Every brand expansion dream I have ever dared to sketch on napkins for two years, assembled overnight and set on a table with my name on the chair.
"One thing hasn't changed," he says. "This only works with you on the ground. As in, personally. Living it, not visiting it. The investors aren't buying a resort, Finn. They're buying the man who jumps first and always lands on his feet. You knew that going in."
I did know that. I knew it the way you know the forecast for a range you're not climbing until next season.
"The window on this deal has moved," he says. "The other buyer forced our hand and we let it close the financing early, so now the clock is ours, but it's still a clock. Be here tomorrow. We walk the Breckenridge parcel with the full partnership Wednesday morning." A beat barely passes. "And Finn? Come ready to say yes."
A few weeks ago, this would have been the best news I could've hoped for. Now, I hear myself saying the things a man in my position says. That the numbers are strong. That the deal structure is impressive. That I'll be on a plane tomorrow.
My voice handles all of it fine. My voice knows this job. Underneath it, in the part of me that isn't talking, one flat sentence keeps repeating: This is the rest of your life, calling to schedule itself.
The call ends and I'm standing in the gravel with the sun coming up over the vines, and the decision I drove in with hasn't gone anywhere, even though I've just numbly committed to showing up in Colorado tomorrow. The two halves of me don't fit inside the same man anymore.
I put the phone in my pocket on a low curse. I've hauled loads of gear and supplies that made my spine shorter. Nothing has ever ridden in a pocket like this.
I should be over the moon about this. This is the call I've been building toward for half my life, the one that proves the held-back Bardot boy built something real. Every number came back bigger than the dream. Except now the dream, delivered at last, might as well be addressed to someone else.
I spend the morning sulking around the estate being useless in a way I hope looks productive. I unload a pallet nobody asked me to unload. I inventory stock in the equipment shed for a count nobody needs. I stand between the rows of grapes for a while with a digital tablet I never write on. Around noon my mother leaves a sandwich at my elbow and goes without saying anything, which I realize does not come easily to her. Colton clocks me from the barn door twice and both times decides the vines need him more. By early afternoon the whole property has quietly agreed to route around me.
Smart of them. I wouldn't talk to me either.
The sandwich is still in my hand, untouched, when I give up and walk into the main house looking for the one Bardot who can't walk away from me.
Evan is set up in the sunroom the way he's been set up for more than two weeks, leg in its cast on the ottoman, laptop balanced on the good knee, new label proofs spread across the cushions in some order only he understands.
"How's the leg feeling?"
"Still broken. Thanks for checking." He looks up, and whatever is on my face makes him close the laptop. "You've been a thundercloud since breakfast. Mom thinks it's her weak coffee. I told her no coffee is that bad, but honestly, hers might be. Sit."
I drop into the chair next to him. For a while I don't say anything, and Evan, to his eternal credit, lets me not.
"The Colorado partners called this morning," I finally say. "The syndicate closed. All of it. Both parcels, the lodge, the whole build. Bigger than I ever put on paper."
Evan raises his eyebrows. "How much bigger?"
I give him a look. "There's a B in it."
He whistles low, then sits with that. "Finn, that's—shit, that's amazing! That's everything you've been talking about since I was in high school."
I nod, but there's no joy in it. "There's a condition. Their investors aren't backing the brand. They're backing me. On the ground, in Colorado, running the build. Being the face of the resort. Years of it." The word takes up the whole sunroom. "They want me out there tomorrow. In person, with the full partnership. I told them I'd be there."
"Tomorrow," Evan says. "That's quick."
"Just for the meeting. They want it to end in a yes, and they're not being subtle about it."
He's quiet for a second, and then, because he is twenty-five and constitutionally unable to leave a silence alone, he leans inwith a grin. "Okay, but look at the upside. You get the deal of a lifetime. You get to escape to a life of adventure in a gorgeous Colorado mountain town, which even I have to envy. I'm seeing nothing but green lights."
"What about Darcy?"
He sits back, studying me. "What about her, man? I thought you weren't getting serious. What happened to my big brother whose life philosophy could be summed up as, 'Love is for losers'?" He grins. "As I recall, you've even got a million-dollar bet riding on staying unattached and single."
"The bet is the last thing on my mind right now."
It comes out flatter than I mean it to, and the grin dies on his face, and I watch him decide not to make the next joke, which from Evan is practically a formal apology.
I don't say the true part. I could wire that million to guys back at The Retreat tonight and never miss it. Which is saying a lot since I was the asshole who invented that damn bet. My idea, my title, my rules, drawn up at a time when I didn't realize that winning the pot was actually losing at the best part of living. Falling in love isn't for losers. It's the bravest thing anyone can do. I've already lost that bet, and losing the million dollars I wagered would be the cheapest thing I have to forfeit.
Evan stares at me. "Look, I'm not the sensible Bardot brother. That's Colton. He's the one you should be coming to for advice. But I do have eyes in my head, and it's obvious to everyone that you feel something for Darcy. So, why not make this work for everyone? Ask her to come with you."
