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“Yeah, yeah, we’re helping,” the guy said.
Darren felt sick at the dude’s sudden eagerness to please. He slicked on a smile. “Great. Sure you guys are organized enough that he’ll drive out of here within the minute, right?”
Overalls Guy shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, well . . . we have a rule if it goes past three thirty—”
“Rules! Meant to be bent, no? I remember this one time—funny story—MAS Oil’s legal team crawled up the ass of this gas station owner who tried to charge this old lady for work they didn’t do. Pretty sure the guy lost his franchise. All for less than five hundred dollars. I think we can all agree, the dude wished he’d been more flexible.”
Seth’s surprised gaze heated one side of Darren’s face, and Billy’s the other.
Overalls Guy frowned, like he wasn’t sure what his next move was meant to be. How much did Darren have to spell it out?
He drew out his phone. “Hang on, let me call my dad.”
He scrolled to his dad’s number.
It might have gone beautifully, if he hadn’t hesitated with his finger on the call button. Fucker behind the desk saw it and called his bluff, lounging into his chair once more.
Fuck.
He shouldn’t have paused like that. But seeing Dad on the screen had his throat seizing. He hadn’t called Dad directly since he’d come out.
Before that, he and Dad called regularly. Once a week at least. Never, in his memory, could he remember a time when Dad’s phone had gone more than three rings before he picked up.
He was . . . nervous to try.
But it was his dad. Disappointed or not, he’d pick up his call, right?
Yeah. He would.
Darren hit dial.
One ring.
Two.
He swallowed.
Three.
So. Maybe Dad was just busy? Really, really busy.
But . . . he’d always put business on hold, even if it was to tell Darren he had to call him back.
Four.
He threw the Overalls Guy a smirk that he hoped didn’t look as stiff as it felt.
Five.
Six.
He pushed down the sting in his eyes.
Dad’s voice burst in his ear, loud enough that the guy stirred.
Darren stared back at him. “Hey, Dad. It’s me. You’ll never guess where I am right now . . .”
Overalls Guy jerked up a walkie-talkie and spoke into it. “Found your car,” he said to Seth. “Just in time.”
Darren nodded coolly at him and took his “call” outside, slipping into a wall of heat just as his dad’s answering machine buzzed for him to leave a message.
Chapter Three
Darren
“As you can probably appreciate, Darren, this is . . . a rather awkward situation.”
Darren blinked at the university president, momentarily speechless. A host of different feelings gnarled inside him, but awkward wasn’t one of them.
He shifted stiffly on the leather couch in Theodore H. Jenkins’s office. The president himself sat opposite, a bearded man with small rounded frames perched on the end of his thin nose. Cheeses and grapes sat on a polished table between them, along with chilled sparkling water, honeyed nuts, and a freight-load of tension.
“Let me get this straight,” Darren said, forcing himself to keep his tone neutral. “The program—the one endowed by my great-great-grandfather Darren J. Gage, the program every Gage has participated in for decades—is now something I have to compete for?”
“We never intended for you to compete for it, but the board of the national accreditations agency is reviewing how the Gage Scholar Program is run.” Jenkins pursed his lips. “You can thank the disgruntled student who made the allegation this university treats students on scholarship unfairly.”
Darren wasn’t going to lie—as entitled as it sounded, he’d counted on the program being his. Not a Gage who attended Harrison in the last sixty years had missed taking the Gage program. It was family tradition. You were a Gage and you went to school here; you did the program.
He’d debated with his dad and granddad about it once. Said it seemed unnecessary to take the scholarship from someone who needed it, when Dad could find him a job somewhere in the company. But his dad had said they donated extra money to the university during years the Gage program was used by a Gage. And that Darren—or any other Gage—wasn’t expected to be handed a job. He had to earn it. Had to fulfill all the requirements any other applicant would. Albeit, without competition.
And he would. He needed to.
Before coming out, his dad had teased him mercilessly about how great the year would be. How much more time they’d get to spend together working on MAS Oil business.
Darren had joked with him about needing a program to do that, and Dad had given him a look. Where’s your sense of Harrison spirit? You’ll be representing your alma mater when you enter the company. It is as much for the benefit of the college as it is a Gage rite of passage. My father did the same before me, and now you will, too. It makes me proud knowing you’re following in my footsteps.
