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I let out an audible sigh. Should I go drinking with people from work on a Monday night? Absolutely not. I’m exhausted and there are so many reasons to just fall into bed.
Looking around my tiny little undecorated apartment leaves me feeling like the responsible answer isn’t necessarily the right one. I’m all alone in New York City with no friends or family. I don’t even know where to get groceries or how to get them back to my apartment.
Making friends might be more important than hiding from a hangover. Plus, I could just have one drink, and it wouldn’t be a big deal…
Addison Adelaide
Fine. Send me an address so I can catch a cab.
Seven
PHILLIP
“Where were you this weekend?You didn’t answer anyone’s phone calls.”
My father, Russel Loughton, the emperor of Loughton House, sits across from me at the shiny boardroom table. Except we don’t have a board of directors. It’s just me and my father while Andrew is off in London, heading up the new branch.
I lean back in my chair, the front wheels rising just a little off the ground, a familiar feeling settling over me. We’ve been in this same position countless times, me in this chair while my father chastises me about something. I look up at the man who built an empire no one could topple based on something he cares so little about.
Books are not Russel Loughton’s pastime. Hell, I still don’t know if he has one other than chewing my ass and making money.
Standing across the table from me, he’s an imposing image. For a man in his sixties, he stands tall, a remnant of a bygone time. I’ve always thought that he was built with the same stuff as the truly great titans of industry. The Rockefellers, Carnegies, and Vanderbilts. The men who built this country’s backbone off the labor of their employees.
White hair covers his head, neatly combed and styled, but without any flair. His suit is a flat charcoal gray, and his shoes shine as though they were brand new. He’s not even looking at me, instead facing the wall that constantly shows our most recent releases and quarterly projections.
I was supposed to be his protégé and, more importantly, the heir to his empire. Where Andrew fell into his position in the company because he had nothing else, I’ve been sitting at my father’s side since I could walk. I was the sacrificial lamb for my family, the one who would hold my father’s eye every day so that the rest of them could do what they wanted. It was a position I was proud of.
“I wanted to take a break from everything. There weren’t any major releases. No interviews or signings. For the first time in months, everything was quiet, so I took the one chance I had to get away from everything. I needed a change of scenery.” Little does he know I spent three months making sure that nothing happened this past weekend.
He finally turns to look at me, utter confusion on his face. “Why? I understand taking a vacation, but I tracked your company card expenses, and you ended up in fucking Pennsylvania. If you’re trying to hide hookers from me, then that’s a little excessive. Just pay cash and don’t let them know who you are.”
I can’t believe he just accused me of driving eight hours to have a party with prostitutes. “Father, I didn’t get hookers. I needed to get away from New York. I didn’t want to be Phillip Loughton for a few days. For once, I didn’t want to have to act a certain way or get treated like I was a Loughton. I just wanted to be normal. Even in some hole in the wall in Pennsylvania.”
My father looks disgusted, and I wonder if I should get a trashcan as he puts his hand on his stomach. “Why the hell would you want to be normal even for a minute? I’ve spent my life trying my damnedest to give you and your brothers a life that the rest of the world could only dream about. What’s the fucking point of all of this if you’re just going to vacation at some shithole in Pennsylvania?”
I know I should just appease my old man. I should just accept the criticism and tell him I learned my lesson and that he’s right. But I’ve spent my life being criticized, and I’m tired of it. How is it any of his business what I do on my own time? Once again, he’s making this about him, and that’s bullshit.
“I’ve spent my life sitting in this boardroom, sleeping in mansions or five-star hotels, and eating food that costs more than most people make in a week because that’s what I’m supposed to do. That’s what you taught me to do. I’ve never done anything just because I wanted to. And this weekend, I just wanted to drive a normal car to a normal place and sleep in a normal bed somewhere that no one’s even heard of me. I appreciate everything you’ve done for us, but it shouldn’t be some kind of insult to you for me to sleep in a cheap motel.”
He turns away from me, and I can hear him sigh. “You couldn’t make it a month in the real world, so why even bother thinking about it?”
“Why not? All the employees do. Hell, nearly every person on the planet does. You may not think I can do anything right, but one day you’re going to retire, and this place is going to be mine to run as I see fit.”
He turns on me then, his hands coming down hard on the boardroom table, and he snarls. “You’ll be able to run Loughton House just fine. I’ve spent your entire life making sure that you will. But you can’t even boil water. You may be capable of running a publishing empire, but Phillip, you’re as ready for the real world as a six-year-old.”
I’ve always accepted my father’s lectures. I’ve always matched his anger and ferocity with passivity and calmness. It was ingrained in me from the moment I came to this building and sat with him when I was three and my life learning to be his successor began. But something happened this past weekend. Something snapped inside me. I can’t just accept things anymore.
I jump to my feet and snarl right back at him. “I’m not a child anymore, and I’ll do whatever the hell I want in my free time. Whether you approve or don’t, it doesn’t really matter.”
Father’s fuming. No one talks to him like this. No one stands up to the man who has made and broken countless people’s careers and futures. I know that if he wanted to, he could cut me out of Loughton House, just like he did with Mason.
But he won’t. Like he said, he’s spent my entire life, thirty-two years, making sure that someone was here to hand Loughton House to. I may be his oldest son, but his favored child will always be Loughton House. No matter how much I piss him off, as long as I don’t endanger his darling business’s future, he’ll still be depending on me to take care of it.
He glares at me, anger mixing with what I assume is an unexpected emotion—powerlessness. I can’t remember a time that he didn’t have an answer to a problem, and he definitely sees me as a problem right now. But what’s he going to do?
Then something happens that fills me with a sense of dread. He smiles. That’s the last thing I’d expected. Here in the silent boardroom, it’s like the world takes a breath, holding it so that a pin dropping would sound like an explosion.
My father’s whisper destroys that silence like an atomic bomb. And my confidence along with it. “Fine. I can’t stop you, and my only real recourse is to yell at you, which obviously does nothing. If you’re so damned set on being normal, then quit fucking around with it. Shit or get off the pot, boy.
