chapter twenty-five

 

We didn’t have time to exchange presents before we headed to Mark’s place, but I’m glad we left early. We packed the car with all the gifts I bought for my family, and Viv surprises me by adding eight wrapped boxes of her own to the pile of presents. I notice they all have gift tags on them, and there’s one for every member of my family plus an extra one for me.

“What are these?” I ask.

Her eyes twinkle when she simply says, “You’ll see.”

Watching a seven-month-old try to unwrap presents when she hasn’t even mastered crawling yet is sweet. I glance over at Viv, whose eyes are focused on my niece. She wants one of her own—I can tell from the misty look in her eye when she glances at me.

Just watching her yesterday with her nephews and today with Ashton tells me she’ll make a wonderful mother.

Ashton goes first with the gifts Santa brought her, and then the adults start our gift exchange. Everyone included Vivian in their shopping, much to my satisfaction. Her gifts range from wine and wine glasses to fancy corkscrews and some ridiculous leather travel case for wine bottles. Mark even got her a wine cooler filled with her favorite bottles, which was somehow both completely over the top and perfect at the same time.

Viv grabs the eight boxes from under the tree and hands them out. The paper she chose has Christmas foxes on it—perfect for the Fox family. She thought of everything. “I want you all to open them at the same time,” she announces.

I narrow my eyes at her as she pulls out her phone to film a video while the rest of my family tears open their boxes. I can’t help but wonder what she did. I catch her eye, and she nods to my box. I quickly unwrap it, and when I lift out the gift inside, I laugh as my heart swells.

It’s a green knit sweater with rows of foxes wearing red and green scarves. Fox Family Christmas is written in large block letters on the front, and the back says BRIAN. Underneath it, in smaller letters, I read the subtitle: The Youngest. I look around at my family as they hold up their sweaters with lots of laughter and merriment. I read the backs of each sweater:

DIANE: The Mom

PAUL: The Dad

MARK: The Oldest

REESE: The Wife of the Oldest

LIZZIE: The Daughter

DAVE: The Husband of the Daughter

ASHTON: The First Grandchild

“Everyone should have an ugly Christmas sweater, right?” Viv says. She grins and her eyes twinkle as she holds up her own sweater that she must’ve had hidden in her purse. VIVIAN: The Youngest’s Girl.

The laughter is infectious and loud in the room. Even Ashton is giggling as we all pull our sweaters over whatever shirts we were wearing before, and I’m in awe of my girl. I have no idea how she pulled this off, but I do know one thing.

Every second I’m with her, I fall a little harder for her.

 

* * *

 

My dad is busy making his special and traditional green Christmas tree pancakes for breakfast after we’ve finished unwrapping gifts when Mark pulls me aside.

“I have one more gift for you,” he says.

“The Rolex was more than enough,” I say, holding my wrist up.

His eyes catch on it, and I spot a faraway look in them. “God, that really is a sexy fucking watch, isn’t it?”

I laugh. “Remember when women used to be sexy, not watches?”

He shrugs. “I only find one woman sexy these days, and she’s currently breastfeeding my child. Nothing hotter than that, man.”

I shake my head in awe. “I still can’t get used to the fact that not only are you married, you have a daughter. No more playing the field for this rock star.”

“That life was over the second Reese stepped into my life.”

“Despite what I did to stop it,” I say.

He presses his lips together and pats my shoulder a little harder than necessary. “While the bottle of Macallan and the awesome new dad shirt you got me are great, let’s add one more gift to the pile. Stop bringing up ancient history.”

I nod. “Done.”

“Come with me,” he says, and I follow him toward his office. He shuts the door and motions for me to sit, so I do.

He holds up a coffee cup to show me. “See what Reese gave me for Christmas?”

I read the cup. DILF: Dad I’d Like to Fuck. I give a loud laugh. “Seems perfect.”

He sets the cup down then steeples his pointer fingers in front of his mouth and folds the rest of them as he leans his elbows on his desk. It’s his standard business pose, predictable even, but I have no idea what he’s about to say. He seems to be gathering his thoughts as he eyes me, and I force myself to sit up with confidence even though I have no idea what he’s about to say.

Is he firing me?

That doesn’t even make sense. Ashmark needs me.

Except...do they? I trained Viv on my position and everything went off without a hitch when I was gone. Maybe he saw how expendable I really am.

He draws in a deep breath and exhales before he moves his fingers from their spot in front of his lips. He picks up a manila folder on the desk and hands it to me. “Merry Christmas,” he says, and he leans back in his chair as he motions for me to open the folder.

I read the words across the top of the page: Transfer of Ownership.

My eyes quickly scan through the rest of the document, but they get caught on one bolded line in particular.

I, Mark Ashton, do hereby relinquish all rights to FDB Tech Corp, Inc., and grant my entire 51% stake to Brian Fox.

A lump forms in my throat and suddenly I can’t seem to speak around it.

“I don’t want FDB, Brian,” Mark says. “I only agreed to the original forty percent as a way to help you get it off the ground, and I only forced you to roll your stake over to me because you were slowly killing it and running back to me every time you needed help out of your mess. But you’ve proven in the last couple months you’re ready to take action on your own, apart from me. You’re welcome to stay at Ashmark, so please don’t view that document as anything more than what it is. God knows you’ve made a huge impact on us in just the past few months. You can do whatever you want with this fifty-one percent. Combine it with your nine and sell it back to Jason and Becker. Go back and run the place.” He shakes his head. “I don’t care, but I’m officially washing my hands of it. Merry Christmas.”

