Tipping the Balance

by Koehler, Christopher

  “I really am going to have to think about this and how it might work. I mean, I don’t think I could just quit my job with Sundstrom Homes. Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but I’m hearing a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes’ here. I’d need something to fall back on, at least at first, especially since I’d be an employee and not a partner,” Brad said.

  “That makes sense,” Drew said. He didn’t want to admit it, but Brad was right. It was a huge gamble, and it wasn’t like he could judge. He still had his real estate business, after all. “And you’ll need to meet Emily.”

  “I’ll call you soon to give you my decision,” Brad said, getting up again. He set a twenty on the table.

  “I can’t wait to hear from you,” Drew said, smiling. “If you want, and if you can get the time off, you can come with us on the site tour on Monday.”

  “I’ll keep it mind. And Drew?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for thinking of me with this. It means a lot.”

  Drew watched Brad leave the restaurant. The die was cast. All he could do was wait and keep in touch with Brad to keep him from talking himself out of this. And Drew knew Brad would try. Someone had done a real number on that man’s confidence in himself and his abilities, and Drew had an idea who that might be.

  Even as he drove home, Brad knew he was going to do it. The whole thing was just too cool, from the renovation of the Bayard House to Drew’s proposal that they work together. Never mind his tried to shoot it all down. Where’d that buzz killer come from, anyway? He liked Drew, it was a tremendous opportunity, and it was the first thing he’d gotten excited about doing with his life since he’d found crew. He hadn’t said anything to Drew, but he even had a small trust fund that was his as soon as he “made something of himself,” whatever that meant. The trust wasn’t enough to live the life of the idle rich, but it’d certainly be enough to pave the way forward, if he could talk the lawyer who controlled the trust into it.

  The fact that he was excited about his future was reason enough to do it, Brad figured as he bounded up the steps to his house.

  Then he paused, key in the lock. He had to find a way to tell his father he’d be working only part-time at Suburban Symphony.

  Shit. He was sunk. He leaned his head against the door, hating his life, hating Randall. Hating himself for not being able to stand up to him.

  Feeling a little sick, Brad let himself into the house and went directly to bed. He didn’t bother undressing, and he didn’t sleep. The rump end of the night was short, but it felt like forever as he tossed and turned, never quite comfortable enough to drop off to sleep, never quite comfortable enough in his own skin to tell his old man where to go.

  Red-eyed and baleful, he glared at the alarm clock. 5:30 a.m. He hadn’t gotten up that early since the last morning practice for Coach Bedford. “Damn it,” he growled, throwing the covers back.

  He squinted and stumbled his way to the kitchen, where his nose told him there was coffee.

  “You’re up early, Bradley,” his father commented, not looking up from the morning paper.

  “Yeah,” Brad grunted.

  “Usually when you’re this hungover, you don’t get up until at least noon,” Randall said.

  “I’m not hungover, I just couldn’t sleep,” Brad said, trying and failing to keep his irritation to himself. He poured himself a big mug of coffee.

  “I don’t care for that tone,” Randall said.

  “I didn’t get drunk last night, and I didn’t embarrass you. I was just up late and then tossed and turned all night, okay?” Brad said, holding the coffee under his nose and letting that magic coffee smell clear his mind.

  “Of course,” Randall said.

  Randall’s tone told Brad he didn’t believe a word of it. The story of his life, Brad reflected. If he told his dad the sky was blue and the sun came up in the east, his dad would tell him how stupid he was. Most of the time, Brad just ignored it.

  That morning, it rubbed him the wrong way, and he couldn’t stomach it. “Suffering Christ, would you give me a break? I had one beer last night. I didn’t sleep well. That’s all.”

  “Poor child,” Randall said. “Maybe you can catch up on your rest at work today.”

  Stripped of his usual defenses by sleep deprivation, he blurted, “I need to go to part-time. At Suburban Symphony, I mean. I can only work there part-time.”

  “Don’t be absurd, Bradley. I need you out there,” Randall said, finally looking up from the paper.

  Emboldened by fatigue, Brad felt something inside him give. “Let me rephrase it, I’m going part-time.”

  “And let me be clear, no you are not,” Randall said, slamming his coffee down. “You can’t just go skipping off when the mood strikes you.”

  “I can’t believe this! You don’t even know the reason why, and you’re already assuming it’s a bad one!” Brad yelled. He’d always been the go-along-to-get-along younger brother, the one who swallowed the insults because it was easier than arguing, but it had to end sometime.

  Randall leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “Fine. Tell me about this grand reason of yours.”

  “Just do it more quietly,” Philip said as he made his way to the kitchen, blinking in the light.

  Brad took a deep breath, steadying himself. “Sorry, Philip. Listen, I’ve got a tremendous opportunity, and I don’t want to lose it.”

  “So what’s this scheme of yours, then?” Randall said.

