Madison waited for Amanda’s run down of his dating life, but when nothing came, Madison looked perplexed. “What? No run down?”
“Alec Schumacher is dating practically everybody,” Amanda replied and there was a small, bitter edge in her normally cheerful voice. “He has a thing for Gulls Girls, so I’d watch out if I were you. Especially since he’s quite the charmer and a heartbreaker. Not that I have any personal experience with him, but my best friend Connie got fired after her tryst with Alec was found out. And he pretty much broke up with her right after too. He’s twenty-four years old, so it’s hard to blame him for playing the field and everything, but I’ve never seen him affected by any girl he’s ever been with, whether he breaks up with them or vice versa. It’s like he never gets emotionally involved with them. So just be careful. I know he’s what everyone calls the most attractive guy on the team, but that’s just a warning label, you know?”
Madison took a moment to take in the sight of him. Even she couldn’t deny the magnetic pull his mere presence triggered in both men and women alike, and judging by the small gathering of predominantly female audience, it was a safe bet to say that this Alec Schumacher was indeed charming. He was closer to her than Thorpe had been, and as a result, the first thing she noticed about him were his midnight blue almost black eyes. Even she had to take a moment to allow herself to take in his obvious beauty, despite her rationale trying to talk her out of becoming attracted to him. Like many of the other players, he had broad shoulders and had a nice balance of muscle for his tall frame. His hair was dirty blond, and if he hadn’t pushed back the locks from his face, they would surely fall into his face, even hiding his striking eyes.
But even with his obvious beauty, Madison felt her resolve begin to steel itself off from him. Not that he would even look her way, what with the gorgeous selection he had in front of him, but it was nice to know he couldn’t woo her even if he tried.
And then, as if he could feel her looking at him – and really, maybe he could – he looked up and directly at her. She swallowed, not fully believing that things like this actually happened outside of chick flicks and young adult novels, but forced herself to keep eye contact with him. She wouldn’t smile, wouldn’t wink or look at all suggestive. If she wanted to convey anything, it was that she knew he was attractive but she didn’t care.
“Don’t worry,” Madison said, breaking eye contact first in order to look at her friend. “Jocks aren’t really my type.”
4. The funeral would have to be postponed. Her grandfather’s body was now being dissected and analyzed and everything else it shouldn’t have been. Even though Seraphina and her sister could technically have put together a memorial service, they decided against it, mostly because Seraphina detested them. Death had always been around her; she was familiar with her mortality thanks to what seemed like the constant passing of people she loved and cared about. On the bright side, she wasn’t afraid to die anymore, not since the last person she truly loved with every fiber of her being had been taken away from her. As such, funerals and memorials were a common event she and Katella had to attend. And Seraphina hated it. She hated the fakeness that seemed to consume people in times of mourning. She hated the fact that people she barely even knew went up to tell stories about her parents or her grandmother that they had never mentioned before. She hated when those same people apologized directly to her for her loss and then started talking to Seraphina about how wonderful the person was. As if Seraphina ddidn’t already know.
The only difference between dealing with those memorial services and the people that attended them was that she always had her grandfather with her. As people lined up during the reception to offer their condolences, Papa would whisper in her ear, making dun of the next guy about to speak. Katella overheard, and though she admonished the two wish a “Shhhh” or “Guys,” an amused smile always cracked onto her face no matter how hard she tried to stop it. Of course, Papa never did that when Alan or Ryan was around, not because he wanted to be serious in front of his sons but because his mood always soured in their presence. A person unfamiliar with her grandfather would not notice; Ken had always been good at putting on a good front in front of strangers, but Seraphina always did and so did Katella.
Now she and Katella would have to put together their own memorial service, and on top of that, Alan and Ryan would most likely both be there. Ryan would probably be dazed and keep to himself, but Alan, Seraphina knew, would pretend that now he was the man of the family, he would step up and take care of the two granddaughters. At the reception, people would predominantly line up in front of Alan and Ryan, not Seraphina and Katella.
What a joke.
“Are you all ready?” Katella asked in a quiet murmur, coming down the stairs.
The two sisters shared a home on Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Coast. It was a gift from their grandfather; Katella had just started her business and was already accumulating clients, and Seraphina had just graduated from UCI. That had been three and a half years ago. Seraphina hadn’t even completely moved in yet; there were still some of her things left at her grandfather’s house.
A house that was now empty.
“Yeah.” Seraphina’s voice sounded unlike her own, soft and low. Sad. She forced her eyes up to Katella. “Is Matt coming?”
Her sister shook her head. “No.” When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she grabbed a white cardigan that had once belonged to their grandmother. “Family only, remember? And even though Matt is pretty much family, I didn’t want to get into it with Alan.”
“He’s going to be there, isn’t he?” Seraphina asked, picking herself up from the foot of the stairs. A frown pulled her lips down, and she decided against a jacket – even one as light as a cardigan – due to the heat that permeated outside. “Is Ryan going to be there too?”
