by Amy Lane
“Seriously,” Sammy muttered. “It’s like a secret club of business people in here.”
“My degree is in liberal arts,” Cooper muttered, looking over his shoulder. “It might as well be musical notation. I’m, like, out of both clubs.”
Dustin snickered. “Yeah, well, I’m just a grease monkey, but I can tell you what it says.”
Dustin was enjoying himself, but Quinlan could feel sweat slipping between his upper arm and his suit. “Dusty, I swear to God—”
“Cool your jets, Q.” He flipped a page. “So, Uncle Channing, if I’ve got this right, Q was entitled to all that money they were trying to cheat him out of because he became a principle shareholder in the company when he turned eighteen.”
“He was indeed,” Channing said smugly. “The money he made from those returns was put into a special bank account that he was unaware of—but, when he changed all his passwords, that money was included in the money that his family couldn’t touch.”
Quinlan thought back to that day. “So that’s why Lur—uh, Mr. Corso was trying so hard to get into my accounts. Not to access my trust fund.”
“No,” Channing said. “I’d like to say that he wouldn’t stoop that low, but the fact was, he and your father must have been panicking. You’re a major shareholder—the company grew bigger and bigger, to the point where they could have made a considerable amount of money if they could only just sell off your shares. But they couldn’t—because then you’d know they were in your name. So when Mr. Corso here told Mr. Wainscott that you were entitled to a whole lot of money from your father’s will, but it would be tied up in probate, what he really wanted you to do was to sign papers releasing those shares. He and your mother would pay you about a twentieth of what the shares were worth, they could sell off the shares, make a killing, and reinvest into the business, which needed the cash flow because it was floundering. The company would be solvent again, and then your mother would be super super rich, instead of average everyday rich like she is now. Without the company, James Gregory’s personal wealth is worth maybe a couple of million, not including the properties, which could be sold for five, maybe ten million on the open market. It’s not peanuts, but it’s not the whole enchilada, is it, Mrs. Gregory?”
“Quinlan didn’t want it,” she said, her face hard. “And you’ve made sure none of us are going to get it, haven’t you?”
“Why would he do that?” Quinlan asked, genuinely puzzled. “My father didn’t even like me.”
“You were supposed to be his little protégé after you went to college,” Dorothy spat. “And you came home and… and announced you were gay? You were too stupid to even stay for the money!”
“That’s fine,” Channing said blandly. “Because my husband and I have made sure Quinlan can be both gay and rich.”
“What did you do?” Quinlan asked curiously.
“Well, Tino and I saw a floundering business and invested in it. The stock prices surged, and now we own enough of the company to initiate a hostile takeover, with or without your shares—although we’re willing to pay you a nice dividend if you want to sell. If you don’t want to sell, the shares will continue to gain value, and you can take a payout, yearly or quarterly, that will keep you and Dusty very comfortable for the rest of your lives.”
Dustin started to laugh. “So we can move out of the garage apartment, Q. Not saying we need to ditch the neighborhood, just sayin’ we can have a bigger living room, that’s all.”
“And my mother’s portion?” Quinlan asked tentatively.
“She doesn’t have one, does she, Mrs. Gregory?”
“No,” she said, eyes hard. “Calendar and I get his personal assets, but not his business. Quinlan got all of those—you didn’t even check, Quinlan? Did you even read the documents the bank sent you?”
Quinlan grimaced. “I sort of just looked in my checking and savings,” he said. “It’s not like anybody called me to say, ‘Hey, you’re sitting on half your father’s company!’”
Dustin’s laugh just grew. “Oh Jesus. Holy God, Quinlan. Baby, you are like… like, the only person I know who could have done this.”
“That’s not true,” Quinlan retorted, completely embarrassed. “Sammy would have done this too.”
“That’s fair,” Sammy agreed. “Me and Coop would have been totally lost.”
Quinlan looked at the paperwork again—he didn’t understand most of it, but he did see the places for his and his mother’s signature.
“So what am I signing?” he asked. “Because it sounds like… I don’t know. All the money is going to go where it’s going to go.”
