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“Yes, but with you, it’s a little different. You’re my free spirit, my wild bird who doesn’t like to sit still. You like to fly here, fly there, and spend this, and spend that,” she joked, gesturing as if money was flying out of her hands.
“I need to grow up,” he added, looking at her, feeling a little annoyed that the same conversation had been had a few times now with everyone. “That was pretty much the rundown I got from Dad and my brothers.”
“We’ve let you do your thing, hoping that you would eventually know when it was time to calm it down, but after this last six weeks, and with your brothers finding their places, we knew it was time to start pulling the plug on you.”
“Was I really that bad?” Austin asked with a laugh, looking at his mother. “I wasn’t exactly partying and humiliating the family name.”
“Austin,” his mother said looking at him with a serious tone, “you’re too smart to do anything that dumb.”
“I don’t know why everyone seems to think that I never thought I’d actually have to work,” Austin remarked, taking a bite of food.
His mother looked at him with an are-you-kidding me type expression. “When have you ever shown initiative about getting a job?”
“I just always assumed it would be at The Oxford. I’m not kidding, but I just didn’t think it would be this soon. I’m not that much of an idiot.”
“Nobody is saying you’re a fool. Believe me, I blame myself and your father for not pushing you more. We treated you like a baby, and we just wanted to give you and your brothers everything we didn’t have growing up. We let it go too far with you.”
Austin nodded his head, knowing that there was no point in fighting it or pushing back. He loved his mother more than anything and didn't want to disrespect her. He needed to listen to everything, and now it was his mother’s turn to sit him down and give him the hard truth.
“The thing is, your father can’t work at the pace he’s going for much longer. I see how tired he gets now after a full day of work. I worry about him. I keep telling him that he needs to scale it back, but he’s worried he can’t, at least not yet. I need you and your brothers to give him the assurance that he needs so he will slow down. He has a great team at The Oxford, but you boys are his blood. The Oxford is part of you four, that’s how he sees it.”
It was surreal having his mother say this about his father. His dad always seemed like Superman to Austin. He had worked himself to the bone nearly every single day of Austin’s life. Even though he had aged throughout the last few years, and had more gray hairs appearing than before, he never thought of his father as the type of guy to slow down. But hearing his mother say that she was worried about him was something he hadn’t considered.
“I didn’t realize you were worried about Dad,” Austin said, placing his fork down and adjusting his hat to distract himself. He felt nervous butterflies in his stomach, which was something he never truly felt. “Dad’s OK, right?”
“Yes,” his mother nodded, “nothing but getting older. Believe me, it comes up and bites you in the butt when you least expect it. You’ll see,” Olivia said, not wanting to make her son worried, but knowing it was important for him to know the facts. The time had come in life for her sons to step up and be part of the family business.
“Listen, Chris wants to take on Dad’s role, which he’s doing very well. He’s always shown interest in that side of the business, and he wants to do that. He loves overseeing in the background and making sure everything is running like a well-oiled machine. We see you as a great asset in working with our high-profile clients. You have a gift when it comes to entertaining and networking, which I like to think you got from me,” she winked at him. “Your father also thinks that having you be present with our high-profile clients would be a positive. This is your sweet spot, and I couldn’t agree more. The moment we heard that Kat and Mike booked The Oxford, it was like the planets aligned perfectly for you to come here.”
“Well,” Austin answered, knowing his mother was right. He was good at schmoozing, he was a master at it. “I jumped in feet first, and it looks like this wedding will be my first case study. And I don’t know if you heard, but Molly McKee is the event planner and she’s arriving tonight. She’ll be with us tomorrow at The Oxford to go over details.”
“I heard,” she nodded. “Molly’s a dear, and I know you’ll work with her to hopefully lock down more of her clients.”
“That’s the plan,” Austin nodded, “but first, Kat and Mike.”
“It’s going to be great,” she smiled as she took a sip of her coffee. “Not to mention, we hit the jackpot with Jane. She’s incredible at what she does. You’ll be an asset to her when she needs you, and she’ll be an asset to you when you need her.”
Austin sat back again, listening to his mom go on about Jane. He still couldn’t shake this feeling in his stomach when it came to her. He felt horrible about what Tim had done to her and, last night, he had felt this sudden urge to hold her, which he couldn’t figure out because she certainly wasn’t giving off that vibe to him. Yet seeing her emotional about the Tim business, and knowing it couldn’t have been easy to tell him, made his heart race a bit.
“You know she went to high school with us, right?” Austin asked his mother, trying to act nonchalant.
“Poor thing,” his mother shot back with a wink, “but yes, I did know that. Chris told me.”
“I cheated off of her in chemistry class,” Austin said with a chuckle.
“Oh, my God, Austin,” his mother shot back while she shook her head, “Are you serious? I hope you were nice to her. I actually don’t remember meeting her when you were in high school. Between you and your brothers, I thought I knew every girl in that school.
“Yeah,” Austin added, looking at his mother, “we didn’t hang out in high school,” thinking back and still feeling bad that he couldn’t 100% remember what she looked like back then. “You still have my yearbooks here, don’t you?”
“I mean,” Mrs. Drew said, looking at him with unsure eyes, “I think so. I haven’t really touched anything in your bedrooms since you left home.”
Austin jumped off his stool. “I’m going to run up and see if I can find one of my yearbooks with her in it. For the life of me, I can’t remember exactly what she looked like back then.”
“OK…” his mother replied, taken aback by his sudden need to rush up and find it right now.
Austin jumped off his stool and dashed up to his old bedroom. He couldn’t believe his mom hadn’t touched a thing in there. It just seemed crazy. None of her sons had lived at home for at least 10 years, yet each room was still decorated as if they still lived there. He walked directly to the shelves above the desk in his room and searched for his senior year yearbook, figuring Jane had to be in it. The moment he found it, he pulled it out and smiled. He hadn’t looked through this book in years. He had the best memories of high school because they had been the best years of his life. He walked slowly downstairs toward the kitchen, flipping through the pages, trying to locate the junior class photos because she was a year behind him.
“Oh, you found it,” his mother smiled with a sense of excitement. “See, I told you I haven’t touched a thing. You find her?”
