Malia packed up her laptop at the close of class. The team had just completed their final presentations. It was weird to not have Zephyr present. But she'd see him this weekend in New York. He'd started at Synth Technologies two weeks ago and he was happy. The long distance was a killer, but she saw him every weekend. Either she went or he came so it wasn't so bad. And on weekends with him he made sure Taj brought Eva so she could see her sister.

"You did well today."

She stiffened at the voice. "Mr. Tanashi. Have you come to threaten me again? Zephyr told me about the accounts.”

"Forgive me. That was my father. I’d like a moment of your time if I could?”

"You have as long as it takes for me to get to my job. You should walk fast." She didn't even turn around to see if he was following as she jogged down the stairs and out of the lecture hall.

"I want to say congratulations on an excellent presentation today. The executives at Tanashi were very impressed with you. Are you sure you wouldn't like to reconsider your eligibility for the scholarship?"

"Oh yes. I'm sure. I already have an internship set up for the summer. I'll be in New York with Zephyr.”

Hiro nodded. "How is he?"

Malia stopped and turned on him. "You actually care?"

Hiro flushed. "I may have mishandled some things. I shouldn't have let my father go so far off script. I would like to offer my deepest apologies. I had a bullshit playbook that I had been handed. I should have followed my own playbook.”

"A piece of advice, Mr. Tanashi."

"I'm always open to hearing advice."

"If you are really sorry, reach out to Zephyr. I feel like a part of him still wants to get to know you. That might be a small part given the way you behaved, but, it's there. You're his father. If you want to do things differently, then do it. Don't just talk about it."

He nodded. "I've always been taught business before family, business before love, business before everything. But seeing him with you, I think it's different. I could have had that once. But I let my father break that.”

”If you want to get to know him, call him, be sincere. But don't ask for my help. Not after everything that’s happened."

"I wouldn't be so disingenuous. I understand.”

"Zephyr is the best person I know. He is also a giant pain in the ass. Stubborn, mule-headed, brilliant. He's your son. You'd be winning if you got to know him. You’ll have to work for it because, let's face it, you're kind of an asshole."

Hiro Tanashi's grin spread over his face. And once again Malia realized how similar father and son looked.

"Malia Adams, good luck with your future endeavors. You always have a spot at Tanashi Corp. if you want it."

"Thanks for the offer. But that ship has sailed. If, however, you did come to New York, and stopped being an asshole, and wanted to go to dinner with your son or something, I wouldn't say no to a free meal!”

There was a grin again. "I'll take that under advisement."

* * *

“It’s been three days. You should talk to him.”

Zephyr crossed his arms and stood across the conference room from his brother-in-law. “I’m not talking to him. He can sit in the lobby as long as he damn well pleases. We have nothing to say to each other, Nate.”

Nate threw up his arms. “Look, I will have security toss him out of here every single day if that’s what you really want. But at least talk to the guy. Your grandfather is nowhere in sight. And I’m telling you, your old man, he has sat in that lobby for three days straight. He hasn’t moved. He hasn’t gotten up. At the end of the day, when they’re shutting the building down, he gets up and he leaves, but he is back the next morning at 6:00 a.m. Talk to the man. He clearly does not intend to leave until he speaks to you.”

Zephyr shook his head. “Not happening. That man downstairs, he abandoned me. He left me.”

Nate nodded. “I get that. Believe me, fucked up family dynamics? I get that. My own brother tried to extort me. He tried to have me killed. He tried to kill the love of my life. I get it. You don’t have warm feelings for the guy, fine. All I am saying is you’ve seen how manipulative your grandfather can be. Maybe you should hear the guy out, or you’ll always wonder. That’s all I’m saying. If he’s doing this, he’s clearly not at work. He’s not with your grandfather. He’s here waiting for you, looking for a chance. It won’t hurt you to hear him out.”

“Oh yeah? He hurt Malia. My whole life, he’s known exactly where I was. He has never reached out.”

