Aaron tried to slide next to PJ but she held a hand out. “No.”

His pretty face screwed up a little as he struggled to understand. “Come on, Penny.”

PJ curled her lip. “I’m not your fucking Penny. Just go be elsewhere.”

Aaron had convinced himself they were somehow meant to be. Maybe because she was the first woman who’d kicked his butt to the curb when she’d caught him stepping out. Maybe it was that he wanted what he couldn’t have. Whatever. She didn’t care why, really. Although she had been pretty pissed until she got the all-clear back from her doctor, because heaven knew what he could have given her.

“How long are you going to punish me?”

PJ looked at him and then over to Audra, shaking her head. “Is he kidding with this?”

“You know where I am when you realize we’re meant to be together, Penny.”

“Dude, have some self-respect.” Tom, Audra’s boyfriend, rolled his eyes and dragged Aaron off. “Come on, let’s get more pitchers. It’ll give you something to do so my girl won’t scoop your eyes out with a spoon.”

Tom sent PJ a grin as he swept Aaron away. Audra grabbed PJ’s arm and pulled her back to sit. “We already decided you weren’t leaving.”

Audra raised her glass, patiently waiting for PJ to do the same.

Audra made a prim face and then smirked. “You haven’t been out with us for nearly two months. I’m planting my flag right here. This is our table and the Ditch is our place and we don’t give a fuck if Aaron is around. He needs to see you every Friday so he can wallow in the hell he exists in now.”

Audra was seriously the best friend anyone could ask for. She always took PJ’s side, always had her back, always listened and supported and definitely kicked her butt when PJ needed it.

They all drank.

“I’m going to be sorry I asked,” PJ began, “but what you do mean by ‘the hell Aaron exists in now’?”

“The one where he doesn’t get to see you naked anymore. But he can still remember how awesome it was.”

They were still laughing when the guys got back with pitchers and several more of their friends. Audra positioned herself so that Aaron had to sit farther down the table. Enough out of range that PJ could pretend he didn’t exist.

She had awesome friends.

“I need you to handle a meeting for me tomorrow,” Jay said as he breezed into her office without knocking.

The oldest Colman sibling was the most like their father. Jay had been raised to own every room he entered. To broadcast his will and make it happen. And in his own way, he craved acceptance from Howard Jr. with the same wary yearning PJ did. They were both smart enough to know it was folly and yet they both kept at it.

Still, Jay, though constantly having to war with their uncle for access to their father, was a pretty decent brother. He’d been jammed into his life in ways she couldn’t possibly understand. Sure, she was expected to do certain things, but Jay had the weight of their generation on his shoulders. He was the oldest. He’d lead when their father and uncle stepped aside.

It made him a prick sometimes. But she loved him despite his flaws. Even at times like this, when he simply took for granted that people would obey his missives.

PJ finished the last sentence of her e-mail before sending it off and looking up at him. “Can’t. I’ve got a prior engagement tomorrow.” She’d be shooting the calendar all day.

“I said I’d play golf with Dad, Uncle Fee, and Shawn. The meeting is just a thing down at the factory. They need some petting. You’re good at that.”

“So wait. You, Dad, Fee, and Shawn are all going golfing? Is Julie going?”

The look on his face told PJ it hadn’t even occurred to him to invite either of his sisters.

“So you boys go off to play and we have to handle the dirty work? I have plans tomorrow, and I can’t move them around. Can you find out if they’re free to meet today? Though you could stand to hear more voices that aren’t Dad’s or Fee’s.”

Her brother was brilliant in so many ways. But sometimes he was so focused he missed things outside his view. He knew money and he knew markets. But he wasn’t as good when it came to people.

And he’d say – with some truth – that she didn’t spend enough time learning money and markets and too much on people.

“I don’t have the time to hold hands, PJ.”

“Colman is built on that face-to-face, I’m-just-like-you interaction with not just the people in our industry but our own people too.”

“Which is why I’m sending you to pet them.”

PJ sighed and then flapped a hand toward her door. “Well? Run along and find out if they can meet me today. But Jay? This is my company too. Julie’s company. This is some medieval bullshit and I’m not going to tolerate it.”

She and her sister were really sick and tired of the way her brothers, father, and uncle tended to run Colman Enterprises based on decisions they made in places women weren’t allowed or invited.

“I’m CEO. Fee is CFO. We don’t need to consult you or Julie. But this is just golf.”

“That you’d stand there and say ‘it’s just golf’ when that’s how men have been making deals – and excluding women, I should add – for decades makes me want to stab you with my pencil right now.”

“Jesus, Penelope Jean. Lay off. You grew up rich. You have a job, but this is not your sweatshop. You are not abused.”

Ugh. Brothers pushing sisters’ buttons; it was an old-ass story, but she hated it when he patronized her.

“Oh hey, Jay?” She flipped him off with both hands. “Did you get an A in Smug Bastard 101? I never said a thing about being abused or being in a sweatshop. I said this is my company too. You ought to try listening to me sometimes. I have good ideas.”

“You can’t even stick with a hair color and you think I’m going to consult you when it comes to decisions for my business?”

His ribbing about his disdain for her feminist ideals was one thing; mainly it was affectionate even if he was a dingus about it. But there was an edge to what he’d just said. An edge that was a slap in her face. You’re not smart enough or good enough to listen to.

An edge that made the fire in her belly to prove herself to him glow. “My hair color has nothing to do with my ideas.”

“Your hair color is an indicator that your ideas are not normal.”

“Normal? So I’m abnormal because I have purple hair? Are you kidding me? From the outside you’re a perfectly handsome dude in his midthirties, but you’re like four hundred and twelve years old inside. Dried up. Yes, I’m different, Jay. So? Great-Grandpa ran moonshine. You think that was normal? You think he never took risks? He took risks every time he made a run. Being different is who we are.”

“You should have stayed in college and gotten your BA in English. Clearly you know a lot of pretty words that don’t mean shit when it comes to payday. Purple hair doesn’t sell accounts.”

“Did you read up on how to be this patronizing and insulting, or did you just inherit the ability from Dad and Fee?” PJ was proud her voice didn’t shake. Sometimes it was hard not to react emotionally to this sort of baiting. She knew some of her family discounted her for being different, and it hurt. Because they didn’t take her any more seriously when she did what they expected her to either.

It filled her with futile anger and hurt, but she had gotten pretty good at hiding just how much. “Purple hair sold more than you did last month.” She tipped her chin at the navy blue binder on the corner of her desk. “Fee’s special numbers say so. Now get out of my office. I’m working and I’m no longer interested in helping you with your problem. Handle your own meeting. I’m busy tomorrow, just like I told you.”

He threw his hands up in the air, but he’d been thwarted and she knew he understood that. It was a stupid, petty win, not that it’d stop her from claiming it.