Page 6 of Never Let Go

Shelby blinked slowly, then sucked in a deep, long breath and nodded curtly. “Yes, I did. Why?”

Shelby Lowe. With the name and that brief flicker of a memory, it all came back to me in a rush. Shelby with her hair shining like spun gold as she sipped on a soda in the corner of the rec room, watching us shoot pool. Shelby in the library as she effortlessly helped seniors with assignments that should’ve been way above her but somehow never were.

Those and so many other memories rushed into my head and I smiled at her. “I remember you now. Don’t you remember me?”

She had to fucking remember me, but as she shook her head, it became apparent that I was wrong. “No, I’m afraid I don’t. I’ll see you at our next meeting, Mr. O’Brien. Goodbye.”

I left her office feeling slightly drunk. My head was still spinning and it felt like I was about to fall over. The combination of how stunned I was at the amount of money I was getting and the shock over seeing Shelby again after all these years had hit me like a sledgehammer.

Under the circumstances, driving was not a good idea, so I went to my car and just sat there, suddenly understanding how Porter had felt that day when he’d sold his earbuds. My brother was an inventor and he’d spent years developing these nifty, auto-translating earpieces that he’d eventually sold the patent to.

On the day he’d made the sale, he’d called me after and he’d sounded breathless. Stunned. I’d never really understood how news like that could feel like it’d knocked the damn air right out of your lungs, but I sure as shit understood it now.

He answered on the first ring when I finally managed to scroll to his number and call him. “Hey, Foster. How’d it go? I was just about to call.”

“I, uh, it was fine.” I breathed out slowly, closing my eyes as I leaned back against the headrest. “He named me as his primary beneficiary. Can you believe that?”

Parker let out a hoot of laughter. “Fuck, man. That’s awesome. That inheritance has got to be at least a few bucks, huh? Congratulations.”

“What?”

“What do you mean, what? I’m happy for you.”

“You are?” I blinked my eyes open and stared at the plain concrete wall of the parking lot in front of me. “You’re not pissed that you and Mom weren’t even called for a meeting when he left me with a cool, few hundred million?”

“Nah.” He chuckled. “I’ve got more money than I can spend in a couple of lifetimes. I don’t need any more. Besides, you were his namesake. It makes sense he left it to you.”

“Does it?” I groaned. “It doesn’t make a lick of sense to me, man.”

Porter laughed some more. “Trust me, I know exactly how you feel right now. Go home, but take a cab or something. Do not drive. Pour yourself a stiff drink and get in bed. We’ll talk in the morning.”

He hung up on me after that and I did what he’d said, but my mind was still blown by the time I woke up the next morning. After a night of tossing and turning, drinking more than just one stiff drink, and then finally falling into a fitful sleep wracked with guilt, I got to the office without having gotten even just one answer.

To make things worse, I was still thinking about Shelby just as much as the money. Back in college, she’d been the quiet, nerdy girl—which was saying something since all of us who had lived in the honors dorm had been nerdy.

I’d always thought she was beautiful, but it’d seemed like I made her uncomfortable, so I’d never asked her out. A few times, I’d gotten close, but in the end, I hadn’t had the nerve because I was sure she’d turn me down.

Why I’d made her so uncomfortable, I still didn’t know, but I suddenly wanted to find out. Shelby had always felt like a bit of a loose end to me. It wasn’t like I’d been hung up on her ever since college, but she was that girl who, when I thought back, I wondered if my life might’ve worked out very differently if I’d grabbed my balls and gone for it with her.

Hope was waiting for me in my office when I walked in, and she smiled as she reached out to squeeze my bicep. “Jeez, Foster. Are you okay? It looks like you were a million miles away before you saw me standing here.”

I shrugged, waving her off. “I’m fine. Just processing. What’s up?”

“Porter told me about the money. I thought I should check in and make sure you’re doing okay. That’s a lot to take in.”

I sighed as I walked around my desk and started putting my stuff down. “Thanks, but I really am fine. I just don’t know why Chesterfield did it, but I guess I’ll never find out.”

Hope nodded, a thoughtful gleam entering her eyes as she watched me sit down and start up my computer. “Is there something else going on with you? You seem distracted.”

“Of course I’m distracted. My estranged grandfather just left me a few hundred million reasons to be and just as many questions.”

Her head lowered to one side as her eyes narrowed. “Yeah, but that’s not all there is to it. What’s going on, Foster? We’ve been working together for years and we’ve been friends even longer than that. Tell me the truth.”

“It’s nothing. Where’s Porter? I thought he’d be here to back you up.”

She glanced down at the delicate silver watch on her wrist. “He’ll be here any—”

“Were you guys talking about me?” My brother’s voice suddenly boomed from my door and he grinned when I looked up. “How are you feeling today? Any better? It’s okay if you’re not. It took me a couple of weeks at least.”