A Taylor Christmas

Chapter 4 - Mean

Now it's my turn to get physical as I stomp harshly on his foot. My friend is incredibly charming and uses that to his advantage pretty much day in and day out. But this level of ass kissing is taking it a bit too far for my liking.

Stephan scrutinizes us for a few almost unbearable seconds and finally decides that we are not worth it and continues his mind-numbing speech. I glance at my watch and have to work hard to suppress a groan.

I need to pick up the kids from school in half an hour. This meeting should have been over 15 minutes ago but here we are, stuck in this stuffy boardroom, listening to this old man about this totally irrelevant case.

"You good?" Chis asks very quietly.

"Gotta pick up the kids from school but there's still some work I need to finish first," I mutter my reply.

Before he can say anything back, I notice some commotion and realize with relief that Stephan has finally finished his monologue.

About damn time.

I jump out of my seat and make a beeline for the exit. Chris is hot on my tail and follows me into our office that we have been sharing since we both started here at same time. Our main goal is to snatch up the two available mid-level associate positions next year. It would be so awkward if only one of us got a promotion.

But that is a worry for another time. I am on the clock right now and need to get my work finished before heading out, which seems almost impossible.

"You on babysitting duty?" Chris asks, dropping onto his swivel chair, doing a full 360-degree-spin.

"Yeah. Alex is working late and Ben has some parent-teacher meetings or whatever. – I have only 10 minutes to finish this contract and get out of here. Shit."

This is making me unnaturally nervous. I assume it is because I don't want to leave a bad impression so shortly before promotions are being announced. The last thing I want is for them to think that I am not willing or able to pull my weight and dedicate the required amount of time to my career – and it is a lot of time that I have to invest to get where I want to be.

I am lucky that our firm is really generous when it comes to letting me work flexible hours if needed. They know about our somewhat unusual family constellation and understand that sometimes I just need to put family needs first. But that means that I have to work twice as hard while I am in the office – or work long hours from the sanctuary of my bedroom once the kids are in bed.

I keep telling myself that it will be worth it one day, once I have my dream career. We are a big family and we need a stable income to feed all the hungry mouths and keep a roof over our heads. Alex and Jordan are the only other people earning a regular income and up until two years ago, those two were the only ones providing for us.

Luckily, Sean, Sam and I all managed to get scholarships for our educations. Otherwise, there would have been no way for Alex to put all of us through college. Ben is the only one who had to get a student loan since he refused to let Alex pay any of his tuition fees.

Now that I have a well-paying job, I have been helping him out a few times with some cash, without Alex knowing, and he thankfully accepted it. I consider it just as much my duty to look after my younger brothers as Alex does. Because he is the oldest doesn't mean that he has to shoulder everything alone.

I am glad and very grateful that Jordan stayed around until I was done with law school and could move back home. He only decided that it was time for him to go on his first tour to the Middle East when I had returned. However, I am not completely certain that waiting for my return was his main reason for not leaving earlier. Something tells me that he wanted to wait until Lily was a bit older and had started school before he felt ready to leave. Those two have always shared a very special and close bond.