“I hear you. So don’t see him. Give me the word, and I’ll have him kicked out. This is my fucking building. I can do as I like.”

Zephyr laughed. “It is your building, and you can have him kicked out.” His emotions were a mess. Malia had already told him what she thought. The first day he’d walked through that lobby and seen his father sitting there, calmly waiting for him, he’d ignored the old man. He’d gone straight to work, then taken the back exit home. When he talked to Malia, she’d told him that she thought Zephyr should talk to him. He hadn’t necessarily agreed with that.

But now, the guy wasn’t leaving.

Maybe it was worth hearing him out. “Okay, fine. I’ll go talk to him, okay?”

Nate shrugged. “It’s not for my benefit. Go talk to him or don’t. Shit. I don’t care. All I care is that it’s fucking with your work and your ability to do your job.”

“It’s not.”

Nate nodded. “I know. Which is why, Zeph, talk to him or don’t talk to him, but you can’t be in limbo. Your work hasn’t suffered, but your emotional state has. No one can get through to you. So go talk to the guy. I have work to do.”

Zephyr watched the way Nate was studying his watch. “And by work, do you mean my sister?”

Nate gave him a wolfish grin. “It’s date night. And as much as I love you, bro, I would much rather be looking at your sister at the moment.”

Zephyr rolled his eyes. “Man, I think I threw up a little in my mouth just there. Could you please not talk about my sister like that?”

Nate didn’t mind him though. “I mean, I can tell you all about it if you want. I mean, she has this thing that she does—”

Zephyr was booking out of the conference room before Nate could go any further. When he looked back, his brother-in-law had his head thrown back and was clutching his middle laughing. “Asshole.”

Zephyr took the elevator. The whole nineteen floors down, his stomach coiled. Was this the right move? Finally, he stepped into the lobby where his father sat. His face was impassive, but he did stand and shift on his feet a little. Zephyr walked up to him. “How long do you plan on sitting here?”

The older man shrugged. “As long as it takes—I figured you couldn’t avoid me forever.”

“You realize time is on my side, right? Eventually, you’d have to go to work.”

His father shook his head. “No. I’ve taken a sabbatical.”

Zephyr stared at him. “You’ve taken a sabbatical from Tanashi Corp.? Your company? You’re the president.”

His father nodded. “Yes and your grandfather is the CEO. He thinks he can handle everything as he sees fit, and anyone who doesn’t fall in line is the enemy. I wanted to get to know the son I was deprived the pleasure of getting to know.”

Zephyr squared his shoulders. “Do you want to—I don’t know. There’s a bar around the corner. It’s called Probation. Everyone goes there.”

Hiro nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”

When they reached the bar and finally found a spot at the end of the high table, Zephyr ordered a beer. Hiro ordered an old fashioned. Zephyr was so tempted to start talking to fill the awkward silence, but he refused. Hiro had wanted to see him, so he needed to make the effort.

Hiro knew how to start the conversation, which was helpful because he started with an apology. “I’m sorry. I will be more specific in a moment, but I want to offer you a general apology for everything. For not being there for you when you were a child, for failing your mother, for not seeing my father for who he was, all of it. I’m sorry.”

Zephyr shook his head. “You forgot Malia. The whole Malia thing, remember that?”

Hiro nodded. ”I’m sorry that happened, yes. But I had nothing to do with that. My father, your grandfather, used the same tactic with me. He told me that your mother had left. She’d opted for the money. I didn’t even know she’d been pregnant until after you were adopted. I was in an argument with my father. He wanted me to marry a business associate’s widow to strengthen our holdings, and I told him that I wouldn’t and that I only love one woman. That’s when it all came out. Brenda, your mother, she’d been pregnant with my son and she’d died.”

He looked down into his drink, swirled it and picked it up, taking a large swig. “And then my son had been adopted. He knew all along I had a child and he’d let some other family raise you.”

