pretending.”
She smiles, and it hits me in the chest. Not the flirty kind. Not the performative kind. The real kind. The tired, grateful,you see mekind. “I could invite you in,” she says. “Kids are at my mom’s. House is quiet.”
I look at her for a long second. Then I shake my head. “Not tonight.”
She blinks. “You okay?”
“Too okay,” I say. “And for once, I want to leave it like that.”
She tilts her head, puzzled. “You sure?”
I take a step closer. Close enough to touch. Close enough to kiss.
I don’t.
Instead, I press a kiss to her cheek. Soft. Slow.
She exhales.
And I say, “Sleep well, pretty girl.” Then I turn and walk back to the truck. I’m not even sure what makes me do it. But that ache inside my chest feels good, somehow.
The drive back is slower. Not because of traffic—there isn’t any. Just me, the road, and a whole lot of air that feels different than it did this morning.
Lighter.
Like I finally released something I didn’t know I was holding.
The window’s cracked, letting in the early evening breeze, and the last golden edges of daylight flicker across the dashboard. I could’ve stayed. She invited me in. And God knows I wanted to. But walking away from her just now? That was harder. And better.
Because I’ve never done that before.
Never wanted something that much and chosen patience over pleasure.
It felt good. Right. Not weak. Just…intentional.
There’s power in restraint.
There’s clarity in leaving her there—safe, calm, smiling—knowing she knows exactly where we stand, and that I didn’t need to take more to prove anything.
I pull into the parking garage under my building and kill the engine. The truck settles with a soft tick-tick-tick as it cools, and I sit there for a moment, just breathing.
Thinking.
I’ve spent my whole life working. Clawing my way into places that didn’t want me. Learning how to talk without sounding rough, how to dress without drawing attention, how to hold a room without giving away how much I hated being in it.
Every boardroom, every call, every silent judgment I ignored—it all brought me here.
And still, sometimes I feel like I’m one step from being outed as the guy who didn’t finish college. The guy who learned finance from PDFs and weekend seminars, who built trust by showing up on time, over and over, until people stopped asking for credentials.
I built this life from the ground up. No legacy. No name that opened doors. Just me.
So yeah—when someone like Parker walks into my world, everything I’ve trained myself to hide wants to come to the surface. Because she gets it. Not just the work, not just the pressure. Thewhy.
She understands what it means to need something and deny yourself anyway. What it means to feel uninvited. To be told, even quietly, that you’re too much. Or not enough. To be so poor that pride is all you have left.
And she’s still here. Still showing up. Still soft around the edges, even when the world tries to wear her down to nothing.
