All of Me by Tiffany Patterson

Chapter 2

Nine Months Later

Gabriel

“That sounds like a great idea to me,” the sponsor I spoke with on the phone said. I sat in my office, on a call to negotiate sponsorship deals for a couple of my athletes. “I’ll bring it up with my team later this week and get back to you.”

“Make sure you do.” I leaned back in my chair, feeling slightly victorious. “This is a win for all sides.”

“I would have to agree. We’ll get back to you.”

Disconnecting the call, I pushed out a breath before placing my elbows on my glass desk. It was late, and I was dog tired but work needed to get done.

Preston was out of town until the following day, working with another one of our clients, so it was up to me to maintain the day-to-day office tasks, reach out to new sponsors for our clientele, and stay on top of my training.

I’d been back in Texas for a week after spending months in Thailand, and I came back hitting the ground running.

I went to lift the phone again to place another call, but it rang before I could.

“Micah, what’s up?” I answered my oldest brother’s call.

“Figured you were still in the office.”

“You figured accurately.”

“Yeah, well, I got a call from Toni,” he said. “It’s best you get your ass down to The Rustic.”

I bristled at his tone. “You’re the oldest, but not my damn daddy.”

He chuckled as if I’d made a joke. “Our middle brother needs you, and in case you forgot, I’m getting married next week,” Micah reminded me. “Aside from helping Jodi finalize all of these bullshit details I know nothing about, I doubt Ace will want to see my face. Given today’s date and all.”

I shot my gaze over to my computer, noting the date on the screen. “May first. Shit,” I griped.

I hoisted myself out of my chair and shut off my computer screen. There went my plans to work for the next hour.

“I’m on my way.”

“Thanks, little wolf.”

“It’s Grey Wolf,” I said before hanging up. He knew damn well what my name was.

I exited my office, shutting down the lights before making my way down the stairs to the gym area that sat on the ground floor. Our company, No Sweat Management, took up the entire second floor of the building.

Preston was a partial owner in the gym, while I had partial ownership in the building overall. Together, we co-owned No Sweat Management and were on our way to building it to the best management company in athletics.

Business would have to wait until the following day, seeing as how I needed to handle this situation with Ace.

I slammed my car door shut and revved up the engine on my Camaro. “He’s lucky he’s my damn blood,” I murmured and peeled out of the parking lot. Aside from my family and Preston, there wasn’t anyone I’d do this type of shit for.

The Rustic was about a twenty-five minute drive from my office and sat on the edge of Harlington, where I’d grown up and continued to live. Tetrarch’s song “Negative Noise” filled the inside of my car, silencing any thoughts of what I would find once I reached The Rustic.

The distraction of the music worked well until I pulled up to the bar and got out. Inside, the wailing sounds of some woman pining over lost love or some bullshit greeted me.

With a slump in my shoulders, I headed toward the bar. The bartender, Toni, looked up, and relief flooded his face.

“Thank God,” he said. “He’s been playing this damn song over and over again on the jukebox. He’s threatening anyone who tries to play something else.”

I shivered. “Where is he?”

Toni nodded his head toward a booth in the back of the bar, right next to the jukebox. I padded the hard bottoms of my shoes across the wooden floors, not so anxious to reach my middle brother. Yet, I knew I couldn’t ignore this shit either as much as I wanted to.

“This seat taken?” I asked Ace when I came up beside him, seated in the booth.

He raised his head, and his eyes widened for a second before he dipped his head back down and shrugged.

Feeling defeated and at a loss for words, I sighed. “I have half a mind to call Micah to bring his ass up here and deal with you,” I grumbled as I took my seat across from him. “Or worse, Joel.”

That got Ace’s attention, and he lifted his head again. My stomach knotted at the pain I saw in his grey eyes. I always found it ironic that he was born with grey eyes, but I was the one our parents named “Grey Wolf.”

I focused on the irony of my middle name because looking my brother’s pain square in the eye was too damn uncomfortable.

“He’d just tell me to get over it.” Ace’s voice, which was always so full of life and laughter, sounded distressed and broken. As if the words had to travel through shattered glass just to make it out of his mouth.

I clenched my fist to keep from telling him that Joel’s advice didn’t sound half bad. He needed to get over it.

“Don’t fucking touch that,” he barked at another patron of the bar, who walked toward the jukebox.

The woman looked between the both of us, stunned before she scampered off.

“You’re fucking insane. And it’s costing me money,” I griped, reminding my brother as a partial owner of The Rustic that he was scaring off my customers.

“So?” he said before rising from his seat.

I looked over my shoulder to see him make his way to the jukebox. Luckily, it was only a handful of steps away because the way he tripped over his feet notified me that he’d pushed his alcohol consumption beyond his normal limits.

My conclusion was further confirmed when he plopped down in the booth across from me and blew out a heavy breath. The stench of alcohol filled my nostrils.

“You better not be flying in the morning.”

His eyes narrowed. “I’m on a five-day leave.”