Well fuck, Zephyr hadn’t intended this to become extra deep. He didn’t expect to feel this level of emotion. “You loved her?”

Hiro nodded. “A lot. Your mother, she was vibrant. Alive, you know? She had this great smile and a way of making you feel extra special.”

The memory didn’t sting like it usually did. It was nice talking to someone else who had known her. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I don’t have a lot of super concrete memories of her, but I remember her smile. And there was a way she used to say my name. It was full of love. And then she got sick and I was all alone.”

Hiro rubbed his fingers over his eyes, eventually giving in to the emotion, and tried pinching his nose to stop the flow of tears. “I didn’t know. Zephyr, I did not know. When I found out, you were ten. And my father showed me all the photos of you, happy, with your new family. The baseball games and barbecues. I knew the kind of family life I could give you would not be as happy and love-filled as that one. And I also knew your grandfather. The influence he would have over you. I wasn’t strong enough with Brenda. I believed what he said about her. Now I know I messed that up. The right people raised you. But having you at Tanashi, getting to see you every day, seeing how brilliant you were—I promise you, I don’t even take credit for that. It’s like seeing your mother again. That smile of yours, it’s hers. There were some days after you started work that I nearly broke down and told you.”

Zephyr’s eyes stung and he blinked away the tears. “Why did you bring me in?”

“It was your grandfather. He wanted you to work at Tanashi. I wanted you as far away from that place as possible. I put my blood, sweat, and tears into that company. The problem is that company is all your grandfather. And I know what that means. The kind of dedication he forces out of you. His way or the highway. No flexibility. No margin for error. I didn’t want that for you. But once you were there, I couldn’t walk away. I didn’t want to watch you walk away. I wanted to get to know you.”

Zephyr took a long pull of his beer. “I don’t know what to do with all this.”

Hiro shook his head. “You don’t have to do anything. I just—I just wanted to talk to you and tell you I understand. That woman of yours, Malia, she’s a true gem. The only reason she left you was to save you, to save your career. Your grandfather can be vindictive when he wants to be.”

“Neither you nor her need to worry about that. It turns out I have a lot of family. My brother-in-law hired me. I’m heading up Technology Marketing and Sales, and I’m learning a lot. And it’s interesting. I’m applying things that I’ve learned at Tanashi.”

Hiro nodded. “I hope not all the things.” He pulled a card out of his pocket and pushed it toward Zephyr. “That’s my personal number. Maybe, if you ever wanted to talk, you know, about your mom, find out more about her … I’d be happy to talk to you.”

At first, Zephyr thought he wouldn’t take the card. There was still so much anger inside him, but despite all that anger, there was still hope. He wanted to get to know this part of himself. He had so many questions that would never be answered if he didn’t take the card. So he took the piece of card stock and stuffed it into his front pocket. “Yeah, thanks for that.”

Hiro finished off his drink and then stood. “I’ve taken up enough of your time. Call me if you want to talk. Tanashi has corporate apartments here in New York. I’m staying there for the foreseeable future. If you wanted to grab a coffee or something, we could do that. I figure I’m not going to leave the area for a while. I quite like New York. Besides, my son is here. So whether he wants to get to know me or not, I’m going to get to know his city.”

Zephyr watched him walk out. Emotions brewed inside him, creating a stew of confusion and despair, but mostly just curiosity. He took his phone out of his pocket along with the card, and then immediately dialed the phone number. “Were you serious?”

Hiro said, “About wanting to get to know you? Yes.”

Zephyr sighed. “There is a family get together in Hope, New York, this weekend. You should come.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Hiro said, “But that’s your family. I’m just the guy who—”

“You’re family too. Whether I want you to be or not, you’re my family. And we have to start somewhere, right?”

Hiro chuckled. “Yeah, somewhere is a good place to start. Just text me the details and I’ll be there.”

Zephyr hung up and felt lighter than he had in months.