I’d been summoned.
The only times that happened was when I was doing something he didn’t approve of.
He = my father.
Our relationship was tumultuous at best. It hadn’t always been like that. Well, yeah, maybe it had. But the past few years, it became more so.
For a long time, I told myself it was because a boy couldn’t be his own man if he was still standing in the shadow of his father.
However, the fact I was answering his summons and stepping into an elevator at his office kinda proved, in a way, I would always be in his shadow. I guess it never mattered how grown a son became; he was still in some ways vulnerable to his father.
A point that actually made me bitter.
Not on my behalf, though, but on my brother’s.
It seemed to me a powerful man such as Sullivan Lorhaven raised two kinds of kids:
1.) Powerful, strong-willed ones who could withstand anything and had a hungry drive
or
2.) Insecure, shy ones who were afraid they would never meet their father’s expectations.
I was the first kind. Unfortunately, Arrow was the second. I didn’t blame him. I blamed my father for making him that way, and that was just one more reason the chasm between us had grown.
I also blamed myself.
I actually thought after so many years, my father would grow to approve what I’d chosen to do with my life, but it was as it had been since he bailed me out of the betting trouble.
Reluctant acceptance.
There was a time a couple years ago when I thought that changed, back when I’d caught the eye of the pro division only long enough for me to notice them looking. After that, I spent all my energy trying to get a tryout.
I failed at every turn. Rejection sucked.
I learned my father kept tabs on me, on my career. He got me an interview and a tryout. He even came to the hangar to see my car, and I showed him how I was preparing it for the tryout.
That tryout was a big fucking waste of my time. I felt so stupid that sometimes I still tasted the bitter flavor of it on the back of my tongue.
Here’s the thing about the pro division: they’re a bunch of stuck-up pricks.
A bunch of snobby, rich old men in suits who’ve never driven a car in their life (that’s what limo drivers were for, you know) called all the shots. And they liked exclusive. It made them feel superior, because without their money and ties, they’d have nothing at all.
I didn’t pass quality control.
Yeah, I had a rich father, good breeding, and a healthy bank account. Not even money could buy my way past the fact I’d spent all my time leading up to my tryout on the streets with people who didn’t have the right names and reputations.
Fucking burned me up inside. Still did when I thought about.
It didn’t matter I drove like a champ, had a father who would back me if necessary (my first choice was my own sponsor, but my father would have sponsored me in some way), and met all and I mean all of the qualifications necessary to be drafted into the pros.
All they saw was a street racer.
Third place wasn’t good enough in my first NRR race. You know why?
Because it wasn’t a big enough fuck you.
Sometimes when people refused to notice you, you had to make them notice.
Oh, and the pro division would notice me. They’d fucking regret the day they told me I wasn’t good enough.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one who took that rejection personally. My father did, too. Instead of taking it out on the men who made the decision, he looked at me like I’d somehow been lacking something, causing the refusal.
In his eyes, if I couldn’t be the best in the pro division and hopefully make it to a NASCAR race, then there was no reason to drive at all. To him, my efforts were a waste.
It didn’t matter that while doing all this and running my own turf, I held down a job. At one of his companies.
It paid well, so between my salary, all the races I won, and cars I sold, I didn’t need his money anymore. My trust fund literally sat untouched.
The day I signed my sponsorship deal with Brickstone, I quit my day job.
It was my way of giving the old man the finger.
I’d seen him only once since then. Made me wonder why I got a call this evening, why my presence at his swanky office was practically demanded.
I didn’t have time for this.
We were leaving in the morning for Colorado. I should be focusing on the race. Yet here I was, stepping off the wide-paneled elevator with its sleek, polished stainless doors. The floors were made of large marble tiles the color of sand. They stretched out across the wide, rectangular room with a giant mahogany desk sitting in the center, toward the wall.
On that wall was a large custom-created fountain. The sound it made reminded me of a rushing stream and added to the atmosphere of basically my father’s “reception” area.
There was a large inlaid L on the front of the reception desk, polished so completely I could see the reflection of my jean-clad legs.
Hell no, I didn’t dress up.
I was here. That was all he was getting.
Bethany, my father’s assistant, was sitting at her post with a Bluetooth device hooked over one ear. When she looked up, I gave her a lazy, charming smile.
Bethany was probably my age, maybe even younger. Her long, blond hair probably wasn’t real; neither were her huge tits. Her eyes were blue, and her lips had injections. She stood as I approached, revealing her very professional outfit of a red, skintight pencil skirt and a blouse with a bunch of ruffles around the neck and a plunging neckline.
