My Best Friends Brother

Chapter 71

Today hasn’t been the piss-easy day I thought it was going to be, this time of year is pretty chilled but me and Charlie have hardly stopped since the people above us decided to dump three more projects on us. Not just any projects, but the projects that nobody else fucking wanted.

“It’s because we’re gay isn’t it! Those fuckers know that the gays can just get this shit done, so they shove us with the kids that never get picked for the team.”

I try desperately not to roll my eyes as Charlie continues to harp on about how unfair it was that we we're being saddled with this crap. The sad thing is that he’s not entirely wrong, there’s two members on the board of our company that have made pretty clear that me and Charlie have hit the glass ceiling of where we can go in this place - they also just happen to be two of the most heavily influential conservatives in this county – make of that what you will.

Charlie gets it worse than I do from them, one of the dicks ‘accidentally’ left Han off Charlie’s insurance for about four years and still argues that it’s not entirely appropriate that Han receive spousal support from Charlie’s contributions. He claims it’s not homophobic to say ‘real marriages’ when referring to straight marriages because it’s his ‘right to self-expression as an American.’ He’s a cunt is what he means.

I guess it’s one of the benefits I have from being passing, to be able to avoid his shit. For Charlie he practically bleeds a rainbow, whereas I can generally mix in with the hetros and fly under the radar. I know I have a privilege he doesn’t.

We do always seem to be given the projects everybody else hates, but at the same time we have the highest turnover rate of any other team in this company, so it's understandable that they would want to use us on the most difficult projects.

“I swear to Julie Andrews, when we start our own business, I am never doing my own paperwork again. I’m going to hire me a nice little Magic Mike looking wall of tan and muscle to do this shit for me. Do you have the summary with you for this pay-out?”

Shuffling through the files in front of me, I pull out the summary and pass it over to him before returning to my screen. I know I should be focusing on these new projects but something hasn’t been sitting right with me about the numbers in Xade’s company folders and I’ve been racking my brain to see what I can’t seem to find.

“Bitch, are you even listening to me?” Charlie begins to snap his fingers in front of my face but I just swat them away before glaring back at the figures. What am I missing?

There’s a knock at my office door and I look up to see one of the trainees they had to replace my secretary waiting patiently on the other side of the glass. Somehow, despite her incompetence, that woman managed to get herself promoted. Me and Charlie can’t move up, but apparently her double D’s and ability to swallow more cock than water, makes her fully qualified to run her own department.

“Come in.” I don’t think I’ve really spoken to this girl yet, I don’t get a lot of time to socialise with the trainees and they swap them out so often that I hardly remember their names before they disappear again.

She looks really nervous, there’s a quiver in her hands as she passes me the pages, so I try to smile brightly and let her know that there’s nothing to be intimidated about in this office. Apparently that was the wrong move because the poor thing looks even more flustered now, scurrying from the office and almost tripping over the rug on her way out.

I glance down over the pages, getting distracted when Charlie starts to huff loudly.

“What's your problem now?” Not that I really care but he’ll only get worse if I don’t ask him.

“You don't even see it do you?” He sits there limbs folded, tapping his fingers one at a time in rhythm on his skinny little arms. Chuck a bit more eyeliner on him and he’s the perfect Disney villain right now.

“See what?”

“That girl. I love you my queen, but you have this uncanny ability to completely ignore when someone is into you, it will be your undoing.”

Okay, now I really can’t stop myself rolling my eyes.

“Jesus Christ Charlie, you think everyone is into everyone. Last week you were convinced the mail man was trying to seduce you, you spent four days telling anyone who would listen that the guy wouldn’t stop winking at you even after I told you for the hundredth time that the dude developed a twitch after his stroke.”

“Firstly, it wasn't just the fucking winking, he kept doing this weird hip thrust thing whenever he stopped outside my office.” Yeah, because his legs don’t work fucking properly anymore. “And secondly, we both know that you have this dysfunctional belief that if you’re not into someone that must mean that they’re not into you. That girl was pretty much offering you her blossoms on a plate just then and all you could do was fucking smile.”

I really don’t have the energy to deal with this today. I’m already antsy since Miles called this morning and told me about what happened with Jayce yesterday, I made sure I had lunch with Al today and casually dropped it into conversation so I could see what that guy was fucking thinking. Of course she sided with her husband on mostly everything, but I could tell from the look in her eye that she was concerned about them both.

Jayce isn’t a bad guy but he does have a lot of bad traits, especially when it comes to competition. It’s made him an incredible athlete but I’m not the only one that’s noticed how bitter he’s grown since he’s been injured,  and from the sounds of things he just decided to take that out on his equally talented brother.

Miles was trying to make out like the injury was nothing but I could hear in his voice that he didn’t sleep well with it, he has practise this afternoon and if I didn’t have to go get Liam I’d be at that school to rip him into my arms the moment that practise finishes.

Everything Steve said last night, it was too soon. The words run around and around in my head last night but I just couldn’t let them settle, there’s just a gate that's blocking my way but I don’t know how to open it.

Looking at the pages from the trainee, they’re the figures I asked for a few weeks ago on Xade’s company. I pull up the ones that he sent over last night to compare and immediately start noticing some differences.

“Look at this, there's too many for it just to be a typo.” Charlie walks around to the other side of my desk as I hold the pages up against the screen. The differences are tiny, a few dollars off at most, I guess if it built overtime it would make a dent but there's something else as well.

