Roark

Roark~

Most people believed that I had purchased this building because of its location, the price, or the sheer structural beauty of the place, but they were wrong. Though the price had been a steal, a foreclosure that had landed on my lap, and the location was a commercial resident’s wet dream with its corner lot and own street-accessible parking lot, I couldn’t care less about either blessing. Yeah, the colonial structure was another thing to be grateful for, making the office look inviting and professional, but that still hadn’t been the selling point for me.

It’d been the fire escape.

Storm Independent Auditing was located in a three-story building that had a fire escape that spanned the entire length of the building. The fire escape started on the roof, then hit each floor coming down until you met the sidewalk. However, it wasn’t your standard fire escape. Unlike the millions that you saw all over the town of Sweeney, Colorado, this fire escape had balconies that spanned the entire length of the building, and each balcony was positioned underneath the floor windows, allowing someone to smash a window to get free, but also have a place to land once they climbed out. Yeah, there was only one set of stairs, but I’d rather be outside a burning building than trapped inside it, no matter what.

So, thanks to this unique design, it was the perfect place for me to take my smoke breaks. No matter which floor I was on, I could step outside and pollute my lungs without needing to look for a ‘designated’ smoking area. Plus, I didn’t have time to look for ‘acceptable’ places to have a cigarette, especially during tax season.

Inhaling the nicotine, I thought about how I had let my cursed youth lead me down this path, and I really was a glutton for punishment. I mean, why else would I have chosen to become a CPA? Only crazy people signed up for this shit.

Growing up, my parents, Julius and Chanel Storm, had been good about letting us choose our own path in life. Dad had been and still was a police officer, and he’d done his best to keep us in line. Mom had worked in a hair salon, teaching us how to chase what made us happy, and when Ripley had finally started making serious money with his snowboarding, he had invested in helping Mom get her own beauty shop, and I was lucky enough to be able to say that my parents were both living their dreams.

Now, as for my older brother, Ripley, he was only a year older than me and a professional snowboarder. He’d tried the whole school thing, but an office job hadn’t been for him. So, immediately upon getting his engineering degree from college, he had tossed it in a drawer, then had gone on to try his hand at winter sports, and it hadn’t taken him long to become one of the most famous faces of the winter games. Ripley had endorsements coming out of his ears, and though considered old by sports’ standards, he was still kicking ass on the slopes. I’d lost count of how many medals and championships that were under his belt, and if it wasn’t enough that he was one of the best, his best friend, Phineas Moore, was right there with him.

Ripley was also married to my best friend, Junie Baylor. We’d met in college and had connected in a way that I’d never had with anyone else. Junie was one of the best people around, and for whatever reason, we had clicked as best friends, but that was it. I’d started to see her as a little sister only, and there’d been no going back after that. Though her marrying Ripley had finally made her my family by law, Junie had become family long ago. I should probably also get used to calling her Junie Storm now.

I could still remember when I’d first introduced her to Ripley. Cupid had struck him with a love-at-first-sight arrow, but because I’d warned him off her, he had stayed away for five years before finally making his move. Granted, he had asked my permission first, but I still wondered if he would have gone after Junie, even if I hadn’t given my blessing. My brother loved that girl more than his own life, and there were times when I regretted keeping them from each other for so long. Had it not been for my bit of overprotectiveness where Junie was concerned, she and Ripley would have been married ages ago. Nevertheless, they were married now, and I couldn’t be happier for them.

As for me, I didn’t have time for a serious relationship. People believed that CPAs were only busy during tax season, but that was far from the truth. While I did have a lot of seasonal clients, I handled my mother’s books and Ripley’s, and though my mother’s financial picture was rather straightforward, Ripley’s wasn’t because he didn’t have a steady income like most people. His income came in all kinds of different forms, and I did my best to make sure that Ripley’s future was as secure as my own. He wasn’t always going to be able to compete at his level, so now was the time to make his money work for him. Plus, my brother was very adamant about being able to support his wife.

