I shove it back toward him. “You can’t make me.”
He stares at me. “You sure?” He drums his fingers on the table.
“Damn it, Pop.”
As I open the envelope and fan the enclosed paperwork around me, Pop starts to talk.
“Your mother’s only concern when she lay dying was that she wanted to be sure I took care of you. I always have, or at least I’ve tried.”
A big ball of emotion chokes me.
“She worried about you, Jake. She wanted you to have the life we had. She wanted you to have the happiness we had. She wanted the world for you.”
“And it was your job to get it for me?”
“Fuck no,” Pop bites out. “It was my job to teach you to get it for yourself.”
I can’t speak.
“Your mother was the gold standard. The day she put you in my arms for the first time was the happiest day of my life, Jake.”
“Thanks, Pop,” I choke out.
“I watched you with Laura, and I hoped one day you would come to love her like I loved your mother, but you never did. And she never loved you like your mother loved me. You two just kind of skated along. You were content, but you weren’t really happy. And every time I saw you together, I worried more and more that I was letting your mother down.”
I swallow, but I still can’t speak.
“Then she cheated on you with that big lug in my guest room, and it was the best thing that ever could have happened to you.”
“That big lug took a bullet for me,” I mutter.
Pop waves his hand in the air like he’s waving away smoke. “I don’t give a damn about any of that,” he says. “She did you a favor, because you ended up with Katie, and that girl loves you.”
“She loves you, too,” I say quietly.
“And I love her,” Pop says clearly. “And I love those kids like I would if they were made by you.”
“I know you do, Pop.” I look at the paperwork spread all around me. “What is all this?”
“This is your future, son,” he says. “Your mother inherited this place from her father, and then we ran it together. We raised you here, and we built something wonderful. And now it’s yours and Katie’s. If you want it, that is.”
“You’re giving us the complex?” I can barely breathe.
“Yes.”
“Starting when?”
“Now.”
I can barely ask the question. “What about you?”
He chuckles. “I’ll still be here, you dipshit.”
The clench around my heart eases a little.
“There’s enough money in the business account that you can keep the place running for a few hundred years, and I hope you’ll actively participate and help it grow. If you want to go back to New York, I’ll still be here. But I’d like for you two to run this place with me until I die.”
There’s that clench around my heart again. “You’re not sick, are you, Pop?”