Page 87 of Rejected Heart
As usual, Cooper took the lead when it came to responding to our brothers while I sat back and listened. “I’m not sure I even want to know what you two have up your sleeves. It seems like it’s been one thing after another here the last couple of years.”
“But this has the power to truly be a game changer for us,” Tate insisted.
“What is it?” Cooper asked.
Tate and Wyatt exchanged excited glances with one another before returning their attention to Cooper and me. Tate grinned and declared, “A venue.”
My brows pulled together. “Can you clarify what exactly you mean by that?”
Wyatt took over again. “We’ve been brainstorming, and we’d like to have something that could handle a variety of things. Everything from more intimate settings like dinner shows or comedy club acts to large-scale performances from world renowned music artists like My Violent Heart.”
“You’re kidding,” Cooper clipped.
Just as I predicted, he was quickly careening toward that edge of insanity. If he hated meetings as it was, he especially hated meetings that led to mountains more work being piled on top of us.
That wasn’t to say that Wyatt and Tate didn’t work. They did. And with something like this, they’d likely do a lot of the planning at the start and after the project was completed. But the heavy lifting would be done by Cooper, me, and our teams.
Wyatt shook his head. “No, we’re not kidding. In fact,we’ve been doing quite a bit of research, and we’re prepared to get the first phase of this project started within the next two months. Things will start to wind down in the amusement park, so a good chunk of Liam’s staff will be able to hop on this project.”
“Yeah, but do you understand the magnitude of the project?” Cooper questioned them.
Tate leaned forward, clasping his hands on the table in front of him. “We do, Coop. But there’s also a tremendous benefit to this, too.”
“Care to fill me in on that?”
“The smaller scale of this, which is where we want to start, will give our guests more things to enjoy while they’re here. Again, comedy shows, smaller musical acts, and dinner shows. Things like that. On the large-scale side, we can fill stadiums for these huge performances. On the surface of both instances, it seems like all we’re doing is providing entertainment to visitors. This is a business, after all. But there’s more to it. We’ll also be creating tons of jobs and bringing lots of traffic to the town of Landing. That goes to help other small businesses in the area. It’s a win-win situation all the way around.”
Cooper groaned his frustration. “What are your thoughts on this, Liam?”
I shrugged. “It is what it is. If the work is there, I’ll do it.”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit much?” he pressed.
I offered a look of indifference in response, which wasn’t unusual for me. All three of my brothers hadgrown accustomed to my apathy surrounding stuff like this. Obviously, I took great care in the actual work that I did, but making the decisions about which projects to start was never of any real importance to me. I’d do whatever they wanted done. It wasn’t like I had anything else to look forward to.
Cooper wasn’t budging. “I think this is a mistake. This is a lot of work.”
Tate opened his mouth to respond, but I stopped paying attention.
That wasn’t common for me. Even if I didn’t often have a lot to say in our meetings, I always listened to what each of them had to say.
But lately, it had been more difficult than usual to feel any sort of excitement or interest in what was happening, especially at work.
After learning what led Layla to leaving me, one of the things I couldn’t miss out on now was how different our lives had been. When we were younger, I never thought twice about it, never even knew it was a source of contention for her.
As my brothers argued with one another about this venue project, I sat there thinking about the fact that it seemed we were always doing something to expand at Westwood’s. The projects didn’t bother me the way they bothered Cooper. But right now, I couldn’t stop thinking about how something like this—easily a multi-million-dollar project—didn’t seem like a big deal in the financial sense. Obviously, it was a lot of money, but we weren’t necessarily concerned about the cost, where some people—like Layla and her mom—had been barely making ends meet when she was younger. Even now, it seemed things hadn’t gotten much better.
The banter among my brothers grew more intense, making it impossible to ignore them any longer.
I couldn’t stand it. None of them got it. Not at all.
I shot out of my seat. “Enough!”
Silence fell over the room.
“This is ridiculous. Are you guys listening to yourselves?”
They exchanged uncomfortable glances with one another before Wyatt said, “Liam?”
