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I chuckle. “Maybe we’ll have to play another time.”
Trish winks at me, and we all go into the dining room to make drinks. Andrew’s bottle of wine never gets opened, surprisingly. I know the brand. It was our go to “cheap wine”. Now it’s a week’s worth of groceries. I can’t help but grin at the tiny differences in my life.
Andrew falls to the back of the line and whispers, “I understand why you did this now.”
My eyebrows arch. “What do you mean?”
“It’s because of her, isn’t it? The one you’re living with.”
For a second, my jaw clenches. “I didn’t know that I’d be living with her when I stepped away from my position at Loughton House. I slept on tables in a storage room for almost a week.”
Andrew just grins. “I didn’t mean that you did it to live with her. But she’s the one that made you want to step aside, isn’t she?”
He’s always been clever, but I’m surprised at him figuring it out, mostly because I hadn’t quite put those pieces together myself. It had been very coincidental, but thinking about that night at the motel, that’s when things changed. That’s when I realized I needed a change.
It wasn’t the motel or the weird night, though. It was Addison. “Yeah. She doesn’t know it, though.”
Addison and her friends are laughing as they make drinks, and I can’t help but smile.
“It’s not like you to get wrapped up in a girl, Phillip. What’s so different about her?”
I shrug. How do I put into words the way she makes me feel? How do I explain the way I wake up smiling just because she’s in the same room as me? It doesn’t make sense. Hell, nothing in my life really makes sense anymore.
“She makes me realize that there’s more to life than business. At the same time, I’m considering going back to my old job early.”
Andrew looks at me with surprise all over his face. “You aren’t struggling. Dad thinks you’re living in some homeless shelter or something, but you’re not. You’re just living a worker bee life, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Why would you want to go back to the way things were before?”
“Because they won’t be that way anymore. Plus, Addison gives me a reason to have extra money.”
Andrew glances at Addison and shrugs. “Okay, that makes sense. Dad’s going to kill you. Or her maybe. You know that, don’t you?”
“No, he won’t.” I say it with complete confidence. “We all know that I’m the only one he’s prepared to give Loughton House to, and I swear on everything that’s holy that I will walk away just like Mason if he tries to push us apart.”
Andrew cocks his head just a little. “You know that nobody ever gets Dad by the short and curlies. Nobody forces him to do anything.”
“He taught me everything he knows, Andrew. I am Father without having to struggle to figure anything out, and I’ve spent the last decade doing things better than him. It’s why he doesn’t even look over what I’ve done anymore. He’s not as good as me. Not at business and not at controlling a situation. And I have nothing to lose by walking away, but he does.”
Andrew’s eyes widen a little, and then he shakes it off. “Alright, brother. It’s your call.” His eyes move to Sera, who’s watching him out of the corner of her eyes. “How do you know her?”
“She’s one of Addison’s friends. Why?”
Andrew shrugs. “No reason. Just wondering.”
I frown, knowing exactly why he’d be looking at Sera that way. “Don’t fuck things up for me, Andrew,” I caution. He just grins at me and walks into the kitchen.
Son of a bitch.
Thirty-Six
ADDISON
Charades isn’twhat I’d expected when I decided to have a game night. I’d thought we’d play something like Trivial Pursuit or even Monopoly, but looking at the people in the room, it does kind of make more sense. There’s just too big of a distance between the Loughtons and the rest of us. I mean, Phillip didn’t know how to use a coffee pot. How would anyone expect him to know about pop culture?
And Andrew is a mystery. Nobody except Phillip knows anything about him. I guess Trish knows who he is, and maybe Sera does, too.
“We’ll just split into obvious teams,” Trish says.
“Obvious teams? Boys versus girls?” Andrew’s sitting in a folding chair that might have been borrowed from a friend and never returned.
