Page 12 of Cabin Fever Baby

He squeezed quickly and waved me off when I started to stand. “You’ve gone above and beyond this year. Don’t think it went unnoticed. The board and I are talking a few things over. Rest up, things will be changing in the new year.” He wandered off, his booming voice lifting to call to one of the head executives across the room.

My chest tightened and my heart rate spiked.

What the hell did that mean?

Paul’s dark eyes were bugging out of his head. “Man, are you up for another promotion?”

“No. Not that I know of.”

He leaned over his plate, resting his forearms on either side of his bounty. “Making us all look bad.”

“I am not.”

Paul stabbed at his stuffed shells. “You’re in that office before me and after me every day and I work seventy hours a week, pal.”

I sat back. Suddenly, the spicy red sauce turned my stomach.

I should want this.

Shouldn’t I?

Since I’d started this job fresh out of college. I’d worked like a damn demon. I’d interned during my senior year and had lucked into an entry-level appointment because I was a team player.

Actually, I was used to being part of a team—being one of identical triplets meant I was never alone throughout my childhood. And technically, being the youngest by mere minutes had always given me the urge to prove myself. The MacGregor family was full of overachievers.

My older brother, Callum, was a professor of mythology at a college near Crescent Cove and an up-and-coming painter, of all things. He’d always had a secret notebook going full of sketches, but I hadn’t realized he’d been all that interested in art.

It had always been my thing, though I was more of a digital artist to his messy paints.

Lennox, my oldest triplet brother, was a lawyer in a fancy firm, Bailey, Brontis, and Equinox, located in a suburb of Syracuse, a midsized city not far from Crescent Cove.

Also known as near where we’d grown up.

And Finn, two minutes older than me, was a famed architect. I wasn’t even sure where he was based now. He seemed to live everywhere and nowhere, hopping around as the whim moved him.

I’d always been chasing after my overachieving brothers. I got along well with everyone and had excelled at collaborating, but I never thought I’d be in advertising.

And now I was maybe moving into more corporate work.

Advancing further from what I’d originally dreamed of. Illustrative work in damn near any medium. Hell, I’d almost gone to pastry school after working at a bakery one summer. But in the end, I just wanted to draw on a freaking cookie, not learn all about patisserie.

“Hudson?” Paul frowned at me. “I was only kidding about being pissed, man. You’re one of the best guys I work with in this shark-infested place.”

“I know.” I slapped his arm and picked up my fork.

This was a good thing.

Whatever it was.

Everything I’d worked for. I had to remember that part.

“Guess I get to see my folks a little earlier.” I pulled out my phone and logged into the airline app I’d used to book my flight over the summer.

There were openings for flights tonight. I paid the fee to swap seats and even got an upgrade option, thanks to all my points.

First class back to Syracuse, New York.

I pushed thoughts of whatever Jack Eden had in mind for me away.