Harkham's Corner (Harkham's Series Book 3) (18 page)

“She’s not here, you ass. She’s with Lorraine.” Zach sighed with a groan at the end.

“Uh, Lorraine?” Adam cleared his throat. Suddenly, soda didn’t seem to matter so much.

“Yeah. We’re not sure how we’ll split custody yet, but she wanted to have her for the day, so I said okay. Jill missed her like crazy.”

“I’m sure.” Adam couldn’t even imagine if he couldn’t see his kids every day. It would drive him mad within hours. “Well, I’m glad then, uh, that you have company . . . Of sorts . . .”

“Yeah, I’ll bet you are. Go fuck your wife. Then you won’t be thinking about my love life. Bye.”

Zach ended the call, and Adam knew what he had to do.

It was time to take control of all these crazy situations.

Chapter 9

“Are you sure?” Zach sat stiff in his chair.

“You got laid lots, so stop being so obtuse. You should be relaxed and happy.” Adam pointed at the contract.

“I am, but . . . This just doesn’t seem right.”

“It’s perfectly right. Do it.” Adam stood over his shoulder.

“I can’t.
You
do it.” Zach shoved the paperwork and the laptop toward him.

“I’ll finish up the website, but I can’t forge your signature.” Adam’s gut tightened. He hated messing with the website. He couldn’t ever seem to get it the way he wanted it. His perfectionist tendencies would kick in and then kick his ass.

Zach snorted. “Yeah, sure you can’t.”

“Okay, yeah, I can . . . But I . . . That’s really not right to sign for someone else.”

“This is too much.” Zach gripped his head and popped his neck one one side, then the other. He blew out and tried to loosen up once more, shaking out his hands at his sides.

“Think about what this will mean to me.”

“To
you
?” Zach whistled. “Wooo. Are you serious? This could change my entire life.”

Their dad entered the room. “I talked to the lawyer. He said everything’s set to go. I did make a small change, though . . .” He grinned.

“What did you do?” Adam turned to him, his eyes narrowing.

“Zach will get royalties from all of the sales that happen through the website, but if someone goes directly to the source, the money is yours, Adam. No one can trace it this way. Not even Thomas Matthews.” He smacked his hands together and rubbed them, smiling big and proud. “This way you both get something out of it, and Adam still takes credit for the music. You two can work together. Zach’s listed as the manager. It all goes through him. So, if Adam chooses you to give all the money to, you can veto his decision.”

“I already do.” Zach stared at the screen, but it was clear he wasn’t really reading anything—just staring at blank nothingness. “I can’t take his money in good conscience. I didn’t do anything to earn it.”

“You encouraged me to do this from the start. When no one else believed in my music, you did. And you also made this website so I don’t have to think about this aspect of it—and that’s good, since it makes me crazy.” Adam gripped his brother’s shoulder and squeezed. “Please, take it. Thomas can’t access it this way or try to take any credit. I want you to have it. If anyone else needs the money besides me, it’s you. Your daughter can rely on you, and maybe you won’t have to move if you have this extra money. Just promise you won’t spend it recklessly on that other women. Take care of you.”

Zach nodded, still a little stunned with the loose jaw and dazed eyes.

“I will. I swear.” Zach swallowed, and it sounded like the air in his lungs left him.

“You always knew your brother was generous,” his dad said. “He proves it once more.”

“This is entirely selfish. It takes Thomas out of the equation, and he was making me nutso.” Adam’s chest was all warm and fizzy. Soda kind of felt like this going down. Speaking of which . . . “I think this earns me a celebratory soda without it breaking the bet, and you can’t have a beer.” He chuckled.

“Okay, yeah, that’s not worth the hundred bucks we wagered.” Zach waved him off and barely paid attention to them. He was riveted by the website. Someone was chatting with him online, too.

Maybe it was that woman?

“We trust you,” his dad told Zach. He patted him on the shoulder and went to the grocery bag he’d brought in and left on the kitchen counter. He pulled out some cookies, and
huge
surprise—a large soda with an extra wide straw.

“Yes!” Adam fist pumped and snatched at the drink with greedy, shaking fingers.

“It’s Sprite. You don’t want to deal with caffeine headaches again.” His dad opened the box of cookies.

They were the good kind. The chocolate ones with macadamia nuts and white chocolate. Scrumptious!

“You know your music is going viral, right? Everyone’s tweeting about it.” Zach typed something off and then grunted.

“What’s going on?” His dad stood behind Zach. “Are you okay?”

Zach’s chair scraped as he backed up. “No, everything’s shit. Lorraine is confusing the hell out of me—Jill’s misbehaving because she’s not sure what’s going on either. When I said I got laid tons, it was with Lorraine—well, kind of . . . My wife is sleeping with me one night, spending the night, then the next day acting like she can’t stand me. I don’t know what to do. My new female friend is going through a similar situation, so she watches me cry like an asshole and then she spills hers guts and cries, too. We hug and console each other. I enjoy talking to her—we’ve become very close, but it also confuses me worse. And I don’t know what to do. I’m a fucking tool.”

Adam lunged at his brother, ripped him out of the chair and hugged him tight. “I’m so happy for you.”

“What? No.” Zach pushed him off. “There’s nothing to be proud of. I can’t decide if I hate this woman at this point, or if I’m even still married to her or not. So, I suppose I’m just using her—both of them, actually.”

“You don’t hate anyone. You’re not a hateful person. Not like me.” Adam drank the rest of his soda down in a flash before it got warm. Bluck. Warm soda was worse than cold feet in the winter. Nobody liked that, especially not in bed. Who could sleep like that? And it was very rude to put cold feet on someone else to warm up.

He burped.

His manners were fine, though. His brother and dad didn’t care.

And they knew all about the evils of warm soda, so this was allowed.

