Make Me (Broke and Beautiful #3)(5)

Russell waited. “So? What’s this big news no one has told me?”

Alec adjusted his hard hat. “I’m not telling you now, you big f*cking buzz kill.”

Another two fire trucks blazed past, tearing right through the red light. An accident downtown? A fire? The bite of sandwich he’d taken suddenly felt like dust in his mouth. Honey was uptown, attending her afternoon classes at Columbia. Ben was on the East Side, teaching at NYU. Roxy had just wrapped filming her first television pilot, so she and Louis had played hooky that day, very likely putting them in Louis’s bed on the Lower East Side. The only member of their group working in the Financial District today was Abby.

Worrying was ridiculous. There were thousands of buildings downtown. He had no reason to think those fire trucks were headed in her direction. None. At one time, he’d been just like Alec. Not a care in the world. Then he’d found something to care about, and he’d become the first to fear the worst. Those damn possessive instincts—so focused on Abby—wouldn’t be muffled. They were trying to remind him it was his job to worry about her. If he didn’t, someone else might, and that was flat-out unacceptable. Who knows how much time he had left before she picked someone else to be the one who worried? Until then, shouldn’t he make damn sure she never regretted letting him fill in for a little while?

“Tell me the news, Alec.” Distract me from my idiocy. “You want me to beg?”

“It wouldn’t hurt.” Alec grinned as he removed his hard hat, plowing a hand through his bleached-blond hair. “Ah, screw it. I got the call man!”

“What call?”

“American Ninja Warrior.” He punched Russell in the shoulder. “They want me to compete next season. On television, man.”

“You’re kidding me.” Despite his exasperation over Alec’s two-year-long crusade to get on the program, pride and disbelief clobbered him over the head out of nowhere. They high-fived with their filthy, callused hands. Which turned into a backslapping hug. Which immediately turned into uncomfortable coughing and backing away. “When are you going?”

“Get this. The show isn’t live, like we thought.” Alec cracked his neck. “I’ll admit I was a little disappointed to find that out, but I got over it when I remembered I can win one hundred grand. One hundred grand. I’ll build Darcy another useless kitchen if I win that. Just for the hell of it.”

“Sounds wise,” Russell murmured.

“They film in a week,” Alec continued. “I know it’s short notice, and we’ve got this big job.” His brother pounded a fist over his heart. “But I have to follow my lifelong dream, man.”

Russell did some quick math. “That show has only been on five years.”

“See?” Alec shook his head. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“Because I can subtract?” His brother hopped off the truck bed, and Russell followed suit, ignoring the buzzing in his skull when another pair of fire trucks flew past, sirens almost loud enough to break glass. “Look, I’m really happy for you. You know I am. It’s just . . . we’ve got that meeting at the bank next week. It’s kind of our last chance to get the loan we need to expand.”

“If I win American Ninja Warrior, we won’t even have to work.”

Russell narrowed his gaze. “You do know that one hundred grand has five zeroes and not six. Right?” A beat of silence passed where all he got from his brother was a blank stare. “Right?”

Alec scratched the back of his neck and laughed. “If you know so much about money, you’ll be fine handling the loan meeting on your own.”

Russell started to point out that he’d handled the previous five unsuccessful bank meetings on his own but decided against it. Alec didn’t feel the same urgency he did to expand, and Russell had already come to terms with that. The continual rejections were hard to shoulder alone. The same way renovating their childhood home in Queens without help was hard. But the hard work would be worth it if he succeeded. And lately, he’d become less and less satisfied with being stagnant. He needed to move.

No idea what to expect, Russell had gone into the first bank meeting blind, with little more than their accounting ledger and a rough financial plan. He’d thought the company’s rapid growth would speak for itself, but he’d been dead wrong. Chalking up the first go-round to a learning experience, he’d scheduled another meeting and been far more prepared the second time, not expecting that first rejection to hurt him. But it had, following him from meeting to meeting, closing doors in his face. He suspected his rough edges weren’t helping either, but he couldn’t do anything about those. All options had been exhausted, save one, and he’d been doing research whenever he had free time, intending to make it count.

His brother started in again about an obstacle course, but when more sirens approached, Russell couldn’t focus on the conversation any longer. As Alec looked on curiously, Russell dug his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Abby’s number. He got no answer, so he dialed again. When Abby answered on the second ring, he deflated against the truck.

“Hi, Russell.”

“Abby.” Why was he shouting? “Everything all right?”

“Kind of.”

“Kind of?” He was shouting again.