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ADAM
Charlotte comes into my office with a stack of magazines, a vase filled with fresh white tulips and a sheepish grin that tells me she’s about to ask a delicate question.
“Can you take a call?”
I shake my head. “Way too busy,” I say, holding up the copy of National Geographic that I’ve been flipping through for the past half hour. “I need to finish the inspiration board for Maxine Hinton’s country place before I leave for the day.”
Charlotte’s eyes flick to the clock behind my desk. “It’s barely noon, Adam. I think you can maybe swing both and still have a few minutes to spare.”
I drop the magazine and sit up in my chair. When I ask who’s on the phone, her answer arrives like a dagger to my heart.
“It’s Liam,” she says in a soft voice. “He sounds pretty bad this time.”
I’m staring at the phone and thinking about the last time I saw Liam when Charlotte drums her fingertips on the desk.
“Earth to Adam,” she whispers. “Anybody home in there?”
I rotate slowly in the chair until I’m facing her. The warmth and compassion in her eyes is like a bolt of clarity. You can do this, I hear the tiny voice say in the back of my mind. Just pick up the phone, listen carefully and then tell him to fuck off.
But when I hear Liam’s voice a few seconds later, as Charlotte sits across from me for moral support, I feel the familiar pang somewhere deep inside my battered heart. It’s no longer love. Or affection. It’s a simple sadness, the sense that I’m hearing the voice of a man who is so far off the path that most of us walk on that he’s lost all logic and reason and honesty.
“Ah, there you are,” he says in the familiar croaky rasp. “How’s it going, stud?”
I pull in a breath to calm my nerves. “What do you want, Liam?”
“I want to know how you are,” he says. “But maybe your hearing’s going, huh? Huh, old man?”
I clench my teeth. “I’m fine. So good of you to ask.”
Charlotte learns forward in her chair, props both elbows on her knees and cups her chin. “Keep it short,” she whispers. “But don’t be mean.”
Liam hums into the phone. “Oh, how sweet,” he says. “Is that fat fucking Charlotte I hear in the background?”
I take another breath, let it out slowly and then repeat my original question.
“What do I want?” Liam answers. “I want what I’m owed, stud. I want the money that you promised me when I had to move out.”
“I never promised you anything,” I say in a calm, measured tone. “But I did transfer a pretty hefty sum to your checking account so you wouldn’t be destitute.”
He laughs. “Hefty? You call thirty grand hefty?”
“It should’ve been sufficient to help you get settled,” I reply.
“Thirty grand’s nothing to a rich fucker like you,” Liam snaps. “A drop in the ocean, right? But I know what you’re doing, okay? You’re trying to—”
“What am I doing, Liam?”
“You’re trying to fucking punish me,” he spits. “I asked you if I could borrow the money. I asked you! I didn’t take it without your knowledge or permission.”
I close my eyes and lean back in the chair. For the next few minutes, while Liam goes down the same rabbit hole that he drops into whenever we talk, I concentrate on breathing and counting to ten and listening to my heart pounding in my ears. As soon as he finishes the harangue, I open my eyes, look across the desk at Charlotte and tell Liam that I need to get off the phone.
“We’re not done yet!” he says with a cold, bloodless edge. “You owe me the rest of what you promised.”
“I have to go,” I say. “I need to finish up some things this afternoon so I can get to an early client dinner.”
“What about my money?” he demands. “What about the help that you promised me?”
“I wish you well with your business,” I say. “But the money isn’t going to happen.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Liam says. “After everything that I gave to you, I can’t believe you’d just deny me this one last favor.”
I laugh. “What did you give me, Liam? As I recall, you quit your job the minute that I invited you to move in with me. You quit working and started spending.”
“Wasn’t that our arrangement, Daddy?”
My body tightens. “Don’t call me that ever again,” I hiss before hanging up the phone.