“Your brother doesn’t have anything,” Tino said, squeezing his shoulder. “There were no provisions made in the will, no provisions made in his personal assets. It’s like….” Quinlan looked at his mother as Tino was speaking and watched her face drain of all color.
“Like the boy wasn’t his,” Quinlan confronted her with softly.
“He’s got nothing,” she said, voice taut. “It’s not his fault.”
“No,” Quinlan said back, not feeling sorry for her exactly, but empathizing, perhaps. “It’s not his fault at all.”
She looked away, offering no apology.
Well, that was fine. She didn’t need to.
“So how much would I be signing away to him—and only him?”
“That’s up to you,” Channing told him. “And up to how you want to handle the money. It’s a lot—far more than you’ve been living off now. But I know you, and I know my sister isn’t hurting for cash, and I know money isn’t your gig. If you want to take a yearly stipend and send the rest to charity, then done. Hell, you could give your brother half the stipend and still do that, and it would be far more than you’re used to living on now. Just tell me what you want to do with it.”
Quinlan half laughed. “I like my life very much,” he said softly. “But, you know. Dustin’s right. A house—a big one. With enough room for children. Like a playroom. Or, you know….” He looked at Dustin sharply. “An in-home day care center?”
Dustin crowed. “I knew it! I knew you’d find the right answer!”
“Babies,” Quinlan said softly.
“All the babies you can handle,” Dustin said back. “But, you know, you may need to finish your doctorate this year and start working on some other stuff.”
“I could still perform at Dodgy’s,” he said with a slight smile, and Sammy whooped.
“Counting on it, Quin.”
“So what’s it going to be?” Channing asked. “We don’t have to hammer it all out tonight—in fact, I’d like a week to sit down with you and explain everything. But I think Mrs. Gregory would like an answer.”
“We’ll keep the shares and use the dividends,” Quinlan said, thinking hard. “And we’ll entitle my brother to half the dividends—half of which can be accessed by his mother now, as he grows, and the rest of which will be put into savings until he’s twenty-one.”
“Not eighteen?” Dusty asked, eyebrows raised.
“No,” Quinlan said, face hard. “Because you’re not grown at eighteen—” He stopped and sent Dustin a fond look. “Most of us aren’t. Maybe you were.” And then he continued. “But it comes with a condition.”
He looked up at Dorothy, and she was gazing at him hungrily, like he held the key to all her hopes.
“Go on,” she begged. “What’s your condition?”
“Access,” he told her, and he sat up straighter. His jaw hardened, his eyes narrowed, and when he saw her flinch, he knew exactly who he looked like and he didn’t care. “I want access to that kid. I want to give him a cell phone he can use to call me, to talk to me. I want to see him at least one weekend a month. I want to visit for his birthday and have him over for Christmas Eve—”
“Vacations with our family,” Nica interrupted, and Quinlan looked at her in surprise. “Don’t look so shocked, Q—if you’re not touring, you’re required to go too.”
“I like the ones we took during spring break,” he told her happily.
“Why do you think we started taking them then? You’re cute, honey, but you’re dense.” Nica turned back to Dorothy. “But that’s required. No scheduling over it. No saying, ‘Oops, I’m sorry, he changed his mind.’ No telling him we’re horrible people and making him afraid to go. Your mad money is going to depend on that kid’s happy face in my house at least twice a month, not once. When Quin sits down with my brother and his husband to work out the particulars, he’s going to make the continuation of the money dependent on continued access to his brother. It’s nonnegotiable, and I have veto rights.”
“Quinlan, who is this woman?” Dorothy asked, looking hunted. “And why does she have rights to you or Calendar?”