  “A friend of mine flips houses, and he and his partner are submitting a bid for the renovation of the Bayard House,” Brad said. “They’ve asked me to come work for them.”

  “What on earth do you know about renovation, to say nothing of preserving historical buildings? And a house-flipper? Good luck with that,” Randall said, laughing harshly.

  “Interesting,” Philip said, “but you’re not a contractor. What do you bring to the table?”

  “First, I’d start working toward my contractor’s license, but you can’t say I don’t know the building trades,” Brad said.

  Philip nodded slowly. “Yes, I can see that, and the Bayard House is certainly the biggest thing going around here these days.”

  “You and your friends don’t have a shot,” Randall scoffed.

  “We won’t know if we don’t try,” Brad said. He hated it when Randall got like this. He hunched over, as if he could protect himself and his plan at the same time. “It’s a chance to get in on the ground floor of something, a chance to grow into the job as the job grows.”

  Randall rolled his eyes. “And you’ll do this and work at Suburban Symphony, how?”

  “Like I said, I’d have to work at the sales office half time,” Brad admitted, still defensive, “but be honest. Suburban Symphony is doomed. It’s not like my working there half time will cut into sales. You could put some intern in there the rest of the time, or even go ‘appointment only’ and have me on call.”

  “Yes, that’ll work very well,” Randall said, making a face to show his sons just what he thought of what he saw as Brad’s latest harebrained idea.

  “It might, actually,” Philip said. When Randall glared at him, he continued, “Dad, that place has more problems than Brad—or anyone—can solve easily, and you know it. You wanted to put Brad in there, and I went along with it, but cut him some slack, for once. It’s an interesting opportunity he’s been presented with.”

  “That place is a wreck, and the plans to preserve it are doomed from the start. They should just admit that they’ve screwed around too long and lost it, just like they did with the old town. The city should tear it down and either preserve the façade in a new building or build something new and modern from the foundation up,” Randall said. “But this? This is idiocy.”

  Randall glared at his oldest son, but Philip stood his ground. “He needs to make his own way. You’ve got the heir, so let the spare go.”

  Randall nodded his head slowly. “I see. Fine. You go right ahead,
Bradley. This project is doomed to failure, just like everything else you’ve ever touched. You’ll come crawling back, you’ll see.”

  Brad and Philip were silent as their dad set his coffee cup in the sink and stalked out of the kitchen.

  “Thanks, Philip. It’s been a long time since you stood up for me.”

  Philip shrugged. “Maybe too long. At least one of us has a chance to get away from him. Don’t screw this up, Brad, or he’ll never let either of us forget it.”

  Chapter Nine

  With a brimming commuter mug in one hand, Brad drove down to Suburban Graveyard to spend his Saturday watching tumbleweeds blow by in the hot summer wind. Lately, he did his best thinking in the car. It was relatively free of distractions, and thanks to the ban in California on driving and cell phone use, he had an excuse for turning his phone off.

  At least one of us has a chance to get away from him.

  Philip’s words were fresh in Brad’s mind. He and Philip had been close as kids but had grown apart as they grew up. Once their mom died, Philip had clung pretty tightly to their dad. No, he corrected himself, that was when Randall began grooming Philip to take over the business. By any objective sense, Philip had done well at Sundstrom Homes, working his way up to a vice president.

  It had never occurred to Brad that Philip’s place in their father’s regard came at a price, although, he thought dryly, the fact that Philip still lived at home, too, should’ve been an indicator the two were in the same boat.

  But Philip had gone to bat for him. He still couldn’t get over it. It made him all the more resolved to strike out on his own.

  He got the office open, the signs out, the jaunty helium balloons filled from the small tank in the back room and out by the road, bobbing in the breeze. “Pig, meet lipstick.”

  The morning startup routine observed, Brad sat down at his desk and fired up the computer. While he waited for it to boot, he pulled out his phone to call Drew.

  Then he stopped. No. He’d spend the weekend doing some research on contractor’s education and licensing and on the preservation of historical buildings. Then he’d call Drew Sunday afternoon.

  Pulling out one of the ubiquitous pads of paper unused to work out deals with nonexistent homebuyers, Brad started feeding terms into a search engine. Even though the hits came back almost instantly, he sat back in his chair to think.

  He’d been told most of his life that he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, just as he knew he had the rep for being even dimmer than that. But some of that was an act, and sometimes he thought before he acted, or thought while he acted, or thought by acting. Try something, see what happens, assess. Repeat as necessary. It had worked up until now.

  But maybe it was time to try a little harder, to think things through before he made big changes. He was finally striking out on his own, at least a little, if you didn’t count that he was still working for his dad’s company and living at home.

  It was a process that he’d started when he joined crew, something he’d picked out on his own and done pretty well at. His dad had chosen his college for him because of its proximity to home and its lax admissions standards, but crew? That’d been his and his alone. He’d thought maybe success there would earn him Randall’s notice or even his respect. The fact that it hadn’t didn’t change how Brad felt about rowing.

