Page 1 of Elijah’s Whim

Chapter One

Elijah

Monday mornings never looked good on me. I had a hard time letting go of the weekend debauchery in favor of a button-down shirt and knotted tie, regardless of how well I wore the look.

I chuckled to myself while knocking on the thick oak door. Yeah, humility had never been a good look for me either. Not that I gave that one too many laps around the track.

But I already knew this particular Monday was going to be a doozy. My two best friends were on the other side of that heavy panel, and they were going to pounce on me the moment I walked through the damn door.

It wasn’t completely their fault. Lately, egging them on was one of the highlights of my otherwise boring life. The more weighed down they became with life’s trappings, the easier they were to antagonize. Especially Sebastian, with a newborn son, baby mama Abbigail, and constructing his dream-turned-reality skyscraper dubbed the Edge in downtown Los Angeles’s Financial District. It was like taking candy from a baby with him. A two-hundred-ten-pound, nothing-but-muscle, and really bad-tempered baby—but a baby all the same.

“In!” the big guy called from behind his desk—or where I pictured him to be sitting when he gave his usual call to enter his office. I’d been on the other side of the door enough times when the mighty Sebastian Shark bellowed for someone to come in, not being bothered to stand up and greet his visitor.

As predicted, when I breached the entrance, Bas was seated behind his three monitors, already typing angrily on the keyboard in front of him. At the same time, striding toward me with his usual wide grin in place, was our six-and-a-half-foot-tall friend, Grant Twombley. The man was newly engaged and looking more and more like himself with every day that got between him and the nightmare abduction he recently endured. He reached forward to initiate our brotherly handshake.

“Ahh, speak of the devil,” Grant said good-naturedly.

“How’s it going, man? I will take that comparison every day of the week. But do I want to know what the two of you were talking about?”

“Maybe.” He chuckled and then shrugged. “Maybe not. But it can’t be too hard to guess.”

“That bathing suit Rio was wearing at the pool party?” I waggled my brows wolfishly, but it was all an act.

Grant growled in my direction, and it was comical because he knew how I felt about his woman. My buddy couldn’t think the comment was meant to do anything more than get a rise out of him. Could he? I actually had a moment of regret for saying it—but just for a millisecond. That he took that bait defied all reason.

“Why do you insist on egging him on, Elijah?” Bas asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And so early…”

“I know, I know,” I said, holding my hands up in surrender. “It’s just too easy sometimes.”

Time for a subject change before I was having to supplicate before my morning caffeine boost.

“Coffee top off, anyone?” I offered, strolling over to the boss’s setup on the far side of his luxurious office. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined one side of the suite and offered one of the best views of downtown Los Angeles money could buy. Three of the ten wealthiest people in the city were accounted for in this very room. My two best friends and I were well acquainted with the finer things money could buy. However, the life lesson that remained the most important thus far was knowing the things you couldn’t buy no matter how much money you had. And the three of us could check that damn box too.

When I turned back to face the other men, I realized I had some expectations as to what might happen next. Usually, we would go over to the sitting area of Bas’s accommodating office suite. Two or possibly all three of us would make small talk as we slowly strolled there. I would notice, as I always did, how perfectly the nap of the carpet rested in one direction more than the other. And I would chuckle internally—of course—when remembering the way I would tease Shark that Terryn, his now dead administrative assistant, came in before everyone else started their day and crawled around on her hands and knees combing the shag into submission.

Now my theory was blown to hell since the nut burger was taking a permanent dirt nap and the rug’s pile never looked better. It could’ve been Sebastian himself. He’d never been one to turn an aloof cheek to an overflowing toilet or a photocopier that was out of paper.

Expectations or not, we made our way to our unofficial spots on the black leather furniture. Grant leaned back as though he were about to stretch his incredibly long legs out and prop them on the flat surface of the coffee table.

“Don’t do it, brother,” I advised with pain in my voice. The anguished sound was predictive emotion based on events of the past. No one wanted to sit through another one of the almighty Shark’s lectures. Especially on the finer points of respecting someone else’s property. The man was quick to forget we all grew up together. Like it or not, we’d watched each other go through every stage of every habit we’d ever had. Good, bad, and ugly.

Now, as we sat in the posh office, I marveled that we made it through to the other side of adolescence. We were boys, always living life in the fast lane and being too foolish to stop and analyze the danger involved in our antics. Because, at the same time, we were also smarter than anyone around us, as all young men are. We were sure we had it all figured out.

Even if someone had dared to tell us our plans were dumb or had holes, we never listened anyway. Frankly, we had nothing to lose. Each of us had a different reason why, but we were all robbed of that experience with our own parents—but at its core, we had that common bond.

We were young, reckless, and parentless. No one wanted us.

But we had each other, and that became everything.

“I’m just going to dig right in here, Banks,” Grant warned.

“I expect no less,” I said and then lifted my coffee mug to my lips and tried to hide my grin behind the thing.

But then the realization hit me. If we were going to get serious—right here and now—this place needed to be swept. To Bas, I asked, “When’s the last time you had a proper cleaning crew in here?”

“Nice try, asshole,” Grant responded. “You’re not changing the subject that easily because you don’t want to be in the spotlight for a change.”

I already knew his head was so far up in Rio Gibson’s beaver he would never catch the double meaning of what I was asking Sebastian. Hell, with the current state of Grant’s love-addled mind, we’d likely have to carry him if we needed him to move quickly.