She was an attractive woman, which was why she worked here. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find out she was sleeping with my father. Hell, she probably climbed under his desk when he had an hour’s worth of conference calls and sucked him off.
That’s how she paid for half her beauty.
Yep, I was an asshole. But it was the truth.
“Hey, Bethany,” I said.
“Lorhaven,” she said, breathless. I wondered if she talked like that because she thought it made her sound sexy. Personally, I liked women who didn’t have to try to be sexy.
Like Josie.
“I didn’t know you were coming this evening.”
That’s because you weren’t blowing my dad when he called and told me to come over.
“Last-minute call,” I explained, and she nodded. “I’ll see myself in.”
“Well, I should call him.” She worried.
“He’s expecting me,” I called over my shoulder as I headed toward his office. It was located at the end of the hall behind two mahogany doors. His name was on both doors.
You know, in case Barbie, I mean Bethany, forgot his name on her way in to bring him his coffee.
So maybe I was angry. I had every right to be.
I shoved open the door and let myself in. Sullivan Lorhaven was standing in front of the wall of windows stretching across the entire back wall of the office. He was dressed in a three-piece designer suit and designer shoes.
His hair was dark like mine, almost black, without a hint of grey. I was thinking he had it colored, but I didn’t care enough to ask.
“It’s rude to just barge in,” he said without turning.
“It’s rude to call the son you haven’t spoken to in months and expect him to drop everything and just come over.”
He turned to finally look at me. His tie was blood red, eyes as dark as mine, and I’d never seen him with anything less than a clean shave. “Were you busy?”
“You know the season for the NRR started.”
I might speak to him barely ever, but Sully knew exactly what I was up to. There was no way in hell he didn’t know everything about my career. He was too controlling to not know.
“Going to Colorado soon, right?”
See?
“I’m leaving tomorrow, so if this can wait…” I spread my hands as if to say I had no issue leaving.
He went over to a bar on the opposite side of the room to pick up a crystal glass; it was hand carved and completely stocked. “Drink?” He lifted the glass decanter filled with dark-colored liquor.
“I prefer beer,” I said. Honestly, I liked it all. I just liked to get under his skin.
On another note, I wasn’t going to drink in front of him. That implied I needed a drink to be in the room with him. I didn’t. I was stronger than that.
He shrugged and poured a few fingertips of the stuff into his glass and carried it over to sit down behind his desk.
There was a couch near the bar and a couple club chairs. He could have sat there. But then he wouldn’t be able to “intimidate” me with his power.
I sat in a chair opposite his desk, kicking back in a relaxing manner. The ends of my leather jacket fell open and away from my body.
All I had on beneath it was a white T-shirt. I’d been wearing a lot of them lately.
“I read the article on you in this month’s GearShark issue.”
It was out? How the fuck did I miss that? “Rushed right out to the stands to get it, did you?”
“Actually, the publisher sent me several copies. They know you’re my son.”
Was he trying to imply he was the reason I was on the cover? That I got into the NRR?
He could kiss my ass.
I made sure my voice sounded good and bored. “That’s right. I forgot. You don’t do mundane things such as buy magazines.”
He sighed and sat forward. “Actually, when Bethany came in this morning, she was waving it around. I thought the copies I received were advanced. I didn’t realize they were out. But she’d gotten it at the coffee shop around the corner. I sent her back to buy the rest.”
I didn’t say anything. Just waited for him to get to the point.
He sighed again. “I do care about you, Jace.”
“Don’t call me that,” I bit out.
He frowned. He couldn’t understand why in the past several years, I pretty much chewed off everyone’s head who dared use my first name. He and Mother might have chosen that name, but that didn’t give him the right to use it.
Not anymore.
It denoted a certain familiarity to me. A closeness he and I did not have. My father didn’t know me. Not many people did. My first name was reserved.
Reserved for those I deemed fit enough to use it.
Right now, that was only two people: Arrow and Josie.
Arrow barely used it, choosing instead to mostly call me Lor. That left Josie… the girl who maybe didn’t know me that well, but maybe would. I should have called her. Texted. Something. My pride got in the way. My need to never chase after a person.
Maybe some people were worth chasing.
“I know we don’t talk much, but I’m always here if you need me.” My father spoke, reminding me I was in his office.
“What about your other son?” I challenged.
He sat back, voice becoming tight. “I didn’t call you here to argue.”
“Why did you call me here?”
“To tell you I’m proud of you.”
There were a few seconds of dead silence while I processed what he said. “You’re proud of me,” I echoed.
“Yes, that article was well done. It’s clear you’ve made a name for yourself and your career is really taking off.”
