Page 3 of Christmas with Brother's Best Friends
Chapter Two: Josh
Max and Ryan know me too well. I do want Emma to myself, even if it’s just for ten minutes.
What can I say? The Emma that we used to know is not in this office right now. Instead, there’s a gorgeous woman with a great career and a stunning portfolio who’s doing us the biggest solid by helping us with this project.
“Obviously, there’s not much to this tour, but you might as well get accustomed to the whole office. You’ll be here a lot with us,” I tell Emma as I lead her toward the far left where the lounge is located. Max and Ryan disappear into one of the conference rooms.
“It’s a nice place,” Emma replies as her head swings back and forth to admire the large space, her red hair streaming down the back of her coat.
I remember her braiding her hair all the time during the summer. I also remember her oldest brother, Andrew, punching a kid in the face for pulling on her braid so hard that it made her cry.
That’s how her brothers are. Protective and reactive. They’re like my brothers too, though, and we’ve all had each other’s backs since we were kids.
Unfortunately, that makes every thought that I’ve had in the past fifteen minutes about Emma hit me with an accompanying dose of guilt. I can’t look at her and admire her full lips and gorgeous face without my stomach slightly churning at the thought of what her brothers might think.
Or do.
They’d probably punchmein the face if they could hear my thoughts right now.
“This is the lounge. Since you’re a freelancer, I’m sure you have a good laptop. Feel free to kick back and work here,” I say as I gesture to the couches that surround an oval-shaped coffee table.
Emma trails her fingers along the top of one of the cream-colored couches, and I can’t help but wonder how light her touch would feel skimming up my chest. “I can’t believe what all you guys have accomplished since I left home.”
“I could say the same for you,” I reply as I take her along the wall of windows, making our way around the far right of the office where the closed conference rooms are located.
Emma shakes her head. “It’s nothing compared to what you guys have done. You built a company that has billions of dollars of worth.”
We only just crossed that threshold this year. Just in time for us to roll out our next big update. It’s safe to say that the pressure is on and keeps getting higher with each passing year, but Max, Ryan, and I have accomplished what we set out to do.
Make working remotely more accessible and effective. There are so many others like me who don’t want to spend all of their lives trapped behind a desk doing things that they could easily do somewhere else with a laptop and Internet connection.
“We’re proud of what we’ve done, and we did work hard, but we also had each other and a lot of external help to kick things off,” I tell her before slowing down to a stop so that she looks at me. “But you have a successful freelance career that you built yourself. You get to travel and work from wherever, and you’ve done a range of cool projects. You did all of that on your own.”
Emma smiles at me gratefully, a gentle pink hue adorning her cheeks. “It has been fun. I really needed to leave and do my own thing.”
“So, you’ll leave again after this project is done?” I ask her, feeling a faint ache of sadness at the thought of her leaving so soon. We haven’t seen much of her at all since we all grew up.
Emma shrugs as she slightly sways on her feet, her forehead creasing with thought. “I’d actually like to stay here, but I want a big, long term contract for something exciting. Something that challenges me. I think I’ve come far enough in my career to have a chance at something like that.”
“If you ever need a recommendation, you can get three from us,” I tell her as my hand brushes her arm. “You’re in the right place. There are a lot of big name companies who need someone with your talents.”
Emma’s face brightens with hope. “We’ll see. If that doesn’t work out, I guess I’ll do some more traveling and soul searching.”
Before I can reply, I feel my phone buzz in my back pocket, the vibrations loud enough to hear. Dread fills my chest as I can already guess who’s blowing up my phone in the middle of the workday.
“Sorry,” I say before I sneak a look at the text messages.
Meet me for drinks tonight. It’s been too long since we’ve seen each other!
My dad asked about you the other day. We should get together and talk about ways to get SyncUp on my dad’s radar more. He has plenty of money that he could throw your way.
Hello??? You know I like my time valued. I don’t like being ignored.
Oh, boy. If I could only go back in time and keep myself from meeting Stacy King, I’d save myself a lot of pain and frustration.
I silence my phone and tuck it back into my pocket, not wanting to deal with that mess right now. Not when I could be enjoying my time much more with Emma.
“Everything okay?” Emma’s watching me curiously.
