"I'm sorry," I said peeking up at him and seeing that he was serious. "That must have been rough."
"My father was a rough man," he nodded. "He had a very specific way of seeing the world, and we were expected to adopt that way or suffer the consequences—but this isn't about my childhood. This is about how you feel and what you want to do next."
"It's okay, Jack," I said, sitting up and looking at him. The thoughtful expression on his face told me that he was focused on solving my problems not talking about his own. "It's weird how parents can appear so different to the outside world than they do to their kids, isn't it? My mother is the nicest person on earth to strangers, but at home, when she's been drinking, it's a whole different matter."
"My father was always nicer to strangers than he was to us," Jack admitted. "It made me feel like there was something really wrong with me because I wondered why he couldn't be nice to me, too."
"I've always thought it was because my mother felt so much pressure to make sure we were well behaved and grew up to be successful adults," I said as I leaned into his body. "She didn't have that pressure when it came to strangers."
"I always thought my father was trying to fix what he'd done wrong by making us be better than him," Jack said. "Like he was trying to beat the bad out of us so that we'd be good without having to try so hard."
"My mother did that to Molly, my older sister," I said quietly. "I think it made her go the other way. She escaped into drugs and drinking because she felt like such a failure."
"I think that's what Lincoln and I did, too. We just had the benefit of money and an education," he said sheepishly. "We escaped into success, but it didn't make us better people, that's for sure. I think we're both equally miserable despite the fact that we've achieved everything my father hoped we would, and we both have more money than we know what to do with."
"Are you really that miserable?" I asked.
"I'm not miserable. I'm just not very happy," he sighed. "I feel like I've done everything that I thought would make me happy, and now there's nothing left to do."
"Wow, that's really …" I began, but stopped because I was unsure of what to say next. I didn't have this problem. I had so much I still wanted to do, but I didn't have the resources I needed to be able to do it.
"I know, first world problems, right?" he sighed again. "I feel like my life is so meaningless. Like I'm going through the motions and doing what's expected, but nothing makes me happy anymore."
"Have you thought about seeing a doctor for that?" I teased as I reached up and patted his cheek.
"Ha!" he laughed and was about to say something when a car pulled into the driveway and the front door opened. Jack started to get up and then saw that it was his brother exiting the house. He ducked back down behind the bush in front of us. He put his finger to his lips and said, "Shhh."
Peering through the bush, Jack tried to get a look at the person getting out of the car. When he couldn't, he settled in on the bench and waited to see if he could hear their voices.
"I told you not to come here tonight," Lincoln said tersely. "Everyone's here. What if someone saw you?"
"Oh, do shut up, you silly worrywart," the woman replied. I didn't recognize the voice, but Jack's eyes widened as he listened. "I have information that can't be transmitted via phone or email, and it's urgent."
"Fine, tell me what you need to tell me, and then get the hell out of here," Lincoln said.
"The Chinese are ready to make a deal on the warehouse operation, and the buyers from New Delhi are ready to take over the ordering portion and the customer service phone support," she said as if ticking things off a list. "I think we need to settle the deal with the Chinese before we talk with the Indians. Otherwise we're going to have a hell of a time selling them the partial pieces."
"You should have thought of that before you started bolstering the warehouse operation stateside, Sloan," he replied.
Now it was my turn to look at Jack with wide eyes. I wasn't sure that what I was hearing was correct, but the implications were clear: Lincoln and Sloan were working together to break up Baby Steps. I felt Jack's arm tighten around me and saw him put his finger to his lips again to remind me to stay quiet. I nodded and continued listening.
"If we can break down the pieces of the company, we can sell them at a substantial profit and pay off the shareholders before we take our cut of the deal," Lincoln said. "But you have to stop coddling my little brother. You know we only picked him because we thought he'd run the company into the ground so that he could get back to doing what he was doing before the old man kicked it."
"You're such a cold-hea
rted jerk," Sloan said with laugh, and then more quietly, "I love that about you."
Jack slid forward and pushed the bushes apart enough to see that Lincoln and Sloan were locked in a passionate embrace.
"Son of a bitch," he muttered under his breath.
"Shhhh," I remind him. He nodded and slid back on the bench, his hand squeezing my shoulder tightly.
"I'll take care of your little brother," Sloan said after a lengthy silence. "You take care of sinking the renovation loan and making it look like a bad business deal. If all goes according to plan, we should be able to get out from under this thing in the next month. I want it off the table by the time you make a break with Jessie, and we start to plan the next step."
"Uh, yeah, about that," Lincoln began.
"Don't tell me you're getting cold feet," she said in a terse voice. "I told you when we began this thing that I wasn't going to take no for an answer, Lincoln. I put you in a position to capitalize on the deals that the bank made. You're not going to back out on me now."