Zach chuckled. “You should have enjoyed it, man.” He shook his head.

“It’s my damn soda. I’ll drink it how I want.” Adam gave him a stinky, meanie eye.

His dad laughed. “He’s fine. I got him two.”

Adam about danced in the room and sang a song about the best dad ever.

“See? This is what a dad is supposed to do. He’s supposed to make his kids happy. Good job.” Adam hugged his dad next.

“Are you drunk?” Zach turned around all the way, facing Adam and studying him.

“No. Are you?”

Zach shook his head. “I said I’d give up beer, and I have. I’ll win that hundred dollars. You’ll see.”

“You could still be drinking other alcoholic beverages for all I know.” Adam’s shoulders dropped. Why didn’t he think about this before? Maybe he could bend the rules, too. Maybe he could switch to seltzer water? It was still fizzy and sweet.

“Give me it and then we can talk about something else.” Adam put his hand out.

His father obliged, handing it to him. It was nice to not feel guilty about his craving right this moment. Very nice.

This was why he loved his wife so much. She never made him feel bad about wanting her all the time. She acted like it was normal. Hell, she wanted it sometimes just as often as he did.

He really was spoiled.

His burp proved it.

Good soda.

Good sex.

Lots of the latter.

When he finished that soda off, his dad went through the paperwork once more.

Zach signed, and so did Adam.

His dad notarized. Handy to have a father with that capability.

Was there anything Dustin couldn’t do?

In that moment, Adam swallowed the last of the sweet taste, and he knew he had to stick with medicine—not run off and be a musical person with no regard to his family or what it could do to them. Music saved him—yes, but that was later. After it had almost killed him as a kid, all because of Thomas . . .

He wanted to be just like his dad—Dustin.

“What? You’ve got a look on your face.” His father’s brow wrinkled.

“I just love you, and when I grow up, I’m gonna be like you, or the lesser version of you—but I’ll try really hard to make you proud.” He rocked back on his heels. “Only I have to have different hair. Mine isn’t like yours at all.”

“Well, it might surprise you to know that when I was much younger, I actually had reddish hair, too. Very similar to your coloring, only a smidge darker.” His dad took him into a big hug, patted his back and let go, beaming back. “Impossible to be a lesser version than me anyway, Son. You were always better than me. Always. You surpassed me long ago, and there’s never been a day I haven’t been proud of you.”

* * *

Adam had a hard time dealing with all the female clients today. They were all having issues with needing help up onto the examining table.

They needed a taller stool apparently.

“Ow, this hurts. Can I sit over there?” the lady in the tight red sweater said, pointing to the assistant’s stool next to him.

“No. It’s not safe. It’s not very sturdy. I don’t even sit on that death seat.” He grimaced, remembering the first time he sat on that thing and almost fell on his butt.

“Oh. Sounds dangerous.” Her voice went up in pitch.

“It can be. That’s why I put you on the examining table. Much better for your posture, too. It forces you to sit up straight.” He gave her a sort of halfway smile. There was no way he was going to encourage her unruly behavior. She was too flirtatious for an older lady.

Even her cleavage seemed overly friendly as it kept squeezing together whenever he looked her way.

She sighed. “It’s a chilly day. I hate it when the wind is so fierce like this, don’t you?”

“Uh huh.” He read through the part of her file he needed. “You’re here for a sprained ankle?” She didn’t hobble about at all.

“Yeah, I, um, it’s really tender. I can’t run like I was doing last week, and I’m getting ready for a marathon in a month, so I need to figure out how badly I’ve injured it.”

“Okay, I’ll make a note of this.” He wrote as slowly as he could allow so his writing was legible.

“But, aren’t you going to look at it?” She wiggled on the crinkly-sounding paper on top of the table.

“No. Not my job, and you wouldn’t want the apprentice to practice medicine on you. That would be unethical on my end, and foolish on your end. What if I made things worse?” He turned to her.

A second later, she leaned forward and smashed her boobs together again.

“How are you going to make it worse by looking at it? You don’t have to touch, just look. Isn’t that the rule for all married men?” She blinked a few times in rapid succession.

Should he note she was in need of eye drops? Maybe the air was too much for her in here with a strong draft—drying out her natural eye’s lubrication?

“Are you dealing with an eye issue?”

“No, why?” She scrunched up her face. “I was only trying to figure out why you’re way over there when I need your expert opinion.”

“I’m not an expert. I’m a student, and I’m in training.” He watched her kick her legs and twirl her ankles around. It was easy to tell there was nothing wrong with her ankle.

“You’re an expert compared to me. And I’ve heard nothing but good things about you and your diagnoses.” She cocked her head at him.

He huffed. “I don’t diagnose anything! I could get in trouble for that. I follow the rules, and I work hard. It’s how my dad taught me to be. And I listen to him.”

“I was only exaggerating, trying to make you feel good about all your hard work.” Her lower lip jutted out.

“Unnecessary. I get that from my wife. She’s the expert on compliments, and I love how she gives them away so freely. When I walk in the door today after work, she might tell me I look handsome and then hug me. It’s nice. I hope you have that at your home, too, only being told you’re pretty, since that’s feminine and handsome would sound weird.” He made a face.

She laughed. “Well, all right, then. I’ll take that information with me and make sure I get that so I can be as happy as you are.” She beamed at him.

Uh . . . Too nice. That scared him, so he got himself out of the room as quick as he could.

He was done with overly-friendly women. Mrs. Fahey was just like this at first and then it turned awful.

When he walked to his dad’s office to see who the next client was, he knew he needed to take a break.

So, he did.

After he checked his phone, he groaned.

A message from Thomas.

The text was short, thank goodness.
An agent contacted me last night about your music. He wants to meet you and has guaranteed me he’ll sign you on. Call me asap!