He nods. “I think I am. I understand what Dad was trying to do, I really do. I’ve been a useless piece of shit. I get that. But this isn’t going to change me in the way he wants. It’s not going to repair my relationship with Delia. If anything, it’s going to make it worse.”
“So…what? You just refuse?” I eye him; I can tell he’s feeling the alcohol, but there’s no humor in him, no levity. He’s more serious than I’ve ever seen him, and I’ve known him literally my whole life.
He blinks rapidly, brows furrowing even deeper, and then he straightens, head tilting, jaw clenching.
“I know that look,” I say. “That’s your lightbulb moment face.”
He turns to face me, scotch forgotten. “Buy me out.”
I cough around a swallow of scotch. When I’m done hacking, I speak my question through a hoarse and raspy throat. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me, bitch. Buy—me—out. I’ll sell it to you for a fucking steal. Nickels on the dime, or whatever the phrase is.”
I ask the obvious question: “Why not just sell to your sister?”
“What’s the fun in that?” he says, chortling. “At least if I sell you to, I’d get some entertainment out of this whole fucked-up situation.” He tosses back another sip, then gestures at me with the tumbler. “Hell, you and Delia might make a great team, if you don’t kill each other first. I mean, all that angst and anger could be redirected into running a business instead of at each other.”
“I need another shot,” I mumble, even though I’m still working on my second double. I glance at him. “You’re serious about this?”
“Hell yes,” he says. “Listen, I know my dad always thought that the business should go to family, but youarefamily and I think you could do an amazing job of taking the business to the next level. What do you have to lose?” He gestures at me again with his glass. “You’ve been getting all into this ‘I’m a businessman, look at me doing business’ thing, right? Investing, shit like that? Well, what better place to invest than a company you know damned well is a certain success. With Delia at the helm, as president and CEO, you have to know that McKenna Construction is going to not only continue its current success trajectory, but most likely do even better. Dee was born and bred for one thing—to run that business. She couldn’t fail at it if she tried.”
I arch an eyebrow at him. “One problem with your little plan, bud.”
“And that is?”
“There is no one on this planet your sister hates more than me.” I laugh at the idea of showing up at the next board meeting—at how apoplectic she’d be. “It may solveyourproblem, if you’re willing to give up the millions of dollars you’d get if you just sucked it up for half a year and did the work. And it may be good for me, because yeah, you’re right, McKenna is absolutely the safest bet I can think of, as long as I survive your sister when she finds out what you did. And shit, Dell, we do this,you’d have to go into Witness Protection because your sister would flat out fucking murder you.”
She hates me with damn good reason, something I increasingly find myself regretting and embarrassed about as I get older. I haven’t seen her in a good ten years, but I find myself awake at night, sometimes, thinking with a burning pit of guilt in my stomach about all the horrible things I did and said to her over the years. I teased her mercilessly—about her weight, her appearance, the books she read, the things she said. If she misspoke, I mocked her. If she showed even an ounce of pride in something, I went out of my way to cut her down. Looking back, I’m not even sure why I was the way I was to her. I mean, I was a dick to everyone, because my family had more money than god, I was good-looking and popular, which meant I was an arrogant, entitled, egotistical bastard. But Delia McKenna? I went after her harder than anyone.
Shit, I once destroyed, on purpose, her most prized possession, a mint-condition first edition hardcover ofHarry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I took it from her hands and threw it in a mud puddle—it was straight out ofBeauty and the Beast, honestly. I did it for no other reason than to make her cry. And I succeeded.
Yeah, me owning half the company would give her an aneurism.
“You once claimedyoucould get along withher,” Dell says, shaking me from my guilt-ridden line of thought.
“I could.” Assuming she didn’t—rightfully—kick me in the sack, first.
“Prove it.”
I sigh. “Dell, buddy. You don’t understand. It’s not me you have to convince, it’s her.”
“I thought you’re all grown up, Thai.” He’s got me, and he knows it. His shit-eating grin is abominable. “You mean to tell me you can’t do it? You can’t be a mature, responsible businessman around my sister?”
I groan. “This is a bad, bad,badidea, Dell.”
“Which is why it’s a great idea,” he says, the shit-eating grin spreading even wider. “One last prank.”
“Except this one has lasting, real-world consequences. You’re talking millions of dollars—shit, tens of millions. You’re talking ownership of a company with hundreds, if not thousands, of employees. Their lives. Their careers, their futures. This isn’t something you do on a lark, Dell. Sure, in a lot of ways, I’m still the same old me I’ve always been. But Ihavegrown up, Dell. I genuinely want to start accomplishing things with my life beyond the playboy bullshit. I’m taking it seriously. And if I were to buy you out—and that’s a seriously bigif, here—I’d take it seriously. I wouldn’t be a silent investor. I’d be involved. I’d want to be fifty percent of running that company. With your sister. Delia McKenna. The girl whose life I made it my mission to ruin, every single day for eighteen fucking years. When I say shehatesme, that’s not an exaggeration.” I lean closer to him. “The day we graduated, that party we threw?”
“When she put a snake down your pants?”
I squirm, remembering. “That snake was inches from biting my dick, man. Still have nightmares about it.” I shudder. “Anyway. Yeah, that. I followed her into the woods, and she fucking…she flat out told me she hoped my plane crashed. And she wasn’t kidding.” I sigh, grimacing. “And I can’t say I blame her. I was kind of a monster.”
“I was right there with you. Thus the fact that we’re basically estranged.”
I wince at the truth that their estrangement is at least partially my fault. “I just don’t know that you and me doing this to Delia is…a good idea. In fact, it’s a terrible idea. It’d be a whole new kind of torture for her.”
“I mean, yeah, I know. Best option for her is for me to take some job in the company where I fulfill the terms of the will in such a way that I’m not in her hair, then take my money and run. But…I don’t know, Thai. I’m just…I have this…I don’t know the words.” A long silence, as he considers. “I guess I feel like for the first time in my life, I’m going to take a stand.I do not wanthalf the company. And I’m not going to pretend to fulfill Dad’s intentions by spending six months making fucking copies in the marketing office. Dad wanted Delia and I to make up, to get along. He wanted me to…” He swallows hard. “To man up. To be a better person, I guess. And maybe…maybe this is my way of doing it. I just…I have to find my own way. I’m going to get the real crux of what Dad was trying to do, I’m just…I have to do it my way.”