“Are you surprised?”
“No, I always knew you’d succeed in everything you wanted to.”
I made a scoffing sound. “That’s a load of horse shit.”
He took a sip of his drink and studied me as I swallowed. “Why?”
“You really need to ask me that?” I challenged. What was the point of this?
“Have I not always supported you? Gotten you out of trouble, making sure the details stayed buried so you could continue to do what you do?”
“Writing some checks isn’t what I call support; it’s making sure your name doesn’t go up in flames.”
“Protecting one’s image isn’t something to be ashamed of. I would think you know all about that. You have quite an image and reputation of your own.”
He had me there.
“I haven’t shunned one of my sons, though, for the sake of my good name,” I retorted with some anger.
“I have my plane at my airstrip. It’s fueled up and on standby. You just need to call in your flight plan so it can be filed. The pilot has instructions to wait in Colorado until you’re ready to return home.”
“I already have plane tickets.” I hadn’t expected him to reply to my previous accusation. He couldn’t.
“Yes, well, this will be more comfortable. No lines, airport headache, and no layovers.”
“Why would you do this?”
“I told you. I’m proud of you, son. I want to support you. I want to see you succeed.”
“I took third place in my first race,” I said. It wasn’t a win. Not to me and, therefore, definitely wouldn’t be to him. He was the only person to which I would essentially slam myself to get the better of.
“Third place is commendable. You’ll only come up from there.”
I blinked. I wasn’t expecting that. So I tried again. “Arrow is coming with me to Colorado.”
“I assumed as much.”
Was this the Twilight Zone?
“I’m trying here, Lorhaven.” He spoke. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately. When a man gets as old as me, he starts to do some reflecting, and I’ve come to regret the way our relationship has been.”
“You? Regret?” I raised my eyebrows.
“When your mother died, I should have been a better father, more present. I just… Losing Jackie was very hard. I loved your mother very much. You remind me of her, you know.” His face softened, which gave way for his age (his late sixties). A wistful tone I didn’t think I’d ever heard filled his usually crisp voice.
My stomach knotted, and I swallowed past the lump in my throat. My mother died when I was five. I didn’t have a lot of memories of her because I was so young, but the ones I did have I carried close to my heart. She was a good person, kind, generous, but also strong.
I always heard she was the kind of woman who never put up with my father’s bullshit and would storm right into his office to put him in his place whenever she thought it necessary.
I had a picture of her in my head I knew was from my own experiences, not just the photograph that still sat framed on Dad’s desk.
Her hair was long, the color of glittering black diamonds. In my memory, it was so straight it reflected light, and when she smiled down at me, it fell like a curtain around her slim face.
She’d been a model in Paris before she married my father. She spoke French, and her English had an accent that used to lull me to sleep. She was tall, nearly six feet, very thin, and had brown eyes with a hint of honey inside.
She loved me, enough that even now I felt it. Sometimes I thought of her at night when I lay in bed, and I wondered what my father would be like if she hadn’t died so suddenly.
“Funny, most people say I’m like you,” I replied, trying to get a little distance from the memories flooding through my emotions.
“You are.” He laughed. “But she’s the reason you’ve gone your own way and you have no problem giving me a hard time.”
I saw the love he had for her in his face just then… It made some of the anger I always felt toward him slip away.
“You remarried.” It was meant to be a statement but came out like an accusation.
“I thought you liked Donna. She was good to you. Still is.”
Donna was my father’s second wife. He married her about two years after my mom died of a freak heart attack at an age no one thought women died of heart attacks.
Donna was Arrow’s mother and really the woman who raised me. The second she came into my father’s mansion, she looked at me like her own, never once implying I wasn’t. That was one thing about my father… He had good taste in wives.
But the women he cheated on them with were another story.
“I do like her. Still see her a lot.”
He nodded. “I figured.”
They’d gotten divorced several years ago. Another product of his treatment of Arrow (and probably his affairs). Donna wasn’t about to stand by and accept it. Arrow was her son, and it didn’t matter to her if he was gay or looked like Justin Bieber. She loved him.
I just wished she’d been a little stronger, a little faster, because maybe if she had, my brother wouldn’t have suffered so much.
“She’s doing all right, then?”
“She’s fine,” I said. He knew that. He’s the one who bought her the million-dollar estate she moved to.
“It’s one of the main reasons I married her, you know. Because I knew she’d be wonderful to you. Since I couldn’t seem to pull myself together, I wanted you to have at least one parent who was present.”