I draw in a deep breath as I think about what I’m actually holding in my hands and what the hell I’m supposed to do with it.

What would Jason and Becker do if I just showed up one day with this document?

Do I even want to go back there?

I’m not sure, but it’s something Viv and I will have to discuss.

Viv.

Of course I’ll have to discuss it with her. I can’t just go back if it’s not what she wants, too. I can’t go if it’s not what’s best for the two of us, because we’re a unit now.

I love the idea of putting a little distance from my brother into my career. I’ve relied on him for my entire adult life, and it’s time to start living as my own man, providing for myself and for the woman I love.

I’m just not sure if that actually means going back to FDB or if it means something else entirely. Maybe starting something new with the smartest woman I know.

“Thank you,” I finally manage to say around that damn lump. I clear my throat. “And Merry Christmas to you, too.”

He stands and walks around his desk to shake my hand, but I bat his hand out of the way and give my brother a hug. In a brother’s embrace, I find my best friend—the one person in the world who has been there for me my entire life, whether or not I deserved it, whether or not I asked for it, and whether or not it felt like he was acting in my best interest. Unlike me, he usually is, and this little business transaction combined with our entire history—ancient and more recent—makes me want to be a better brother to him. He deserves it.

 

* * *

 

We’re lying in my bed at Mark’s place later that night when I finally have a quiet moment to tell Vivian about Mark’s gift to me. We haven’t had sex yet, mostly because my parents are in the room directly next to us and I can still hear their muffled voices through the wall. I’m biding my time until they fall asleep, and then I’ll pounce. Quietly, of course.

HGTV plays quietly on the huge flat screen television that appears to be floating in the middle of the wall, and Viv is engrossed in whatever Chip and Jo are fixing up. I wait until a commercial to give her my news.

“Mark gave me another gift when everyone was helping Dad make pancakes,” I begin.

She snuggles into my side and wraps an arm around my waist before she rethinks it and traces the ridges of my abdomen with her fingertip. “What was that?” she asks.

I clear my throat. “His stake in FDB.”

She pauses in her tracing and looks up at me. “What?”

I nod. “His fifty-one percent is mine. I own sixty percent of a company my friends fired me from.”

She sits up. “And you just remembered to tell me now?”

I chuckle as I sit up, too. “It seemed like a bigger conversation than having it in the middle of Christmas dinner with my entire family surrounding us.”

She nods, conceding, and then she furrows her brows and throws a hand out in the direction of the television. “You let me watch my show before telling me?”

I lift a shoulder. “You seemed really into that shiplap or whatever it’s called. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

She laughs. “You always come first.” She grabs the remote and turns off the television to prove her point. “What are you going to do?”

“Did you really just turn off Chip and Jo?”

She rolls her eyes. “It was a repeat. I’ve seen it. Spoiler alert, they fix it up and the owners love it. So what are you going to do?”

“Well, I’ve never considered shiplap because I don’t actually know what it is if I’m being completely honest, but if it’s the trend, I’d be open to looking into it.”

She smacks me in the chest. “Be serious.”

“I don’t know,” I say softly. “I think the better question is what are we going to do.”

“We?”

I nod. “Like it or not, we’re a we now. I’m serious about my future with you, and if you want to stay here in Los Angeles and that’s what’s best for us, that’s what we’ll do. If you want to run FDB with me, that’s what we’ll do. If you want to buy some spacesuits and take a ride up to the moon, I’ll make it happen.”

“Run FDB together?” she asks. “What about Jason and Becker?”

“I own sixty percent now,” I say. “I have a higher stake than the two of them combined. They were on board with it when it was my brother giving us money, so if we decide to fire the two of them and take it back, it’s within our rights to do so.”

“You wouldn’t.”

I shake my head. “No, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t, but I also never thought they’d gang up on me and fire me, either. Money, business, working together...it’s hard.”

“All relationships are hard, Brian. But bring money into the equation and it’s near impossible to maintain the same friendship.” She’s pensive, and I get the sense she’s thinking about her ex. We’ve only touched on some of what tore them apart, but considering he took the house and tried to take more from her, clearly he was money-driven.

“I don’t know what to do,” I admit.

“Let me ask you this: Do you want to go back to Vegas?”

“Will you be there?” I counter.

She gazes at me for a beat before answering. “I don’t need to stay in LA. I can work from almost anywhere since I’m a consultant. Besides, I’m serious about my future with you, too, and I think it’s safe to say I’m going where you’re going.”

“But your dream to live by the beach...” I say, trailing off.

She shrugs. “Dreams change, and my dream now includes you. We can always visit the beach. Besides, we’ve wasted enough time being apart. I just want to be together.”

“Then let’s move to Vegas and run FDB together. I’ll sign thirty percent over to you.”

Her brows furrow. “You’ll what?”

“You heard me. I want you to run FDB with me. Together. Not me as your boss. Not you as my boss. Partners.”

I watch as the wheels turn in her mind and her thought process plays out in her expression. After a few beats, she nods the tiniest bit. “Yeah.” She nods a little harder and her lips tip up. “Yes. Let’s do it.”

“Yeah?” I ask.

She grins. “Yeah. I’ll run it with you, but I don’t want a full thirty percent.”

“Why not?” I ask.

“It’s the company you started with your friends. It’s not fair for me to step in and hold more of a stake than they do.”

I lean my forehead against hers. “God, I love you.”

“I love you, too. No matter what happens, we’re in it together.” She presses her lips to mine, and I notice how quiet the house is.

Everyone must be asleep, so I take the opportunity to pounce. Quietly, of course.