Page 4 of If You Could Only Feel
Chapter 2
Gabriel~
I stared down at the text that came across my phone and figured it was a mistake. Justice must have been texting someone else, and the messages got crossed over.
At least, that’s what I was telling myself as I tried my hardest to ignore the hallowing out I felt in the pit of my stomach.
Busy this wknd. Got errands 2 run. Talk 2 u ltr.
I reread the text and ignored how my thumbs trembled over the screen’s keyboard. I’ve been seeing Justice Hillman since we were sophomores in high school. That was over six years ago, and never once, has she ever not agreed to see me or make time for me.
Never.
I texted back.
Busy doing what?
I waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
Almost a half hour later, her reply came through.
Going n2 city with Beatrice 2nite. Cleaning top 2 btm 2morrow all day.
What the fuck?
She’s going into the fucking city tonight? What the fuck for?
And, so what, if she was cleaning her apartment all day tomorrow? That still left all of Saturday night free. I could spend the night and then head back home on Sunday and get ready for my official first day at Buchanan Industries. With Michael, my twin, and I finally graduating and getting our degrees, we could finally join our older brothers, Mason and Aiden, in the running of BI that’s been in our family for generations.
I felt a slap on my back right before I heard, “Jesus, Gabe. What did that phone ever do to you?”
I looked over at Michael and scowled. “When did you get here?”
“Snuck in last night after about two,” he answered as he made himself at home in my kitchen. I smirked but didn’t comment. We’ve lived in the same house all our lives, so it wasn’t a surprised that we were still trying to adjust to solitary homes.
And it didn’t matter if we didn’t. I’d live with my brothers forever if that’s how things had to be. We were extremely close, but growing up the way we did, our commitment to one another had always been a good thing. Our father was a tyrant and our mother had been neglectful, so we relied on each other a lot.
Mason was the oldest and, really, the patriarch of the Buchanans. Our father liked to pretend that he still had a say in how we lived our lives and what went on at BI, but we all knew the truth. Mason ran shit, and he ran it with our best intentions at heart, always.
Being the oldest and having to live with our father’s abuse the longest, Mason was a bit of a psychopath. He was unfeeling and did not connect well with others. Mason was cold, hard and calculating. He didn’t suffer fools easily, and since he couldn’t really identify with feelings, he was as brutal and as cutthroat as they came.
He was also a fucking genius.
Mase had a photographic memory, and he had the ability to multi-task anything thrown his way. There was no limit to how many balls he could juggle in the air and he could control each of those balls with absolute certainty. And he had always been the dutiful son and carefully followed the path our father had created for us, but when my father tried to come between him and his wife, Shane, when they were dating in college, Mason had gone toe to toe with our father and came out the winner.
Now, four years later, he was head of Buchanan Industries and he was still willing, able and eager to slay any of Shane’s dragons. No one loved their wife the way Mason loved Shane.
No one.
Then there was my second oldest brother, Aiden. We all looked similar, but Aiden shared mine and Michael’s green eyes, where Mason’s eyes were grey. But, other than that, we were all obviously Buchanans, through and through.
Now, Aiden was head of finance at BI. The man had a mind like a computer. He could do math in his head and he could calculate numbers, odds, situational outcomes and strategize like nobody’s business. He was a good guy, and even though he had been subjected to the ways of our father and the invisibility of our mother, he hadn’t turned out to be quite the sociopath Mason had. He was an all-around good man with good intentions. And, while Aiden had shown no signs of insanity, he did always have a weakness for the ladies. Aiden’s biggest appreciation in life was for the female species. He thought women were the most miraculous beings on earth and I didn’t necessarily disagree.
Growing up, our father had warned us against the evils of gold-digging whores and drummed into us how any woman would be happy to land a Buchanan. He frightened the living shit out of us with horrid tales of what can become of you if you let a woman lure you into her clutches. It wasn’t until we were teens in high school that we realized how full of shit he was. Oh, we still knew to protect ourselves against the fairer sex, but we weren’t warding off females with cloves of garlic and Holy Water anymore.
