Zeke let a beat pass and then hit him with, “You need to come back to work. Halsey is fretting. You turned your phone off, no one can reach you. I don’t want to be CEO. Neither of the girls do. I don’t know how to continue with Brainstorm, and I’ve already annoyed everyone.”
“It’s your turn. Did you think I was going to want to do that job forever?” He balled the sandwich bag in his hand and tossed it at a trash can. It missed. “It’s a grind. Unrelenting.”
“Yeah, I did. We all did. You love that unrelenting job, and we’d follow you anywhere, like we have since we were kids.”
He didn’t need to hear that. He picked up the sandwich bag, stepped back, aimed, and tossed. Missed again. He could well have led them into total financial ruin by trusting Fin.
“Look, the rain is letting up.” It was thumping down, and he didn’t want to know about Sherwood; it was too painful to think about what he’d lost. “Shit happens. I don’t get to have Fin, and I’m not fit for the corner office.”
“It’s still there, waiting for you. We’re all waiting for you.”
God, that was infuriating. He shouldn’t have to pitch his own family on the reason why they were better off without him. “I fucked up. I’m not capable of being the leader right now.”
“You fucked up, but everyone does. Everyone lies, everyone cons, everyone fucks up. It’s not like there’s a higher standard for you than the rest of us. Also, how the hell do you handle Mom? She looks you in the face and lies if she thinks it’ll keep one more albatross from eating a plastic bottle top.”
Cal rescued the wet sandwich bag and tossed it again, a lazy looping throw that should’ve missed. It didn’t. “You only want me back so you can go cult busting.”
“I want you back because you were born for leading us, I was born for cult busting, and Halsey was born to the wrong family because he hates uncertainty. Sherin might be right about cyber fraud eating our lunch, Tresna is seriously out of control, and Rory is over you and doing fine now. You had a close call. You got your heart broken and your pride smashed. That’s all this is.”
The rain had slowed to a sprinkle. The air smelled of wet rubber and greasy sidewalk, and people were starting to reappear.
“Fin despises me. The woman I love made me her mark. She took my money and ran.”
“I get it. You need time to sulk.”
Cal pulled his card table out from where he’d stowed it to keep it dry. He had to shove Zeke out of his way to get to it. “I’m not sulking. I’m regrouping.” He was sulking. Nothing made sense without Fin. He put the marble under the middle cup. “If you’re sticking around, you
need to play, otherwise you’re poisoning my well.”
Zeke flipped him off and laughed as he stepped away. Cal watched him disappear into the crowd of pedestrians. His heart cracked, pride bruised, ego in tatters. He should’ve been watching his game.
“I’ll play.”
He looked around slowly because the city was loud, and he was distracted thinking it was only luck it was Zeke who’d come to remind him who he was meant to be and not Mom.
“What do I do?” she said.
She was pale and had dark smudges under her eyes. Her hair glittered with raindrops and his whole body tensed, every sense set ringing.
She touched a fingertip to the middle cup. “I’m not very skilled at games. I get confused about the rules and when you can break them. But I’m a fast study with the right instruction.”
The card table wasn’t much of a barrier, but it was enough, combined with the weight of unspoken things between them, to stop him reaching for her. “You look like you can handle anything to me.” She looked like bravery and hope and everything he wanted for the rest of his life. All she had to do was stand there.
“But you’re a sweet-talker. King of the pitch. Can’t believe a thing you say.”
Her tone was lighter than her accusation and easier than he deserved. “Guilty as charged.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “I like your sweet-talk. I appreciate what you can accomplish with it.”
She was flirting. If she’d have come at him with an axe, it would’ve been less surprising. “What are you doing here, Finley?” A wrecked heart should make him numb; it made him seesaw, teeter, angst and anticipation at war in his limbs.
“I came to play.”
“This isn’t the game for you. It’s impossible to win.”
She folded her arms. “You see, once upon a time if someone said that to me, I’d have thought, yeah, too hard, I’m not going to waste my time. I didn’t commit. I was a quitter. A flaky little wannabe. I’d have moved on, left the mess behind. But I’m not that person anymore. Now I think, bring it. I’ll deal.”
Ah Fin. “You can get hurt.”