“Who knows?” Katella said and though she was thought to be the sweeter of the two, there was an obvious tone of disgust in her voice. “Even when Papa was alive, there’d be months when we wouldn’t hear from him. Papa would call jails and even the morgues and hospitals to see if he had died after the sober house he was supposed to be at said that they never had a record of Ryan’s presence. He was drunk at Grandma’s memorial service.”
“Yeah, but this is a will reading,” Seraphina pointed out as they headed out the door. “Ryan’s going to want to see if he got any money.” She paused in order to slide into the passenger seat of Katella’s white Nissan Maxima. It had been her grandmother’s car before she died, but she barely drove it. Katella might have accumulated a good deal of money due to her success with her company, but she still drove that same car she had received when she entered college. It made Seraphina respect her sister even more than she already did. “Do you think Papa gave Ryan or even Alan money?”
Katella pursed her lips, starting up the engine before carefully backing out of the driveway. “You know, Sera, I can’t say,” she said, turning down the radio so the two sisters could talk. “He never talked about what was going to happen after he died and I’ve never seen a copy of his will. I never asked.”
“Yeah, me neither,” Seraphina said in a low voice, her eyes descending to look at her folded hands resting limply in her lap. She never saw a reason to ask her grandfather if she and Katella would be taken care of in the event that he died; it never even crossed her mind that he would die so soon, and she always believed that he would take care of her, that there would be nothing to worry about. She never factored in what a pain Alan and Ryan would be.
The drive was only ten minutes. There was a small law practice on Pacific Coast Highway south of where the sisters’ house was. Papa had been a client of this man, Earl James, since he first began buying properties in order to rent them out. Seraphina knew he was one of the few men that her grandfather trusted with things of great importance, such as his will.
After a few minutes of looking for parking, Katella found a spot and the two girls walked into the square-shaped
building. It was a family-owned law practice that specialized in finances. There was a tiny lobby with only two chairs and a desk where the secretary sat that took up at least a fourth of the already cramped space. Three different doors led to three different offices depending on the lawyer a person was there to see. Off to the left, there was a one-room unisex bathroom that required a key despite its in-office location. It was quaint and some even believed unpolished compared to other practices located in Newport Beach, but Papa swore by Earl James, and despite the rare disagreement, seemed to have nothing but admirable things to say about the man. Which was good enough for his granddaughters.
Alan and Ryan were already there, which surprised both Seraphina and Katella. Both were dressed in suits despite the fact that there was no need to be formal. Seraphina herself was in dark skinny jeans and a nice blouse while her sister was in a high-waisted skirt and a long-sleeved collared shirt. Maybe all parties wanted to be respectful given the nature of their visit. Seraphina could smell the subtle hint of smoke drifting around her uncles, and though she tried, she couldn’t detect the poignant scent of alcohol. Although that didn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t there.
The secretary smiled at the two women when they entered the small room. She was slightly overweight, with chestnut brown, curly hair. Her name was Trista, Seraphina remembered, and she had a Southern accent. By the look of her current attire, she also loved the color purple.
“Hello girls,” she said. “We’re just waiting on two more people, and then Mr. James will see you.”
Seraphina shared a look with her sister.
“Who are we waiting for?” Katella asked, directing the question at the standing Alan rather than at the sitting, somewhat dazed Ryan.
“Simon and Henry,” Alan replied. “I guess we’re going to talk about what happens to the team along with everything else.”
“I thought it was family only.”
“So did I,” Alan said and then gestured toward his brother. “So did he. But I guess Dad wanted the head coach and his financial advisor around in case we had any questions, maybe to let them know directly what’s going to happen to the Gulls as a team.”
Seraphina pressed her lips but didn’t say anything. She studied her sitting uncle from the corner of her eye. The last time she saw him was her graduation, but neither Alan nor Ryan stayed for the celebratory dinner that followed the ceremony. In fact, if she was being honest, he was wearing the same winkled shirt he wore to the graduation. There were stains on the thighs of his dark pants, probably from wine or whatever alcohol he had chosen to indulge in to the point of not being able to control how well he held on to the liquid. His dusty red hair was actually combed though, and his blue eyes looked bleary, gone away from where he was currently and staring into a world only he was familiar with. Just being in his presence made her uncomfortable only because she didn’t know how he was going to react to things; when he was sober, he was gentle and soft-spoken, and even likeable, but when he was drunk, he was snippy and bitter, and could even get physical if he was mad enough. Seraphina couldn’t tell what he was right now.
“So I was thinking,” Alan said, breaking the thick silence. Seraphina glanced up but found that he was addressing Katella, probably because she was the oldest child just like he was, and as such, believed they would either inherit the most or would be in charge of what to do with Papa’s estate. “Since Dad bought the two of you a house, there’s really no need to keep the one he had. We could sell it and split the profit four ways.”
“No,” Seraphina snapped before she could think not to.
Alan glared at her with his hazel eyes, but Seraphina had learned not to be intimidated by him and managed to hold his gaze with a stare of her own.
“We’ll just have to see what Papa wanted,” Katella said, ever the peacekeeper, but even Seraphina could tell that her sister was trying to control the emotion from her voice at Alan’s crude suggestion.