“Wait...” Charlie grips the back of my chair and pulls back so sharply that I almost roll into the window behind me. He doesn’t seem to notice, ripping the page from my hand and zooming in on my own screen. “Holy shit... Look at this! Don’t focus on the changes in the numbers, look at the percentages.”

I lean forward, scooting myself on my wheels until I’m looking directly at what he’s trying to show me. Oh God...

“How the fuck did I miss that...”

“Because despite my devilishly good looks making it impossible for people to take me seriously in this world, I’m actually better at my fucking job than you. It’s a burden I just have to bear..”

Charlie looks very pleased with himself, it’s actually not often that he catches something before I do, but I’ve never seen anything like this. Whoever came up with this plan was seriously fucking clever, they've lowered the profits for each individual department at such a insignificant rate that it could be easily overlooked by anyone that wasn’t looking at the business as a whole, which never happens with a company this big, then they’ve increased the percentage of their take slightly whilst also shuffling the difference into that account. It’s kind of genius...

“There’s only one section that doesn’t seem to have changed beyond inflation for the last ten years, what’s this Olympus?”

I fucking knew it, there was something off with that part of the business from the start I just couldn’t figure out what it was without looking at the whole thing in detail.

“It’s the security, Xade said it’s run by the guy that used to be his dads business partner. Fuck, if he's been doing this the entire time then over all these years he must have pocketed...”

“Millions. Maybe even more than millions considering the growth of this thing, if he was inside the business it wouldn’t have been difficult for him to cover this up, without looking at these numbers together it would be impossible to notice what he was doing... That fucker is smart but it’s still fucking espionage at the end of the day. Shit, how are you going to tell him?”

I don’t get much time to think on it as the buzzer from reception fills my office and I look up to see Xade standing next to the desk out front smiling at me.

“Speaking of things you refuse to see...” Charlie mumbles under his breath before straightening himself out again. “I’ll go get him, you think about how you're going to break the news to the guy.”

Shit. I don’t know if he’ll be happy or seriously pissed, he never wanted to sell the part of the business that he did to me in the first place, telling him this now after that sale is complete could make it look like I was holding off to get my hands on his property. I know that Xade wasn’t heavily involved with the business before his fathers death but with this guy being his father’s business partner they must have spent time together over the years, this is going to stab like a betrayal no matter how I try to word it.

Xade makes it to the door, his smile brighter than his power blue suit as he walks away from Charlie and straight into my office. I love how this guy is clearly not a favourite of Charlie’s but that doesn't stop him running his eyes approvingly over the back of the guy the moment he walks in.

“Hey, sit down, do you want a coffee or something?” I ask trying desperately to avoid the pending situation, I’ve never been very good at this kind of confrontation thing.

Xade shakes his head, taking the seat in front of my desk. His eyes trail all over my office, he's been here once before but not actually in this room. I know this place is nothing compared to his but I’ve worked really hard to get here and I’m pretty proud of being the guy in the big corner office.

“Sports guy huh?” He gestures to the basketball in the glass case on my shelves, my chest filling with warmth as I think about the guy that gave it to me.

“Yeah, signed by my favourite player and everything. Best Christmas present I’ve ever had.” Okay, time to rip off the band aid. “I’ve been reviewing the numbers and I think that we’ve actually found something, but I don’t know how you’re going to feel about it.”

Xade gives me a confused look, unbuttoning his suit jacket and letting it fall from his shoulders as he leans forward onto my desk.

“Okay... Whatever it is, I’d rather know even if it pisses me off. What did you find?”

“it’s probably easier if I show you.” Xade gets up, walking around to my side of the desk so we can share the screen, his hair in a high bun on the back of his head so the basking sunlight can cast harsh shadows on his sharp features. I pull up the pages and lean the papers against the screen.

“Okay,” He studies from one set of numbers to the next, placing one hand on my desk and the other on the back of my chair as he leans in to get a better look. “There's some differences but that could just be –”

“A mistake? That’s what I thought at first too, but try to study the numbers as individuals then check the percentages.”

I watch as Xade appears to absorb the information, pressing his body down over mine as the realisation appears to dawn on him the same way it did with us.

“That son of a bitch...” Yep, he knows. “How fucking long has this been going on? Is this the reason that the other part of the business went under?”

Shit. “I’m not sure, we've only got ten years worth of data on file but it's definitely been going back that far. I can’t be sure with all the factors involved, but from the looks of things he seemed to be draining from that section of the business much more harshly than the rest, probably because it was worth more to him sold than it was active. I’m sorry, if I’d known sooner –”

“don’t be, if anyone was paying attention we would have figured this out years ago. It’s not your fault, honestly I could fucking kiss you for finding this before it got any worse.”

I tried not to laugh as I remember I thought pretty much the same thing about him when he got Liam that new social worker.

“I swear I didn’t know before the sale, I’m not that kind of person and I’d never do that to someone.” I just need him to know that, he’s a good person and him thinking bad of me kind of leaves hurt in my chest.

He smiles down at me, moving his hand from the back of my seat to my shoulder.

“I never suspected that you did... You’re cute when you’re worried but you’ll get wrinkles so stop it... I really fucking owe you for this Josh, there's a lot of people in this world at would have used this information to get more out of me. Thank you, for turning out not to be the dick I first thought you were.”

I start to laugh but it's cut off as the door to my office opens again, my heart almost stops completely from the emotions that hit it.

Oh my god....

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