I fling a Reese’s Pieces at him. “What did you really think of it?”
“It was fine. The music was neat, but…” He trails off, rifling through the pile of candies and discarded wrappers on the coffee table, pretending like he’s searching for his next chocolate hit, but I get the sense it’s a delay tactic. He finally selects a Tootsie Pop, twisting it between his fingers. “It was weird watching fucked-up rich people in a fictional TV show and thinking to myself, ‘They’ve got nothing on my family.’”
“Give me a break. You’re exaggerating.”
“I’m not,” he says, chewing thoughtfully.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
After a while, he straightens his spine and says, “Mom worked her ass off, climbing the corporate ladder in the shipping company her great-grandfather founded. She wasn’t the first, but she was one of the few female CEOs in an industry that’s a total sausage fest. She gave that company everything, growing it from the fifth largest in the world to the second. And while I’m proud of everything she achieved…” His shoulders sag a little. “I feel horrible for even saying this, but…I wish she’d been a better mom. She was never around, and it just feels like she didn’t care about her kids. Our family vacations were scheduled around her business trips. She missed two birthdays before I was ten. Our nanny was a monster bitch from hell. My father was a serial adulterer who cheated on her so many times I’m expecting a half sibling to show up on my doorstep any day now. And after sacrificing everything for her career, she got diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Before she passed away, her brothers swooped in and took her share of the company, effectively freezing my father, brothers and sister, and me from our rightful inheritance.” Our eyes meet. His chest is rising and falling rapidly, and I recognize it, that smoldering fury simmering away just beneath the surface. He’s just a lot better at containing it than I am. “But hey, at least I never jerked off any of my brothers.”
I offer a small smile. “Right.”
“Don’t know where that came from. I don’t usually… Sorry. I probably should have warned you or at least paused midway to give you the option of disembarking the crazy train.”
“No, it’s fine. I just…”
“Yeah?”
“…have so many questions.”
He unwraps another Tootsie Roll and plops it into his mouth. “What do you want to know?”
All. The. Things.
There is so much to unpack in what he just said, I almost don’t know where to begin. I tackle the largest one first.
“Did your mom know your dad was cheating on her?”
“I think so. He was hardly discreet about it.”
“Why didn’t she leave him?”
“Don’t know. They were two hugely dysfunctional individuals, but somehow, they sort of worked together. I think Mom realized her career created a vacuum within the family, so she let Dad do whatever he wanted so he’d stay.”
“Are you and your dad close?”
He shakes his head. “Not really. He’s a nepo baby himself. He was meant to run the winery Wagner is now. But working was for people who didn’t have cushy trust funds to fall back on. So the family brought in a team of outsiders who ruined the name and reputation Grandpa Rick spent his whole life working to achieve. As always, Dad created a mess for others to clean up after him. This time, it’s Wagner.”
“How’s he managing?”
Maverick chews his lip. “He’s giving it his all, working harder than he’s ever worked in his life, but I don’t think it’s going well. Every time he gets close to securing financing, something comes up at the last minute to derail it. We’re not the prestige wine brand we once were, and who wants to take a risk in this economy?”
“You’re close with him, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. Wag stepped in to fill in for our absent parents.”
“You said you guys had a nanny.”
He groans. “Monster bitch from hell,” he repeats.
“Why?”
“She was just…cruel.”
“What would she do?”
“Lots of weird little things that stacked up over time. Her sick form of psychological torture. Like she’d make us eat our dinners in complete silence. Or lock my sister, Adair, in the pantry. Or tease my brother Fenner for being colossally tall. Or giving me the wrong answers on my homework. Messed-up stuff like that.”