“Do you want me to be grateful?” I asked. “Thankful you got me a replacement mother and not mad you were never around except to tell us when we weren’t good enough? Your money can’t buy that.”
“I realize that. I’d like an opportunity to not make up for the past, but perhaps have a better relationship in the future.”
“Why?” I asked, blunt.
“Because I don’t want to die with regrets.”
Clearly, he was better at being blunt than me.
“What about Arrow?” I challenged.
His eyes clouded over. “I’d like to try with him as well. I thought maybe you could speak to him.”
I barked a laugh and stood. “Is that why I’m here? Because you want me to convince my brother to forgive you for all the shit you’ve done? Fuck that and fuck you. My loyalty is to him.”
“Don’t you take that tone with me.” He also stood. “I’m well aware of how fucked up my relationship with my son is. I don’t need you to tell me, and I sure as hell don’t need you to fix it.”
I got the asshole side of my personality from him.
“I thought maybe you could just see if he’d be willing to talk to me.”
“He isn’t,” I said, stubborn.
“Ask.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” I replied and started for the door.
“Lorhaven.” His commanding voice stopped me. What a stark contrast it was when he talked about my mother.
He never sounded like that when he talked about Donna.
Had losing my mom been something that altered him forever? Was she the only one he’d ever really loved?
“I really did just want to tell you I read the article, I’m proud of you, and I’ve been watching your career. You’ve earned where you are today.”
I swung back around. “Thank you.”
I wished I could say his words didn’t mean anything. But they still did.
“Your mother would be proud, too. She’d be in the stands at every race.”
Again, my stomach clenched. It felt heavy, like it was going to sink down inside me and, on its way, take out all my other organs in the process.
“I have to go,” I said.
“So the girl,” he said, ignoring my words. “The one on the cover with you.”
“What about her?” I challenged. That sinking feeling I had in my stomach rapidly left, and familiar tension coiled inside me.
He’d better watch himself bringing up Josie.
“You don’t think women belong in racing,” he stated.
“I don’t think you can say shit to me about discrimination.”
He smiled. “That’s the thing, son. I know all about discrimination, and that look on your face…” He lifted a copy of GearShark off his desk.
I hadn’t even noticed it lying there. My eyes went right to Josie, to the way she curled into my back.
It made me hungry.
So goddamn hungry.
My father went on. “The look on your face in this photo, that’s not it.”
“What are you saying?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Don’t be stupid like me, son. Don’t push people away. I had the look you have in your eyes once, a long time ago. I lost it. I spent the rest of my life buried in work and pissing everybody off. Here I am at sixty-seven, with piles of money, but I have to practically threaten my own son to come see me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I lied.
“You’re on the cusp right now. A career, a woman, a life you want. Don’t fuck it up.”
His words made me uncomfortable. He was an asshole, but he wasn’t dumb.
Once again, I started to leave.
Stopped.
I didn’t look at him. Instead, I kept my back turned. It was easier to ask what I wanted without looking him in the eye.
“When the pros shot me down a couple years ago, why’d you drop me? Why’d you forget I existed again?”
“You’ve always existed to me, Jace,” he said, and I stiffened. “But you had to do the work to get to where you are right now. I couldn’t do it for you, because you’re the type of man who has to make it on his own for it to count. I backed off. I see now I backed off too far, but it was only because I knew you would make your way. I’ve always been here, watching, silently cheering you on.”
I cleared my throat and pulled the door open. Out in the hallway, his voice followed.
“Don’t forget about the plane. It’s waiting.”
I pulled the wood shut and went to the elevator. If Bethany said anything to me, I didn’t hear. This conversation was the last thing I expected. I was used to heated exchanges and criticism. I was angry with my father for so many things.
Right now, it was hard to be one hundred percent angry.
Some of me was too tired for that. I felt in a lot of ways shell-shocked.
Was my father not exactly who I thought all these years? Was there a little more buried beneath his cold, distant, and judgmental persona?
Did it really even matter? A lot of damage had been done in the past several years, some of it irreversible. One conversation wouldn’t make it better.
Sure made me feel like I’d been kicked in a kidney, though.
If I’d been missing Josie before, I did even more now.
I wasn’t sure when I’d see her again, but suddenly, whenever that was just wasn’t soon enough.
I pulled out my phone and shot off a text.
It was only one word, but to me, it was more. Maybe in some ways, it was a test. A way for me to see if the look my father said was in my eyes was reciprocated.
Would she understand what I didn’t say?
Or maybe…
Maybe that text was just my way of reaching out to someone who didn’t want anything from me. Someone who made me feel a little like the man I was (though flawed and fucked up) was all I needed to be.