* * *
Dec wasn’t sure how the tradition had started, but on Sunday afternoons if they were all in California, he, Kell, Allan and John, Allan’s best friend, got together for a game of volleyball in Clover Park in Santa Monica. As it happened this Sunday, John was in town for the weekend. While Dec had been in Australia, John and his wife, Patti, had bought a B and B in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, after Patti had sold her interior design company for a small fortune. Dec had learned early on that it didn’t matter who his biological parents were when it came to sports. No one cared as long as he was good at them. And he was. As a child, because he’d had a lot of excess energy, he’d always been signed up for something to keep his nanny from going crazy.
Kell was already there when Dec arrived wearing a sleeveless Sloppy Joe’s T-shirt and a pair of board shorts. He waved when he saw Dec.
“How’s it going, man?”
“Can’t complain,” Dec said. “It’s been too long since I’ve done this.”
“We should have come to see you in Australia,” Kell said.
“Nah,” Dec said with a shrug. They weren’t that kind of family. “You were busy fulfilling Granddad’s dream for you.”
“I doubt he’d be pleased with me yet. The Chandlers are still running Infinity Games.”
“Yeah, about that,” Dec said. He had been slowly realizing there was no way he was going to be able to recommend that Cari lose her job. She was so much a part of the daily operation, he honestly—well, maybe his emotions were influencing him a little—thought she was necessary to the continued success of any division of Infinity.
“Yes?” Kell asked. Even though he kept his dark Ray-Bans on, Dec could feel the cold glare of his stare.
“It’s just not going to be as easy as we’d hoped to separate the Chandlers from the operation.”
“But you’re a genius at this kind of thing. Don’t sell yourself short, Dec. I’m sure you’ll do what any Montrose would do,” Kell said.
Dec nodded. What any Montrose would do. Those words haunted him. He knew how to prove to Kell he was a Montrose through and through, but he was also adopted and his mother’s son. And she’d hated old Thomas Montrose more than anyone else.
Kell pulled his cell phone out. “Sorry, I’ve got to answer this email.”
Dec moved away and let his oldest cousin get back to what he did best: business. It was clear to Dec that Kell wasn’t interested in moving on from the past.
But he’d been raised by their grandfather in that old dilapidated house that Thomas had refused to move out of. His own father was the middle child and Dec had often noticed that his father never measured up. Kell’s father had been killed in the first war in Iraq—Desert Storm. And there was no way Dec’s dad could compete with a dead man even after he married an heiress and poured billions into the family coffers.
“Ready to get your butts handed to you, boys?” Allan called as he and John walked over to them.
“Has he been drinking already?” Dec asked as he shook John’s hand.
“Just cocky as ever,” John said. “Good to have you back in the country.”
“Thanks,” Dec said. “I’ve missed our Sunday games.”
“You don’t look like you’ve been sitting on your ass,” Allan said.
“Not at all. I played squash in Sydney with a few boys from Kanga Games.”
“Good to hear it,” Allan said, reaching over to give him a slap on the shoulder. “John and I have been keeping our game strong. We’re getting to be something of a legend around here.”
John laughed and Kell put his cell phone away to come and join them. “Ready to do this?”
“Sure,” Dec said.
A coin toss determined that Dec and Kell would serve first. Dec took the ball and went to the line. As the game progressed Dec and Kell held their own, but there was a marked difference in the two sides. John and Allan laughed and joked when they missed a shot and had the most ridiculous victory high five that Dec had ever seen.
He and Kell just got on with it and played. He wondered what made Allan so different from them. Was it the fact that his Montrose was a woman? And Grandfather Montrose had treated Aunt Becca like she was a princess instead of pitting her against her brothers?
He thought of his son and realized he wanted DJ to be more like Allan than he or Kell. He wanted his son to be happy and have friends that he laughed with.
He wanted a life of happiness, not bitterness, for the boy. And he knew that if he fired Cari there was no way DJ wouldn’t someday be affected by it.