9VinceThere were a lot of perks to being CEO of Freeman Racing. The money was good. I could get to work late and the worst thing that would happen to me was my superior would tattle to our mother. There was a fantastic diner down the street that delivered amazing boxed lunches. When I wasn’t stuffed with those lunches, the kitchen was usually stocked with goodies Mama made.
Among those perks, one of my favorites was my office. High up in the building, it was the only office with one entire wall made of windows that let me look out over the compound and see what was going on from day to day. Technically, it should have been Quentin’s office. It was our father’s when he owned the company, and he was all ready to hand it over to his oldest son as part of passing the torch of the company, but Quentin declined it. He’d never intended on being in his office all the time and didn’t want to feel compelled to. He would much rather have an office lower down in the building where he was right in the middle of everything.
Besides, he knew much of the administrative work was going to be on me, which meant I needed a better office.
The room was big, bright, and sunny, and being in the somewhat isolated space, let me focus on my daily tasks without a lot of interruption. That was particularly beneficial on days like today. It was a hive of activity around the compound. And finally, all the chaos revolved around a race and not a wedding.
I sounded bitter. Every time I thought about all the hubbub and fluttering around the wedding plans and got frustrated at my family for focusing on them so much, I felt like the Grinch right around Thanksgiving. It wasn’t the way I wanted to feel. It wasn’t like I was upset about my brother getting married. In fact, I was thrilled. Darren was always the quietest and most romantic of the four of us. He tended to stay in the background and observe what was going on rather than jumping right in and being a part of it. If there was anyone who deserved to find a good wife and settle down, it was him.
I just wished the discussions about it could be limited to outside the work environment. Owning so many businesses and having my hands in several others wasn’t an accident. Ever since I was young, I’d had a head for business and determination to make my own way in the professional world. Even before my father retired and Quentin bought the company from him, I knew my future didn’t settle only with racing. Unlike Nick, it never occurred to me to not be a part of the family business. I always wanted to stay close to my family and continue the legacy my father created. But I wanted something for myself as well.
Somehow, seeing everybody lose focus and start concentrating more on what was going on in our personal lives rather than at work made me feel unsettled. The business was a constant in my life. It was something I knew from my earliest recollections. Even when other ones of my businesses have come and gone, or my investments haven’t worked out the way I wanted them to, I didn’t feel completely overwhelmed or discouraged. There was always that sense that the compound was there. The racing was there. The legacy was there.
We were all devoted to it. Even Nick. He might not work for the company, but he was still a part of it. He came to the races and was active on social media. I knew for a fact he had earned us a lot of fans by talking up the races and getting people involved. We were always a close family, and our shared commitment to this one thing made us even closer.
Maybe, in a way, I felt like I was watching that disappear. They were more about the wedding and the baby shower and everything that came after those than they were about what we had always had. I didn’t like the thing I trusted all along and depended on throughout my life becoming less important. I liked Merry and Kelly, and I was happy to have both of them as part of the family. But there was still a twinge of jealousy. I didn’t want to give up my brothers or how tightly knit we’d always been. And I didn’t want to have the company become less of a focus of our family.
That was why I was so excited that day. Everybody was busy. Everybody was running around preparing for the weekend ahead. Most of the races were done at the local track. It was easy to get there the day of the race, set up, and break down immediately after. It made for extremely long days, but it didn’t require extensive traveling or being in unfamiliar surroundings.