“I’m Quinlan’s mother, you bitch,” Nica growled. Quinlan couldn’t look away from her. “I helped nurse him through the flu, I was there for birthdays and Christmases, and I watched my own son fall in love with him and worried that Quinlan was too fragile for my Dusty. I was wrong—but dammit, I worried. Seven years I’ve been worrying about this boy. I’m not going to stop. A real mother doesn’t turn that shit off like water. Your kid is going to come into my house, and I’m going to examine him for loneliness when he arrives just like you’ll examine him for lice when he gets back to you. Now I guarantee you’re not going to find any lice, but I don’t think you can say the same thing about loneliness. Quinlan was dying of it. You look like a carrier. My husband and I already saw what kind of damage you people can do. We’re on Quinlan’s side here. We’re not going to watch you do that to another child—it’s not a goddamned option.”
“He has soccer on Saturdays,” she said into the weighted silence. “We live in Redwood City—it’s not feasible to pull him out of sports twice a month—”
“We’ll visit him there,” Dustin snapped. “We’ll figure it out. Right now what’s important—what you absolutely have to sign—is your intent to honor Quinlan’s conditions. That’s nonnegotiable. You don’t sign that, Quin closes up shop, takes all his marbles, and we go home.”
Dustin looked at Quinlan with apology in his eyes. “You understand, Q? She doesn’t get to jerk you around. Not about this. She signs consent right now, or she gets nothing.”
Quinlan nodded. “Okay, Dusty. You’re right.”
Dustin’s evil smile was and would always be a thing of beauty. “Oh my God—I waited a long goddamned time to hear you say that, and it has not gotten any less awesome in the last two months.”
Quinlan’s face heated, and he bit his lip—for a moment it was the two of them, and only the two of them.
“I won’t do it,” Dorothy said, snapping Quinlan’s attention back to her. “You and your little gay family circus, you go have your orgies or whatever, but I’m not letting my son get… get turned by the lot of you.”
For a moment Quinlan couldn’t breathe. He’d built a picture in his mind—a brother. A relationship. A chance to make a difference in that boy’s life, and she’d ripped it away in one brutal swipe.
“Fine,” Channing said behind him. “Then just sign the paperwork in front of you and give up all claim to the shares, forever. Go ahead, Mr. Corso—you’ve got a pen in your hand.”
Some of Lurch’s… Mr. Corso’s disdain had faded. “Dorothy,” he said urgently, “this isn’t a good idea.”
“We have all of the personal money,” she said, angry. “Why do we even need—”
“James had debts,” he told her, like he’d been trying hard not to. “You’d lose the house—all of them—if you don’t get this money.”
Quinlan watched her mouth work, and his chest started to move again.
“Robbins-Lowell is practically a household name in the Bay Area,” Corso stage-whispered. “Nobody’s going to talk down to you for taking their money.”
Dorothy blinked, apparently horrified, and then she looked more closely at Quinlan. “How do you even know these people?” she asked, as though this had just dawned on her.
“Sammy and I were friends in college,” he said. Sammy waved charmingly. “He got me the job as nanny to his cousins.” And then, belatedly, “Sammy’s Channing Lowell’s nephew.”
“I can’t believe this,” she snarled. “You walk out on a fortune to wipe some brat’s nose?”
Dustin chortled, and Jacob smacked him. “Brat,” he said affectionately.
But something snapped inside Quinlan. He stood up. “You let me,” he said. “You let me walk away. Because without the fortune, I wasn’t anything to you. And now, out of stupid… pride. Snobbery. Bitchery. Whatever, you’re going to cheat your other son of fortune and family just like being born to you cheated me. I’m done. Sign the paper, give up your money, and get out. I wanted to be that boy’s family, because you for damned sure aren’t up to the job. But if that can’t happen, then the least I can do is go be part of the family I do have.” He spun on his heel, heading for the door, Dustin at his shoulder.
“Wait!” she said just as his hand hit the door handle. “Wait. I’ll do it. I’ll sign… a letter of intent, I guess.” Her voice cracked, brittle and sharp. “Your brother needs this money.”
Quinlan paused, hand still on the handle, and looked down at his feet, fighting to control the ache in his chest. “He needs me more,” he said quietly. “He needs us. I’m….” He was done with her. He couldn’t do this anymore. He looked over his shoulder at Channing beseechingly. “Channing? Mr. Wainscott? Could you guys… you know….”
