We sat in a half-circle in front of Ms. K’s desk, all of us trying not to look at each other. My brothers’ motives were probably like my own. We’d all loved Grandfather in our own way, and we’d all mourn in our own way. None of us had ever shared our grief, not when it’d been Grandma Olive, not even when it had been our parents and Aimee. We were just too different, and it hurt too much.

“Thank you for coming so quickly. I know this has been hard on all of you.” Ms. K’s own eyes were red-rimmed, but she sounded professional and collected. I’d always liked and respected her, but my estimation of her had grown immensely over the past few days. “Your grandfather had hoped that he’d be able to rewrite his will back to what it had been, but…”

“Back?” I echoed.

“Originally, your grandfather had intended to split his shares of the company between the four of you. The same with the estate. He had provisions in place in case you wanted to change some things around. Buy out each other’s shares, or various parts of the estate.”

That made sense. I doubted my brothers would want the house, and they might not even want their shares in the company. At least I knew they wouldn’t have a problem with me running things. None of them had said a word when Grandfather had appointed me the CEO. I’d been the only one who’d even wanted to work there in the first place. They all had different interests. Business was the only thing I’d ever wanted to do. The only thing I’d ever been good at.

“He always knew us well enough to know we liked different things,” I said.

One of my brothers made a sound like a smothered laugh, but I didn’t look to see who it was. Ms. K, however, glared to my right, so I assumed it had been Blake.

“He did,” she said. “And he loved the four of you very much.”

“Ms. K, you said this was an urgent matter,” Cai spoke up. “I don’t think offering up platitudes requires urgency.”

Leave it to Cai to say it flat-out like that. He’d never had any tact. Grandfather had always said it was a good thing Cai had gone into a medical field that didn’t require subtlety. He would’ve been shit at doing what I did. Business dealings like mine required both strength and diplomacy.

Ms. K gave him a sharp look. “Is saying how much your grandfather loved you a platitude?”

“No,” Cai agreed. “But that’s personal, and this is business.”

She flinched, and I was tempted to turn around and smack my kid brother upside the back of his head like I had when we were kids, and he’d said something stupid. Couldn’t he see how upset she was? Hadn’t they realized that her relationship with Grandfather had been more than professional?

“I think what my brother’s trying to say is that we’d like to hear what you needed to talk to us about so that we won’t have it weighing on our minds during the funeral.” Slade cut into the conversation with his usual mellow tone.

He did that a lot. Inserted himself into situations that were tense and either said something funny, or like now, something that gave a simple explanation and diffused the tension.

“I don’t see why everyone’s being so damn polite,” Blake muttered under his breath. “None of us are any other time.”

Ms. K shuffled a couple papers on the desk, her cheeks pink.

“Let’s just get this over with, okay?” I said. “I’m sure you’d like to be alone.”

Her eyes met mine briefly, and I saw her gratitude in them. I wondered again how little I must’ve been paying attention if I hadn’t known about her relationship with Grandfather.

“As I was saying.” Her voice was stronger than it had been. “He’d hoped to have the will changed back, but because he hadn’t, it stands as is.”

“What does that mean?” Cai asked.

“Did he write us all out?” Blake slid his eyes toward me. “Or everyone but Jax?”

“He didn’t write any of you out,” Ms. K said. She seemed to have regained her composure and handled the interruptions easily. “It’s not the division of the estate that’s changed, but rather the stipulations that come along with it.”

“Stipulations?” Blake snorted a laugh. “Figures the old man would set up rules we have to follow to get an inheritance we would’ve gotten from our dad anyway.”

And the tension was back.

“He can keep it,” Blake continued. “I don’t need his money.”

I turned as I heard him move, catching him in the middle of standing up.

“Sit down, Blake.” I didn’t shout, but I used the same tone on him that I’d used when he was a kid. To my surprise, he stopped, glared at me, and then sat back down. “Let’s hear her out.”

“Whatever,” he muttered, crossing his arms.

After a beat, Ms. K continued with her explanation.

“Your grandfather didn’t make a list of rules for you to follow.” She almost sounded scandalized by the idea. “He wasn’t like that.”

I could think of plenty of times in my life he’d been exactly like that, and I knew my brothers could too. I didn’t say anything though, and they’d apparently either learned their lesson about interrupting or decided it wasn’t worth the time it would take.

“What he wanted was for you to resolve your differences.”

I waited for the punch line because there had to be one. There was no way that our grandfather would’ve made that a condition.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I finally asked.

“It means that he was aware that the four of you had problems with each other, and he didn’t want you to go through the rest of your lives staying mad at each other.” She paused, and then added, “Everything will be held in trust until such time as I can say that you’re reconciled.”

“What, exactly, does that mean?” I asked slowly. “For the business.”

“It means that, until your grandfather’s shares are distributed, no one really has majority shares in the company since the four of you have an equal number of shares.”

“That could seriously fuck up the business.” I leaned forward, forcing my voice to stay low. “I can’t see Grandfather doing that. Hunter Enterprises is everything – was everything – to him.”

“He made a provision,” she said, “that if you were working on reconciliation, there’s a temporary grant of ownership that will allow you to still oversee the day-to-day workings of the company.”

Okay, that was something.

She stood. “I’m going to step out for a few minutes, let you talk.”

She didn’t say anything else as she left us alone, silence filling the room. I didn’t look at them, but I knew they were doing the same thing I was doing. Waiting for someone else to say something.

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” I finally said. “Just because we’re brothers doesn’t mean we have to be best friends. We just drifted apart. Siblings do it all the time.”

“You would think that,” Blake muttered.

I turned to look at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, his expression mutinous as he got up. “I don’t expect you to get it.”

The three of us watched as he stormed out, looking, even at twenty-eight, like the little boy who used to get so angry when told it was time for bed. I looked at Slade and then at Cai, wondering if either one of them thought this was necessary.

“I need to call in,” Cai said. “I said I would as soon as I knew more about the arrangements.”

As he walked out, he was reciting a list under his breath, something that consisted of lots of scientific words I didn’t understand.

Slade gave me a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “What do you say we figure out what it is we have to say to each other to get this taken care of? Then we can go back to our regular lives and never have to think about each other except to mail Christmas cards.” He stood. “It seems pretty clear that’s what everyone wants.”

As he left, I wondered about what he said. Was that what he thought?

Was it what I thought?

Was it what I wanted?

And, more importantly, did it even matter anymore?