But the email is still there, unopened. The offer from the man my dad lined up, a friend of a friend who approached me with a job before I even decided I wanted to start looking for something else. It’s polished, prestigious, exactly the kind of thing my father’s been grooming me for.
I can’t even make myself click it and read the details.
“Thought you’d escaped.” Jack’s voice cuts through the quiet, wry and knowing.
I glance over my shoulder. He’s loose in his linen shirt, sleeves rolled, tan deepening from the day even though we haven’t purposely set out to do so. George follows him out, already lighting a cigarette, the match flaring orange before the afternoon breeze snuffs it out. He shields it with his hand, gets it going anyway, then leans against the railing with that careless posture that drives Jack insane.
“Escaped what?” I ask.
“Family business talk,” Jack says, heading to the bar cart like it personally owes him a drink. It probably does since he’s paying for all of this. “Georgie thinks he’s reinventing the wheel.”
George exhales smoke in a slow stream. “Not reinventing. Building.” His smirk is faint but practiced, the kind that’s been annoying Jack since they were old enough to fight over who got shotgun. “There’s a huge difference.”
“The difference is you don’t care who you burn in the process,” Jack shoots back. His voice sharpens as he drops ice into a glass, the cubes cracking. “You throw money around, make promises you can’t keep, and leave the rest of us cleaning it up. Your poor wife.”
George doesn’t flinch. Just shrugs, inhales, blows smoke toward the sky. “Don’t be dramatic. I know what I’m doing.”
Jack snorts into his drink. “Sure you do.”
I keep quiet. That’s how it always goes with them—Jack the moral compass, George the chaos machine. I’m just the cousin who nods and stays out of it. But George’s words hit harder than I want to admit.I know what I’m doing.
“You’d be an idiot not to take an opportunity handed to you,” George adds, flicking ash over the terrace edge. “Not everyone gets those.”
Jack glares at him, but I freeze. My chest tightens like he’s talking to me, not to Jack.
Because he’s right. Not everyone gets those. And I’ve had more than my share—connections, strings pulled, doors opened without me even knocking. Opportunities I never asked for but that somehow define me anyway.
Jack downs the rest of his drink and mutters something I don’t catch before heading back inside. George lingers a moment longer, flicks the end of his cigarette over the railing, then shrugs. “You’ll figure it out, Connor. You always do.”
He says it casually, like it’s a compliment. And it makes me wonder what he knows—if people are talking about this job my father keeps pressuring me into. I’m sure it’s not about the part of me that’s been unraveling for months. I hope not.
Then he’s gone too. Before I even say another word to either of them.
The terrace is quiet again. Only the faint lap of water against rocks and the engine of a boat approaching the dock down below carry up from the lake.
I flip my phone over, finally. The screen lights, the same thread of messages glowing like a neon sign.
Dad
Connor, this is a gift. Don’t waste it.
Call him back tonight. He’s expecting you.
Your future doesn’t wait forever.
My throat tightens.
It should be simple. I should want this—an offer practically handed to me, the kind of role that makes my father beam with pride. The kind of role people like George brag about at cocktail parties. More money than I’ll ever need in my lifetime.
But the thought of accepting makes me feel… hollow.
I picture myself in another glass tower, endless spreadsheets, clients breathing down my neck about one thing or another. Late nights, early mornings, nothing but a treadmill disguised as a career. It’s everything I know. Everything expected.
And I’m so fucking tired.
The irony isn’t lost on me: I’m in Switzerland, mountains stretched endlessly in front of me, and all I can think about is how trapped I feel. How every choice has been mapped for me before I’ve even considered if I want it.
For years, I told myself that was fine. That was normal. You don’t question the path when it’s been paved so carefully by people who swear they only want what’s best for you.