He hadn’t even been buried yet and already he was thinking of what to sell, what to keep. The man had a lot of balls to just assume that he would get to make the decisions simply because of his seniority, especially since both sisters knew their grandfather was aware of what pathetic wretches his sons had become despite having every opportunity imaginable.
“Then there’s the team,” Alan continued, as though Katella hadn’t suggested to wait until the will was read. “You girls have your own life to worry about. I know we could get a lot of money if we sell the team.
“And the property Dad owns, we should obviously keep. That’s income for all of us. But I think we should fire the property manager and let me run things. I am a carpenter, after all, and I could personally fix the problems so we don’t have to hire outside help.”
Seraphina noticed that even Trista, clacking away at her keyboard with her lavender-painted acrylics, rolled her eyes. She smothered a smile, glad she wasn’t the only one completely annoyed with Alan’s pomp.
“Shut up, Alan.”
Katella bit her lip to keep from laughing but Seraphina had to blink once, twice, in order to truly believe that the words she desperately wanted to say had come not out of her mouth or even Katella’s mouth, but Ryan’s. She still couldn’t tell if her uncle was sober or not – maybe he got like this when he was a bit tipsy – but she was immediately stricken by the cold gaze he was giving his older brother. It was that gaze, the icy stare, that sent shivers down her spine and was one of the few reasons why she was actually afraid of Ryan.
Before Alan could say something, because Alan was the type of person who wouldn’t allow an insult on his pride to go without answer, the door opened and both Henry Wayne and Simon Spade walked in. Seraphina wondered if they drove together or if they happened to have met in the parking lot and decided to walk in together. Not that it really mattered now.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Simon said after making his way over to Katella.
Seraphina shared a look with Henry Wayne, a man she had known for her entire life. It wasn’t uncommon for him to come over to Papa’s house on the weekends so the two friends could play pool together, talking about business and pop culture and how society has only gone downhill. He knew her well enough not to apologize for her grandfather’s loss; he knew how much her grandfather meant to her. But it always interested her to see that people would automatically relate their condolences to Katella rather than Seraphina. Certainly Katella was older, but both sisters loved their grandfather equally, and though he had two different relationships with them, she knew he loved them just as equally.
Simon Spade had been Papa’s financial advisor strictly for the hockey team and anything related to the franchise for the duration of the Gulls’ existence. Both sisters had only met Simon a few times, with Katella having a few more meetings with him given that she helped coordinate events for the team and needed to talk about the budget. He looked friendly, like any grandfather might look, with white hair combed over his bald head, warm, brown eyes, and a smile that put anyone instantly at ease. For whatever reason, he wore pressed white gloves like a butler might wear – she thought Katella mentioned him being a germaphobe or something like that a while ago – and walked with a nice cane. Though Papa wasn’t as close to him as he was with Henry, Simon seemed polite and genuine, and his eyes seemed to hold a sadness at the fact that Ken was gone.
“All right everyone,” a short, older man said from the doorway to the middle office, just left of where Trista and her desk were placed. He clapped his hands together once as his eyes drifted over everyone, making sure to give each person a few seconds of personal attention. “Thank you all so much for coming. If you would just follow me, we can get this started.”
Seraphina hung back with Katella, watching as their two uncles, Henry, and Simon entered the office before they joined them. Simon and Henry were also dressed somewhat formally – both in slacks and collared shirts – though Simon’s gloves and his polished cane made him look much more sophisticated than an
yone else in the room. If only he had a monocle…
Seraphina chuckled under her breath. Katella gave her a warning look, but her lips curled up into a smile, almost though she knew what her younger sister was thinking.
Once everyone had filed into the slightly larger room, Katella and Seraphina took the only two seats offered while Ryan leaned against the right corner of the room, his blue eyes reverted to the maroon carpet beneath him, Richard stood by Seraphina’s left, his arms behind his back and his shoulders pushed back, and Simon and Henry standing in the left portion of the room. Both sisters offered the older gentlemen their seats, but both were politely declined.
“Okay,” Earl said, his deep voice vibrating against the inside of his throat. His thin-wired glasses were dangerously close to sliding off his pointed nose as he looked at the papers before him. “I’m glad you could all come and on such short notice.” He passed out papers to everyone before taking a seat at his desk. “Before we begin, let me explain that Ken requested that each of you get your own personal copy of his will and testament and wanted me to explicitly state that any argument against it in court will result in automatic disqualification for any rewards you may or may not receive.”
Earl looked over at the two men not related to the parties involved. “Mr. Wayne and Mr. Spade, Ken wanted you present because the information provided directly involves the two of you and he wanted you to hear it from me directly the status of where you stand with the Gulls as a team,” he explained. “He also wanted you both as witnesses to the reading. So while you aren’t directly receiving anything, there’s pertinent information Ken believed you should receive along with the disbursements of his estate.”
Seraphina watched as Alan read ahead, obviously only caring about he got out of it. She, on the other hand, opted to wait for Earl to explain everything to her in a way she could understand; she didn’t want to guess what Papa might have meant about certain things. One look at Ryan proved that he hadn’t even looked at the papers – hell, he might not even be aware that they’re in his hand.
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