“We’ll watch out for you, Quin,” Channing told him with a nod. “Sammy, Coop? This part gets boring.”
“For them,” Tino added, sounding wolfish. He looked at Jacob and Nica, eyebrows raised. “Do you guys want a bite?”
Dustin’s parents grinned at each other, and Jacob gestured grandly to his wife. “Oh, sweetheart—this is one of your best things, and you don’t get to use it enough.”
Nica cracked her knuckles. “Hasn’t been that long since college,” she said. Then she stood up. “Hold on a second.”
She walked to where Quinlan stood and pulled him into a big, all-encompassing mom-hug. “Hold it together, baby,” she whispered in his ear. “Go meet your brother. Our family’s got your back.”
Then she walked to the table, and Quinlan bailed from the airless room.
Out in the reception area, the kids had settled down into little knots of people, interspersed with supervising adults.
Cal’s bright blond hair was visible in a cluster of children bent over a game of crazy eights. Conroy was dealing, and Tay and Petey were showing the boy how to play.
“So the eight is the wild card,” Tay said.
“It’s the wild card,” Petey repeated.
“And you can put diamonds down on diamonds—”
“Down on diamonds—”
“And spades down on spades—”
Cal was listening to the directions in stereo with wide eyes, and Quinlan recognized his own yearning to be part of a group. Dustin pulled up a couple of chairs near the table, and the two of them sat down to watch, giving the kids enough distance to interact.
Petey won the first hand, but the kids didn’t seem to care about the winner, and Dustin asked Conroy to deal him and Quinlan in the next hand.
For a couple of minutes they just played, and Quinlan watched his little brother’s delicate, almost elfin features as he concentrated. He played his card, then Quinlan played his, and then Cal spoke quietly into the silence.
“Are you my brother?”
“Yeah,” Quinlan said. “I am.”
“Dorothy said I’d never see you again.” Cal looked at him sideways. “Is that true?”
“No,” Quinlan told him. “That’s what we talked about. I want to see you as much as I can.”
“My mom says you’re gay,” Cal said, in the same quiet monotone. “And that it’s bad. And catching. Like cooties.”
“That’s stupid,” Tay said, but without judgment. “My brot
her Dusty is gay, but my brother Conroy has had a crush on Le… uh, a girl since he was a little kid.”
Cal listened to her, openmouthed, like Tay spoke the word of God. “Why did my mom think it’s bad?”
“Because grown-ups are stupid about it sometimes,” Conroy said, only his flush betraying his complete embarrassment. “Our uncles are gay and our cousin is gay and our brother is gay—we’re gay-family-topia. But nobody has to be that if they don’t want to. It’s fine.”
Cal listened to the words of his new heroes and then turned to Quinlan. “So you’re okay? You can be my brother?”
“Yeah, sure,” Quinlan said. “Your turn, Cal.”
They played their cards.
“I don’t know what brothers do,” Cal admitted in a whisper.
“They teach you how to play cards, for one,” Quinlan told him.
“They show you where to go pee if you’re too wet to go into the pool house and you don’t want to pee in the pool,” Petey said guilelessly. Then he looked at Quinlan. “Unless Quinlan reminds you before you go there.”
“Which he does,” Dusty said, his voice absolutely uninflected.
“They watch movies with you when you’re sick,” Tay said wisely. “And bring you toilet paper when you forget to look before you sit down.”
“They beat up on the kids at the playground who hurt your feelings.” Petey was very grave. “But so do sisters. This list is good for sisters too.”
“You won’t be able to do that for me.” Cal sighed. “You won’t live close enough. Hearts.”
“No,” Quinlan admitted, playing on top of Cal’s eight. “But we’re going to give you a phone of your own, and it’s going to have the family’s numbers in it. You’ll be allowed to talk to us or text us, as long as you don’t get in trouble at school. So if someone’s mean to you, and your feelings are hurt, somebody will be able to make you feel better.”
Cal’s smile of relief told Quinlan all he needed to know about lonely little boys.
“This’ll be good,” he said after a moment. And finally he looked shyly at Quinlan. “I’m glad I have a brother.”