  This offer to come work for Drew on a job that might lead to bigger and better things was his chance to build on that, and Brad knew it. The questions were, how and what were the implications? The how seemed to be working itself out. He would work part-time for his dad and the rest of the time for and with Drew.

  Brad figured it was the “with Drew” part that might be interesting. On the one hand, he’d be working with someone who made him laugh and smile. Someone he had fun with, like that time at the water slides. The thought that coming to work might be fun and not like walking into a cellblock energized him. Even more than that, he’d be working with someone he liked at something that might be really satisfying, that might matter more than suckering fools into buying a home in this disaster of a subdivision.

  Brad exhaled noisily, spinning himself around in his desk chair. But there were the implications to think about. They made him nervous. Drew made him nervous. Drew raised feelings in him that he wasn’t prepared to admit existed. He’d always thought of himself as straight, but on some level, Drew made him question that. Instead of running the other way, which was what he should’ve done, he was running right for Drew.

  That didn’t make sense to Brad. When there was something dangerous in front of you, you turned and ran the other way. Duh. Instead, he was charging ahead at full speed to work with someone who made him feel things he didn’t know how to feel.

  Brad rested his head on the desk. He’d gotten a boner thinking about Drew in that Speedo, for fuck’s sake. Hell, he was getting one right there at his desk. He just wasn’t ready to deal with feeling like that about another guy or what it said about him.

  So why do this? Why push through the fear to take this opportunity that put him in the gay lion’s den? Because that was what he was doing when he stopped to think about it, and why he didn’t stop to think about things very often. He was afraid of what he felt and what that meant, but he was going to do it anyway.

  When Brad thought about it, however, he knew it wasn’t a lion out to devour him, it was Drew. They had similar professional interests and got along well. Drew had offered him a job and a chance to get away from his dad. He’d be a fool to turn those down because of that other thing. He could control those feelings. He knew he could.

  He lifted his head off his desk and shifted around, trying to make his cock behave. Damn, he was hard. That Speedo….

  Brad shook his head. Research. He needed the details of what getting a contractor’s license involved. Then he could call Drew like he knew what he was talking about, like he had something to bring to the table too.

  Brad’s week started out decently enough. He called Drew on Sunday evening after finding out everything he could, from the options available for getting his contractor’s license to going to the public library to read up on historical preservation.

  Then he met Emily and Drew for an early breakfast on Monday, and they’d gotten on well enough, he and Emily. She seemed nice, and he figured that once he got to know her, that impression would hold. For her part, Emily had no problems with him. He could be charming when he wanted to be, even if it was a hassle to keep it going for too long.

  The only odd thing was Emily was the kind of woman he’d usually have noticed for her looks, since she was a sizzling blonde and all. But strangely enough, her looks weren’t the hot issue that Monday morning. He barely noticed them, and he only realized he hadn’t noticed when she got a wolf whistle from some construction workers as they approached the Bayard House behind its chain-link hazard-zone fence.

  “Nice manners,” Brad said.

  Emily rolled her eyes. “It happens.”

  “Yeah, but it’s gross,” Brad said, looking around for the jerks responsible.

  “What’re you going to do?” Drew said to Brad.

  Brad smiled. “I’m going to ask them not to do it.”

  And off he went. He knew how to play the game, and he might’ve worn chinos, a blue shirt, and his second-best of two neckties, but he still looked like a bull moose on the rampage.

  “Hey, asshole! Leave her alone! She’s a lady. She doesn’t need your kind of crude,” Brad said.

  “You wanna make something of it?” the worker said.

  Brad bared his teeth and puffed his chest out. And out. And out. The buttons strained across his pecs, and his neck bulged over the collar of his shirt. “If I have to,” he bellowed.

  That was when the construction worker—and the one person nearby—realized that Brad was a lot bigger, certainly a lot louder, and that in this case, ceding ground was the better part of valor. “Tell her I said sorry.”

  “Damn straight,”
Brad said, nodding.

  He turned around and saw that Drew had shielded his eyes in embarrassment. But Emily was grinning broadly. “Oh, you’ll do fine,” she laughed, hooking her arm on his, “just fine.”

  “Yeah, great, can we please hurry up and get in there before we miss the site tour?” Drew said.

  “I’ve been around construction workers all my life. You can’t let them get away with shit like that,” Brad said, sparing a wink for Drew. Then he looked at the woman on his arm. That was when he realized he hadn’t noticed just how hot she was. But he also noticed Drew glaring at him, and he was suddenly afraid. What if Drew was mad at him? What if Drew was reconsidering him working on the project with him?

  Brad spent the tour on his best behavior and the rest of the day seriously worried he’d pissed off Drew. For some reason deep down in his guts, that was something he really didn’t want to do.

  Worrying about whether he’d offended Drew turned into a weeklong project, punctuated by bursts of reluctant activity at Suburban Graveyard.