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Chapter Thirteen
Nate
I’m at Grand Marin, scowling while Beck updates me on the final touches for the units on Mulberry Street. Our live-work community is filled with fruity, herby street names. Mulberry, Juniper, Persimmon. The grassy area where there are sprinklers for the kids in the summer is Strawberry Fields.
“Are we on time?” I interrupt, distractedly squinting into the distance. I’m standing in front of the unit I’m using as an office while watching the cars on the road.
“We’re on time,” he tells me. He knows my values. Being late is unacceptable. William Owen taught me that. If your project is late, then your client is pissed. If your client is pissed, then you might not be rehired. If you’re not rehired, then it’s back to doing the hard part, which is convincing the client to take you on in the first place.
I took to excellence like a fish to water. Back when I was a kid, everything was acceptable. Lateness, stealing from my piggy bank, not having food in the cabinets… Chaos. I don’t like chaos.
Vivian is late for our lunch appointment.
Very late.
I told myself I wasn’t waiting for her, wasn’t watching for her, but then both happened simultaneously. Not that she’s chaos, but these circumstances tend to lead to it. I can’t decide if my pride’s been stepped on or if this is a premonition of Things to Come.
“You okay, Nate?”
“No. Someone was supposed to meet me here a while ago.” I check my watch even though I don’t need to. I’ve been checking the time every three minutes for the last forty-five of them. No, wait. Forty-six.
Beck whistles long and low. He knows I don’t like to be late or stood up. I wonder which one my “date” has done. Time to pay Vivian a visit.
Across the street from CRBI, I park and feed a meter. At the crosswalk, I freeze when I spot her embracing some guy.
My fists ball at my sides as a flicker of the old rage I used to feel daily sparks to life. It’s unhealthy, that rage. I need to move the needle from rage to disappointment if I have any hope of not losing my temper.
Is he the guy who ripped her off? She told me he was dead, but people say lots of things to escape or cover for their past. I know someone, intimately, who encouraged their own mother to sign over her parental rights to the Owen family. And then told everyone she died.
We do what we have to do, is what I’m saying.
The light changes and I do a neat jog to cross the street. When she sees me, her eyes widen with alarm and she drops the man’s hand.
I stalk toward her, upset and borderline betrayed. The guy she’s with is tall, rangy, no match for me. Especially when I’m this pissed off. If he hurt her, so help me, God, I’ll—
“Nate.” Her voice holds more than one note of surprise. Did she think I’d let her stand me up and not check on her? Did this guy do the same to her in the past?
“Who the hell are you?” I ask him. No sense in wasting my anger on her.
He smiles, zero caution in his eyes. Zero fear too. He strikes me as someone who’s accustomed to being on the wrong end of situations. I immediately reassess when he offers his hand.
“Walt St—”
“My brother, Walt,” Vivian interrupts. Unlike her brother’s, her smile is a touch disingenuous. “Walt, this is Nathaniel Owen, he’s a builder in the area. We do a lot of work with the Owens at CRBI.”
I shake her brother’s hand and he nods. “That’s cool. Good to meet you, Nathaniel. I’ll let you get back to it, V.”
“There’s a pan of lasagna in the fridge,” she calls as he crosses the street the way I just came. Her worry is palpable as she watches her brother walk away. Reminds me of the way I used to watch my parents and wish they’d get better. Dangerous, that hope. It comforts you when it shouldn’t and leaves you damaged when the balloon finally pops. And most of the time, it pops.
“I didn’t know you have a brother.”
“He lives in Atlanta.” She turns guarded eyes on me. “He’s visiting.”
“You could have called to cancel lunch.”
“I meant to. I had a busy day and then Walt stopped in and… He has a way of taking all my attention.”
I want to forgive her. Family can be stressful. And hers is a doozy.
