“What do you mean?”
“Nothing, that’s what I mean. The both of us. Him with his family and even mine.”
“How he fired your dad?”
“Yeah, but that’s part of the story. The rest I can only get from him. But, he didn’t tell me. Wouldn’t. My dad asked him not to, so he’s keeping his word.” I roll my eyes.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Emily giggles.
“It’s not. When it doesn’t have to do with me.” I laugh a bit.
“Okay, fair enough. I used to wonder how similar they were… the brothers I mean.” Emily smiles, barely though, so I know she is either being subtle or thinking something dirty.
“I wouldn’t know enough about them. You’re the one who grew up with them.” I eat more bread. It’s the type of dinner where the courses are brought to us as they are displayed on the small menu. We’ve finished the soup and salad. The main steak dinner should be coming next.
“I did, but I didn’t have sex with all of them.”
We laugh at the same time. “Oh, that’s what you mean,” I manage to say through my laughs.
“Yes, that is what I mean. Dylan seems very broody.”
“He’s… attentive. Which is surprising, but true.”
Emily smiles. “He does have the whole Henry Cavill thing going on for him.”
“Yes, but he is no superman.” I laugh, though I may not have meant it in that weird thinking-highly-of-the-man-I’m-sleeping-with kind of way.
Dylan is handsome, built with a sloping, mountain beauty that took time to forge and become so perfect. The hard lines of his jaw are still visible under the thick confines of his beard. And his body—goodness, it’s the body. In a suit, out of it… I was never one for chest hair, but the way the darkness colors across his broad pecs and down the center to his Adonis belt, it’s just enough. He’s—
“Forbes, hello?”
“Hmm?” I blink at Emily. She grins and shakes her head at me.
“Nothing. Drink your wine. You need to relax.”
I nod sipping at the perfectly aired red we are drinking. My eyes scan the room. It eludes money and class, one of those places in the city that the elite frequent and make it so they are the only ones who do—CEOs, board chairmen, even politicians, Senators alike. I grew up in that lifestyle, went to boarding school with the children of diplomats, even distant royalty, kings of small nations, but that’s a life I never really lived but existed in.
Emily and I talk over the dinner—a prime steak and potato stir fry with vegetables steamed on the side. Our laughs are probably too much for the people around us, but like always, we don’t seem to care.
I almost forgot about my birthday dinner probably due to the events with Dylan over the past twelve hours, if that.
“Just open it.” Emily passes me a gift. I take the small box, the size of the plate in front of me. The bright green wrapping paper hurts my eyes but makes me smile.
“What is it?” I even shake it for good measure. We’ve finished our meal, even the dessert of mini chocolate cake—very mini. We are getting cupcakes after, but she has been pushing this thing my way for hours.
I open the box to find a gold studded phone case with Forbes scribed on the back in rhinestones with the little trademark symbol under it. I laugh at the memory of people always mentioning the association with my name and the company, but my dad was Scottish, my mom was Armenian. The name has origins for my father, and as far as I know, my mom went along.
“This is so perfect, thank you.”
“You’re welcome. The place that did it can clean it whenever you need them to.”
I hug her over the table. I really do love the gift. My birthday inadvertently reminds me my dad isn’t here anymore, but I’ve had time to get used to that. Last night, I was also very preoccupied. And then during the day with work and directing my anger at Dylan… no wonder I was so unreasonable.
“Thank you, I love it.”
“I know. Let’s have the cupcakes at your place, I left them in the car.”
“Sounds good.” I try to pay my part once the check comes, but she artfully declines.
“It’s the full experience.”
“Okay… and that is a serious black card.” I laugh. She smiles and shrugs. Once the server walks off, Emily sighs and leans back in her chair.
“I tried arguing with Carson, but it’s no use. He’s embedded with this patriarchal gene. They all suffer from it.”
I giggle. “Suffer?”
She smiles. “I guess not exactly suffer. It was Anna who told me, their mom. She’s always been a school teacher and never left her job, but the lifestyle their father had for them…” She laughs. “She told me arguing will make them negotiate for more with you. It’s funny. It was this black card this time. First, the car, and you know how that went, but before that, it was always the world’s most expensive anything. Carson likes to take care of me. Sometimes I let him because I can only be so outwardly feminist. Other times, I humor myself with an argument and sometimes win. All I know is they are the only people with that sort of status who don’t keep it to themselves or use it to manipulate people. They’re all… good people.”
“Good people?” I smile softly.
“Good people.”
23
Dylan
“He is not going to be happy about this.” Holden laughs as if he means it.
“He’ll do it, eventually. If he doesn’t, we can figure something else out.”
Carson and I agree with Holden. Evan will get on board at some point, and we aren’t even sure if this is the way to go, but someone has to run the office in London, preferably not outside of the family. We’ve all gotten to the age where we know what we want to do with our lives, and there are only four of us here at the company.
“We can hope for that. Where is everyone?” Holden asks. I shrug, I only showed up because I was told to.
“On their way,” Carson answers, though his attention is elsewhere. It has been for a few days, but I’m not the one who asks questions. If they want to talk to me, they eventually do at some point.
