“Okay,” I say, giving in. The unsettled feeling in my gut is urging me not to do the interview at all, but we don’t need any more problems. I grab my suit jacket from where I’ve flung it across my desk and shrug into it. “How do I look?”

Lars eyes me. “Like a horny guy who’s been denied his favorite dick treats.”

“Well, that’s what I want them writing about me.”

“Guess it depends what you want out of the article.”

“To be taken seriously as a businessman?”

Lars snorts in a way that very clearly says anyone who takes me seriously can’t be trusted. “Well, that’s not going to do it, then.”

“No shit.” I scrape both hands back through my styled hair. “What if they ask questions about the businessy side of things?”

“I know I’m only the hired muscle, but how do you expect to be taken seriously as a businessman when you call it businessy and look like you’re ready to throw yourself out the window just from the threat of talking about it?”

This is why I need Colin. I can charm the pants off anyone when he’s the one talking about the boring stuff, and I’m worried that without him, I’ll come across as empty. Snarkily confident without any of the actual skill to back it up.

Lars walks over to give me a reassuring pat on the back. “Before you go down the spiral of whatever this is, remember that you’re the one who came up with the branding. You’re the one who worked to make the club look like this. You did the layout and floor plan to maximize how people would use this space, and you’re the one who set up all these interviews, who got the opening week buzz alive, who found influencers and reached out for cross-promotions with the businesses in the area. You know what you’re doing.”

I hate to admit that those reminders help. When it comes to Colin, I’ve always felt second best. It’s nothing that he or our parents did to enforce that, but when he’s the one who was a perfect student in school, who aced everything without trying, who constantly has something on the go, it’s pretty easy to look around and wonder what the fuck me and my C-grade average have going for us.

Lars never lets me sit with those feelings for long.

“Thanks. I needed that.”

“Dude, I know. I can read every thought in your butthead brain.”

Lars needs to get laid. “Could you read that?”

“I could. And fuck you. My sex life is my business.”

For a self-proclaimed man whore, he sure does keep quiet about what he gets up to during his time off.