I hit the intercom button on the desk phone. “Anne? Do you know what this meeting with my dad is about?”
My secretary gets up and walks to my door. “Nope. Just said to put fifteen minutes on your schedule.”
“Thanks.” I consider this for a moment as she goes back to her desk. He had dinner with the Reillys last night, but if this is about them, it must be business related for an office summons. Or maybe it’s something totally unrelated?
I decide not to sweat it, but within a minute of arriving at his office, I realize I should have been sweating it the whole time.
“Had dinner with the Reillys last night.”
“How did it go?” I ask.
“Have a seat, son.”
This is the first hint that I’m not going to like this conversation, and as I take the chair opposite him, I feel like a pawn being moved on a chessboard.
“Presley kept asking about you,” my dad says.
“That’s nice of her.”
My dad gives me a level look. “How about if we cut to the chase?”
There’s not much point in subtext or dancing around stuff when you know each other so well.
“Hit me,” I say, brushing nonexistent lint from my slacks.
“It was an issue that you weren’t there. More of an issue than I expected it to be,” he says. “You know how JP is about her. When she was so disappointed that you hadn’t made it, the rest of the dinner was . . .” He pauses and thinks. “Stiff. I got the sense that he was holding it against me. An undercurrent of resentment. That’s not normal between us.”
That’s true. My dad’s friendship with JP is so long-standing that it’s always felt like its own thing, outside of their work arrangements or anything else.
“Thanks for running interference for me,” I say.
“They’re in town through the weekend. I need you to come to dinner tonight. At the house. I offered when the mood felt so weird last night. I thought it would give me a chance to reset a bit with JP. Get us back to normal. But you’re going to have to be there. It’ll be too hard to explain why you’re not at afamilydinner.”
“Dad . . .”
He holds up his hands. “I know. I’m not asking you to propose marriage to Presley. But I’m telling you that as your managing partner, I think this matters on the business side. And as your father, I’m asking you to help me navigate a relationship with an old family friend that feels off at the moment.”
It’s a double whammy. There’s no way I can say no. “Sure, Dad. I’ll be there. But I’m not going to lead Presley on.”
“Wouldn’t expect you to, but maybe JP was offended when you didn’t show, and this will fix that. Then you can have whatever conversation you need to have with Presley so it’s not an issue again.”
“I’ve already had this conversation with Presley. She didn’t listen.”
“Son, you’re a moot court champion. Use your skills.”
I roll my eyes. Winning law school mock trial my final year and handling Presley have nothing to do with each other, and he knows it. “Fine.”
“Dinner at 7:00.” He turns back to his computer, a clear dismissal.
I take the stairs back to my floor to burn off some of my annoyance. It would be one thing if I was ghosting Presley, but I’m not. I’ve told her—as kindly as I could—that I’m not interested. I don’t know how to make it any clearer.
I stew about it the rest of the day, and when I leave around 6:00, plenty of other people are still working even though the firm technically closes at 5:00. There’s no such thing as being truly off the clock if the client’s retainer is big enough.
At home, I climb out of my car the same time as Sami is unlocking hers to leave.
“Hey,” she says, smiling.
I haven’t seen her since our Tuesday night balcony chat. I’ve taken to checking my balcony every night before I go to sleep on the off chance she’s out there.