As I thought about my brother and best friend, I never worried about how Ripley treated her, either. He knew that I had certain…expectations of him, and he also knew that I’d do my best to kick his ass if he ever made Junie cry. It was also fair to say that Junie would think twice before telling me if Ripley ever made her cry because of my issues, which was probably why I was still single.

Though my parents had raised Ripley and me to be decent human beings, and though Dad had done his best to teach us the proper way to treat women, I’d gotten an extra dosage of testosterone somewhere along the way. While Dad and Ripley were the epitome of what a gentleman should be, I was a bit more…absolute in my views about women. I had very strong opinions on how women should be treated, and I’d never been shy about voicing those opinions.

Now, it wasn’t that I thought women were inferior or any of that crap, because I didn’t. I just believed that women were supposed to be taken care of, though that opinion wasn’t very popular anymore. I was six-feet-two-inches, and the idea of not taking care of anyone that was smaller than me felt foreign at times. If I was around, then women shouldn’t be opening their own doors, pulling out their own chairs, lifting any-fucking-thing, or paying for their own shit, no matter how capable they were. Women had been created to be cherished, and that wasn’t limited to their husbands only.

That was the thing that most men didn’t understand about women. They were so much stronger than we were, so they carried the bulk of life’s responsibilities because of that, and that wasn’t right. You had men going home every day after work to a clean house, the laundry done, the bills paid, the fridge stocked with food, and the kids alive because that’s what women did; they did everything, and they did it naturally. They were the glue that held the family together, because if you left that shit up to a man, the house of cards would fall with a quickness.

Women weren’t just women; they were wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, and friends all at the same fucking time, and if that shit wasn’t exhausting, then I didn’t know what was. They were also organizers, nurses, counselors, teachers, playmates, and superheroes, if you really wanted to know the truth. So, yeah, if I had a problem with them having to open their own doors, lug in their own groceries, or having to stand while on the subway, then I felt like it was warranted.

Nevertheless, most of the world, including my father and brother, disagreed with my methods of chivalry. Junie was the only person that didn’t lecture me on my archaic views, but she did like to mention how my future wife was going to be in for a rough road along the way.

Putting out my cigarette, I couldn’t even say if I was all that upset at being single. With Ripley and Junie married, Bruce and Démon finally turning their friends-with-benefits into something more, and even Phineas chasing after Sheridan, love was in the air, but I didn’t feel any particular way about it. Yeah, after kicking Paul and Leslie out of our group of friends, I was the only one single now, but better single than deal with a woman that took my personality as an insult to her womanly independence.

Crawling back through the window, I glanced around my office, wondering if it was too late to change professions. While I had a very capable staff helping me, I was the one that was ultimately responsible for anything and everything approved by this office. If we fucked-up, then it was my ass calming down a client and dealing with the IRS, and no one needed that shit.

When my phone rang, I smiled as I saw the name flashing across the screen. Picking it up, I answered, “What can I do for you, Junie Bug?”

“Feel like having a couple of drinks after work?” she asked, and I could only roll my eyes.

“What’d my brother do now?”

“He’s driving me crazy, Roark,” she huffed. “He has a competition coming up in Vermont, and he’s acting like I don’t have a job or-”

“A job that will work with your husband’s traveling schedule,” I pointed out.

Before marrying Ripley, Junie had worked as a bookkeeper/bill collector for the city of McLaurin. However, once she had moved to Sweeney, I had hired her as one of my senior accountants. Junie was great with numbers, and her organization skills were a blessing that had save my ass a couple of times. She also knew that I’d let her take her work with her when traveling with my brother.

“You’re supposed to be on my side,” she replied dryly, putting me in my place.

“I’m always on your side, Junie Bug,” I promised. “I just know my brother, and is hating Vermont worth driving him crazy?”

“I don’t hate Vermont,” she grumbled. “I just hate the traveling.”

“Bring me back a souvenir,” I said.

“Just for that, you’re buying the drinks,” she harrumphed, knowing damn well that I always did.