We all hauled ass here to the family estate to watch Fletcher’s game, but we wouldn’t do that for any game—the Super Bowl that all the sports networks say Fletcher carried his team to it. I don’t watch all of them, so I wouldn’t know.
Either way, he made it happen. It isn’t a home game, so we didn’t all want to fly out to the stadium. It would be more comfortable at home, and Fletcher probably has other things to do following the game anyway.
It’s been weeks since I have even seen Forbes and even spoken to her. I tried for a little bit, for a few days at least. Texting, calling. If I were a normal person, that would still be what I am doing, but I’m not.
I’m someone with attachment issues. My dad is dead, and I can admit at least that. As soon as I connected with Forbes, the tether between us was all but severed. It’s ghastly painful, and I don’t know much about the specifics, about the way I am supposed to do this. I’m guessing it should involve a lot of calling, showing up at her apartment, apologizing for what I don’t think I did wrong—but I didn’t do that.
She wouldn’t reply, and so I stopped reaching out to her.
It should be that simple, but it isn’t. I want her to talk to me. I want her to trust me and want me as much as I want her.
Maybe it was a lapse in judgment that night after the diner when we first got together—but it didn’t feel like that—not the way we talked, not the way we truly bonded. But there is nothing else I can attest to, nothing else I can leave this to. There wasn’t enough time between her not trusting me and not liking me to us being together.
It only feels like sex at this point with some mistreated confessions buried in there too.
Forbes made it very clear to me that day at the office that me always being honest with her is the only way for her to fully allow her feelings to come forth, though I have a pretty good idea because I feel the
same way. I haven’t decided exactly how or why or how far, but I feel… something.
“It’s starting in an hour!” Mom. She yells from the bottom of the balcony we are sitting on. There are a few here at the residence. We’ve been sitting at the one outside the kitchen with our Michelob and work that never leaves us whether we are at the office or not.
With Mom’s yelling, Evan comes out with another bucket of beers in tow for all of us.
We usually always see each other in suits, the four of us, so it’s different in a more relaxed setting. I hadn’t realized how used to it I had gotten. Jeans and a sweater feel foreign to me. Seeing Holden dressed similarly next to me feels the same, Carson too. But Evan is decked out in the team apparel up to the ugly bright blue ball cap. It makes sense, though, Fletcher is his ‘big bro’ directly. They were attached at the hip growing up and are the only ones to get the other’s crude humor. It works for them and annoys us all.
“Are you people talking about me?” He sits on the table propping his foot up between my chair and the side table.
“No,” I lie first, popping open my second beer and then toss the opener to Holden across from me. Carson is laid out on the day couch with his head propped up to drink his beer.
Evan makes a face at me. I blink back at him, and he eventually gives up. Holden sighs, and I can hear the television going on from downstairs. Everyone else is inside, the babies especially. It’s funny how they get doted on like thrones themselves since they have arrived.
“Since the merger has ended and everything is in place…” Holden fakes a burp with a hard swallow, “… we have to start getting things up over in London. And someone has to oversee and run it.” Holden drinks down the rest of his beer.
Evan chuckles. “Well, who’s going to do that?” He then sips at his beer, laughing. He isn’t stupid, the silence says it all for him.
“Oh, you already made a decision? Are they at least competent?”
Carson laughs and sits up. Holden gives him a look, and he stops. I shrug at Evan still smiling to himself.
“Well, Evan, we were hoping you would do it,” Holden says.
Evan scoffs, “Yeah, right. The nerdy computer guy can run an entire company. It’s not like when I was in operations, and you saw how fast I handed that off to doughboy.” He points at Carson. “You’re joking, right?” He laughs, but it isn’t his usual throaty chortle. He actually means he doesn’t find this funny. Even sipping his beer, half-ass, he swallows and stares down at the label of the beer turning it in his hands.
Holden sighs, leaning back, running his finger across his mouth like he would in a meeting when he is thinking. Carson looks across the table at me, and I shrug at him. He narrows his eyes, and I roll mine getting what he is trying to say. We all have our things, little attributes that are useful at certain times. Even before Dad died, I was the cold-hard-fact person if it was for good or bad. I used it in the business world and our family.
“That’s not true.” I set my beer down. “You aren’t nerdy, just a little weaselly sometimes.”
He frowns at me. Evan never frowns.
“You won’t run the place into the ground. Holden is always available to help. And he can’t leave here for obvious reasons. I also can’t and don’t need to. Carson won’t ask Emily to move, so that leaves you. Computer guy. You can probably google something if you don’t understand it.” I almost laugh under my breath, but Evan smiles a bit.
“Who will be CTO here?”
“We have been vetting people. As well as for the office in London, that will be taken care of,” Holden says.
Evan sighs, dropping his leg from the table and rubbing at his knees.
“If I’m the boss, that means I can do whatever I want, right?” He starts to smile, and the others laugh too.
“Not necessarily.”
“No deal then,” Evan says back to Holden.
They both laugh going back and forth for a bit. I finish my beer, accepting my job has been done. Evan is his own person, so I can’t assume much about him, but I know him well enough to know he isn’t just some funny guy good with computers and not people.