I nodded, knowing he always took leave around this date. “Good. The last thing we all need is you killing yourself because you were too hungover to remember which was the eject button and the brake in one of those planes.”

“You can take your ass out of here. I know how to get home,” Ace insisted, waving me off with his hand.

“Yeah, right. You’re three sheets to the wind, as Joel would say.”

Glaring, he slammed the bottle of beer down on the wooden table between us. “He never fucking liked her.”

I sighed and shook my head. “Ace, don’t do this. Look, you can crash at my place tonight.”

“No, fuck that. Joel never liked her. Fuck him.”

I cringed, knowing my brother would never say anything like that to our father’s face. Joel might be a bit much sometimes, but we all loved him deeply.

“You don’t mean that,” I said.

“The hell I don’t.” He slung his head backward, gulping down the remaining half of his beer.

After pushing the bottle aside, he parked his elbows on the table again, staring down into his lap.

Not for the first time, I wondered how my competent and highly accomplished Air Force pilot brother could always fall to pieces like this on this date every year.

“He’d be a teenager by now. Our son.” Ace’s voice was so heavy that I could barely make out the words.

Once I did, I wished I hadn’t.

“Come on, man,” I said with a shake of my head. “You need some sleep or something.” This emotional shit started to wear on me. I wasn’t one for this type of vulnerability.

Keep your weaknesses hidden, unseen so that people couldn't capitalize on them. That was my life’s motto.

“And what the hell is this damn song you keep playing?” I demanded when he got up to replay it at the jukebox.

“‘Stormy Weather’ by Lena Horne,” he replied as he sat down.

I blinked. “What’s the singer’s name?”

Ace lifted his hand, ordering another beer before replying, “Lena Horne.” He didn’t even look at me as he answered. I was glad about that.

He might’ve seen the stunned expression on my face before I could smother it. The name. Lena.

That damn name had haunted my thoughts for the last nine months. Even on the days where I trained or worked so long I would fall into bed at night, I pictured those cinnamon eyes and full lips. What I hated to admit the most was that after that night in Los Angeles, I’d looked up her music.

It was a far cry from what I typically listened to, but one or two of her songs had somehow made their way onto my playlist.

However, the Lena singing this dreary ass song that Ace kept spinning wasn’t Lena Clarkson.

Different woman, I reminded myself. No need to allow my thoughts to linger on a woman I met once. She wasn’t mine anyway. She had a douchebag of a fiancé. I would never see that woman again, which was a good thing.

I sat back in my seat and stared across at my brother, who took a long pull from his latest beer bottle. The watery, glazed look in his eyes, the slump in his shoulders, and the smell of alcohol pouring off of him were reminders of what a good thing it was not to be hung up on anyone.

After almost fifteen years, Ace still went to pieces over a broad.

No fucking thank you.

“Let’s go. I’m taking your ass home,” I demanded, rising from my seat. “And don’t try to fight me on this. I’ll put your ass in a chokehold and carry you out of here.”

Ace was the same height as me and strong as hell, but he wasn’t the trained MMA fighter. I was. Plus, he was drunker than a fucking skunk. He couldn’t hold his own against a Girl Scout in this condition, let alone me.

“I ain’t finished my beer,” he insisted, grabbing the bottle.

“Take it with you.” I pulled him up, and he stumbled into my chest. “Fuck, you’re heavy,” I grunted. After adjusting him to lean against me as I walked, I directed us toward the door.

With a two finger salute thrown at Toni, I pushed through the doors of the bar.

“Where’s your bike?” I asked Ace, looking around for his motorcycle.

“Left it at home. Caught an Uber here,” he answered. “I knew you or Micah would be the one to pick me up tonight.”

My response to that was to secure Ace to my side and walk us both to my car. I shoved him inside before slamming the door shut and heading around to climb in the driver’s seat.

“And don’t take Tucker Bridge home. I hate that fucking bridge,” he mumbled.

I never understood his disdain for the bridge that connected the two sides of Harlington, but whatever. He would sleep this shit off at my place.

Within five minutes of my pulling out of the parking lot, I looked over to see Ace slumped to the side, his eyelids closed. The steady rise and fall of his chest indicated he was asleep, or at least on his way there.

Good.

The last thing I wanted to hear was him bringing up his past again. You’d think he would be beyond the shit by now.

I sighed before turning on some music to fill the silence.

Fate must’ve decided to kick me in the ass one final time that night because instead of playing the rock song I’d been listening to last, up came Lena Clarkson’s song “Broken Kisses”. The title track of her most successful album.

The song was about the anticipation of that first kiss but missing the opportunity. I hated myself for keeping it on my playlist. Yet every time I went to remove it, my thumb just hovered above the delete button.

“Fuck this,” I snarled, hitting the button to change the song to something else. “Rooster” by Alice in Chains came up. A song about the destruction of war seemed oddly appropriate given my feelings and Ace’s mood before he fell asleep, so I left it.

With that, I forced myself to forget thoughts about Lena Clarkson.