Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
He just wanted to point out the discrepancy; that he could. Most importantly, that he always would. As if Lucas could forget.
Without another word, Ronald stood from Lucas’ chair and walked around the desk with a careful eye on the wall and contents of the room. He left his blazer jacket still hanging over the chair where Lucas should sit.
Where his jacket should go.
“I noticed you redecorated,” his father muttered, his muscular back bulging against his silk dress shirt from the grip at which he held his hands behind his back. It had tension written all over it.
Ronald needed to make a point, now. His pride wouldn’t forgive him if he didn’t because in some way, he must have felt like Lucas got the better of him that morning. It always happened, and unfortunately for Lucas, he long ago figured out that regardless of whether he engaged his father or not … the end result remained the same.
“I took a few things off the wall,” Lucas said. “I had them sent over—”
“Mmm, it’s in the garage,” Ronald interrupted as he came up to one glass shelf that hadn’t changed in the office. The one where Mitchel Dalton’s urn sat next to a picture frame of his last company approved photo, and a plaque with relevant details. One other condition, and request by default, of his late grandfather’s final Will and Testament.
“Should have taken that and tossed it in the trash like I’ll do for the rest of it,” his father uttered.
No, they weren’t doing this again.
Lucas had far better things to get to, and not enough emotional energy to expend at his father’s sick expense.
“If you’re done, I have work to do,” Lucas said, opting to get right to the point. “I can move the meeting up if you’d like to get right to that and head out. Isn’t that why your head office in the city is downtown? I thought the rattling of the bottles give you migraines?”
Any excuse.
Ronald used it to make everyone’s life hell.
His father turned on him with a shrug, but the gleam in his eye told Lucas he had tread close to dangerous waters. “I’m thinking of making the transfer back, actually. Even put out some feelers about filling my position out west.”
Lucas balked. “What?”
Was that his heart in his stomach?
Or his stomach in his chest?
“You know,” Ronald said, moving past Lucas in the office as he headed for the door, “when I couldn’t get a hold of you this morning, I called Jacob.”
Lucas froze while those organs inside his body rearranged themselves once more. This time, he couldn’t make his mouth work.
At the door that he yanked open unceremoniously, Ronald faced his son with an unfeeling gaze. “At least, he answered.”
“It’s easier when you just leave him alone, you know?”
Ronald chuckled dryly. “Right, I suppose. I thought maybe you’d whined to him about having to see me throughout the winter, and he’d say that’s why you were ignoring my calls.”
No.
Really, he just had things to do.
Of course, Ronald had to go and bring Jacob into it. A young man who already felt unwanted by the people who were supposed to love him, had far more than enough proof to know he was right, but also hoped it might someday change. An early morning call from one’s father just to abuse and bother him because his older brother wasn’t available wouldn’t help Jacob toward that change.
Not that Ronald gave a single damn.
Another fragile soul to toy with.
He knew just how fragile Jacob’s was, too.
“I’ll see you in the meeting,” Ronald said, taking his leave without another word.
Lucas had his phone pulled out of his back pocket before the door even swung closed. He’d thought it odd that morning when Jacob didn’t call or text like he typically did, but sometimes that happened on Mondays when they both ran late. Especially if his brother’s work at the gym, or animal rescue where he spent the rest of his free time, ran particularly late on the previous Sunday evening.
Jacob stuck to a schedule.
It helped to keep him on track, and his nose clean.
In more ways than one …
“Answer the phone, bro,” Lucas muttered down into the screen of his phone as he waited for the call to connect on the screen.
It didn’t.
Five rings took it through to voicemail.
Lucas tried again.
Same thing.
“Fuck,” he muttered, already trying again. “Come on, Jacob.”
The concern growing in his chest wasn’t for nothing, because once upon a time, Lucas had done this very thing with his little brother. Called and got no answer. Knew something was wrong because of the pit of pain that formed deep in his chest. He tried not to let his mind go to that place. Jacob had spent years proving to Lucas that they would never return to that awful day again.