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Carson softens before my eyes, his eyes brightening, his shoulders dropping, and a low chuckle rumbling in his chest.
“You’re not mad at me?” I ask, still trying to find some logical connection between his earlier reaction and his current one.
“For the festival idea? No.” He runs his fingers through his hair, one of his few tells that he’s got something heavy weighing on his mind. “But you did hit one of my sore spots, and it pissed me off. That’s why I said ‘I’m sorry’ to you—for my rudeness when you’re only trying to help us.”
“I didn’t mean to press your buttons. Can you tell me what it was so I don’t do it again?” I ask carefully.
“Not good enough. Not nearly good enough,” Carson grits out as though the words get stuck in his throat.
At first, I think he’s talking about me, but when he gives me a pained look, I realize that he’s quoting me. I said that . . . about my concert series idea. And then it dawns on me . . . he thought I was talking about him.
“Oh, Carson! No. That’s not what I meant. I meant what I gave you—my ideas—weren’t good enough.” I reach out to cover his hand with my own, needing to comfort him. I don’t know why that phrasing hit so hard, but I certainly didn’t mean to hurt him in any way.
He shrugs, the movement an obvious attempt at downplaying his reaction. “I know. But like I said . . . it’s a trigger point for me.”
The meeting comes into a sharper focus as I replay his reactions in my mind with this new lens. He wasn’t mad at me or disappointed in my ideas. It was something deeper and personal, something I can relate to. Because I said those words to myself.
“Families are tricky things, shaping who we are in ways both good and bad. My family is full of high-achieving perfectionists who have it all, do it all, and crush any goal they set,” I admit. “It’s hard to shine in a family like mine. I usually feel . . . invisible? Or maybe not on their level?”
I tilt my head, trying to put my feelings into words, but this isn’t something I share with people. It’s not even something I think about, but with everything I’m asking of Carson, the least I can do is offer my own truth.
“I’m a behind-the-scenes person, Carson. If I’m doing my best work, nobody sees it or realizes they’re seeing it. It can make it hard to feel like I matter because it’s not tangible. I can’t say ‘I increased profits by ten percent’ or ‘decreased expenses by one million dollars’. I can’t even tell my family that I prevented a PR catastrophe because that would defeat the purpose of doing it. So, realizing that what I’d set in motion here, for you and Americana Land, wasn’t good enough, wasn’t my best . . . disappointed me. And since I’m the only barometer I have, the expectations are higher than high.”
Probing delicately, I ask, “Did what I say trigger you because of your family?”
His growl is one of frustration and long-held anger, and I don’t think he’s going to answer, but after a moment, he says, “Did you know Archer was the chosen son when I was younger? That he even worked here for a short while?”
“What? That wasn’t in any of my research.” I’m surprised. My deep dive into projects borders on obsessive, to the point I often find info my clients wish I didn’t know. But nothing in my investigation of Americana Land, Carson, or the Steen family showed Archer as anything other than a playboy who flits around from woman to woman, living off a trust fund. Certainly, nothing hinted that he’d actually worked, much less at the family business.
Carson nods. “One of my first jobs as Chief Marketing Officer was to wipe everything I could, and to be honest, there wasn’t much out there on Archer, the professional, because he wasn’t. But here, in the office, I had to prove myself over and over again because people figured I’d be like him. And I worked my ass off to show that I wasn’t. But no matter how hard I work or how much I do, I can’t wipe that assumption from one person’s mind. My dad’s.”
I hear the sharp grind of his teeth as he closes his eyes and wonder what voice is playing in his head right now . . . his father’s or his own? I suspect they’re one and the same at times.
“There’s no way your dad thinks you’re like Archer,” I refute bluntly. “I’ve seen what you do here, how much you care. Hell, the whole reason I’m here is because you stepped in to help an employee. You could’ve walked on by, said it was her job, not yours, but you didn’t because you care about people. And now you’re the one paying the price for it.”