“All right, fine. I’ll do it. But I’m not the one telling Mom her favorite son is moving across the world.”
* * *
When we make it to the main living room, the family is in a ruckus but the friendly kind. Brant and Alec are playing on the floor with their bundles of joy, and Mom is carrying in plates of food.
The living room is set up cornered around the entertainment system on the main wall. A family portrait of all of us is above it, the last one we took a few months before Dad died. Mom has the same interior design matching throughout the house. The furniture is grand, gold couches with black trimming, the kind that is custom-made to comfortably sit as many people it usually needs to. There are two blocking off the main hallway and allowing a direct entrance from the kitchen. I sit on the one single chair for mostly obvious reasons, and it’s by the cartoon playmat above the rug that Timothy and Malia are crawling around on, or more like bumbling around. At about eighteen months old, they half walk, half stumble. Brant and Alec have taken to the platter of wings and football-worthy food. I half watch the pre-game profiles and commercials.
Malia takes a nose dive and roll when she reaches out for something. I look around for anyone else nearby when she threatens to cry. Not finding anyone, I pick her up before she gets too loud. I think she smiles. I’m surprised at how big she has gotten. She’s wearing her baby jeans and jersey with Fletcher’s number on it. He’s good enough for them to make baby clothes, I suppose. Her hair is longer too, long enough for a bun. It becomes clearer that she looks a lot like Brant, same eyes and nose, but babies have weird features to me, so I could be going crazy. I bounce her on my knee, and her stubby hands go right to my beard again. Her baby smell and noises make me want to smile, but I don’t. I keep her quiet, so no one draws attention to me.
If they find out I am the baby whisperer, then they will ask me to babysit.
Mom does come over eventually and offers me the food, but I’m not hungry. I haven’t had an appetite in a long time. I think of Forbes too much.
As I feed Malia her bottle, I think a lot about Forbes wondering if I should call her again, but I know all she really wants is the truth about her dad. Without that, we can’t go much farther, and I don’t want to be based on a lie, on formidable passion we can’t ignore. If it were about sex, then sure, that would be okay. But it isn’t, and anything less would hurt.
I’m relieved of my baby-bouncing duties by the dad himself, and I’ve been thinking so much of Forbes that her liberty-bell voice starts to hurt my head like she could be right here with us. I think that’s absurd until I pay it more attention.
By the pillars lining the living room, Forbes is standing there with Emily, who I assume has just arrived. Her tight, dark jeans fit her long, full legs perfectly down to every line and crease. The blue jersey is shiny below her golden locks curled down to the side, fitted but not overly so. I watch her talk, almost in slow motion, permeating the air with her presence like a drought-ending. I haven’t seen her in so long, my brain forgot how to process her beauty, her person.
I don’t have time to wonder why she came, if she knew she would see me, or if she cares—before my silent lurking is broken.
“Dylan, you’re blocking the TV,” Jeffrey shouts. I turn to find his smirk as annoying as I imagined. I move, and when I look in her direction again, Forbes is gone.
24
Forbes
It’s hard to admit when I’m wrong, but I still manage it sometimes. For a limited time every year, sometimes it renews, other times it doesn’t.
Dylan has used up all my allowances in that department, and I’m not sure how to feel about that. Not now anyway that I’ve buried myself in work and not looked back. Not at the first bill coming from the hospital, employees leaving and planning a lawsuit or the threat of one in their wake, Emily using ev
ery saying in the book to get me on her side, and everything else that comes with being me at this point in my life.
Weeks pass, and I let them without giving it a second thought a few times. Others, I sit and dwell, drink wine, and eat every carb in sight. It’s natural.
I miss Dylan, I miss what I used to feel around him if he were on my good or bad side. When really, we only had one day, if that, to be on each other’s good side. I don’t know if I messed it up, and I don’t know if I was truly in the wrong about the merger and my anger toward it, but time slipped by and so did any chance of rectifying that fact.
So, I waste time working, avoiding anything but allowing thoughts of Dylan to slip through my conscience. I wish we had more time. I wish our issues were simply rooted, but they’re not, they’re viney weeds that if I pluck, will grow back.
* * *
“Every time I see you, those papers are stuck to your perfect little nose.” Emily waltzes in my office like it’s her office, though she always does that. At lunchtime, like clockwork.
“It works.” I laugh a bit.
Emily continues as I finish work, and we get lunch together talking about their Super Bowl party at Carson’s family estate. Emily has been nothing but good to me. She’s listened to my rambling and has been there over the weeks to keep me company, so I feel like I owe her and agree to come with the promise that I won’t have to talk to Dylan.
I’m hoping that promise will be upheld.
I get the full experience of her private jet life when we fly in Sunday evening with Carson and Jeffrey.
One of their other brothers, Grayson, is on tour again and has been since the start of the new year. I don’t eavesdrop and get all those details, but I know it’s a family pain for them. When I think of all the things Dylan has to endure on top of what I already know, I wonder how he does it.
Seeing him again after all this time is jarring. And not in any way that I can say is bad or good.
Wilde About Dylon: The Brothers Wilde Series — Book Four Page 16
