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That’s the main reason I’m leaving for the office even earlier than usual. I’ve slept terribly ever since I woke up married. Tossing and turning and thinking.
Unsurprisingly, traffic is light at this hour. My twenty-minute commute to the office only takes fifteen.
When I enter the lobby, the security guard is yawning. It’s still the night attendant, waiting to be relieved for the day shift. He gives me a respectful nod that I return before scanning my access key and stepping into the elevator.
There’s no front desk on the executive floor. All the desks are empty and offices dark as I walk down the carpeted hallway.
I stop in the kitchen to brew a second cappuccino, the first one doing little to combat my exhaustion. The fancy machine whistles to life as soon as I hit the button, grinding and brewing and frothing until the cup is filled.
I continue down the hall, enjoying how quiet the floor is. I avoid leaving my office unless it’s necessary for this exact reason. People act oddly when I do. They react the same way around my father and Crew, but they both handle it better than I do. My father revels in how his employees find him intimidating. Crew is excellent at pretending not to notice. I’m just uncomfortable.
Walking into my office after days away is strange. Normally, I’m here on Saturday or Sunday. Sometimes both.
I’m reminded why when I unlock my computer and discover I have fifteen hundred unread emails.
Most of them are threads I was cc’d on that don’t require any direct attention. But some of them do. By the time the number of unread emails has dwindled down to a reasonable number, I can hear activity out in the hall as everyone else arrives.
At five of ten I stand, button my suit jacket, and open my door.
Alicia glances up from her computer and smiles. “Good morning, Mr. Kensington.”
“Good morning, Alicia.”
“Did you have a good weekend?”
It’s the same question she asks me every Monday, but I know I’m not imagining the extra scrutiny in the question. For once, she knows I wasn’t here. So it’s a little harder to force out a “Fine” than it usually is. “How about you?”
“It was good. Thanks for asking, sir.”
I nod and continue down the hallway, keeping my gaze aimed straight ahead. I dread these meetings for many reasons, but the worst part is everyone knows about them. They’re all wondering what Crew, my father, and I are discussing. Who we’re promoting or firing or hiring.
There’s no sign of Crew when I step inside the main conference room. But my father is already sitting at the table, tapping a pen against the dark wood impatiently.
My dread grows. No buffer, and he’s irritated I kept him waiting. If I’d beaten him here, he would have commented I must be having a slow morning.
With my father, there’s no winning. Only varying degrees of defeat.
“Dad.”
“Oliver.”
I take a seat across from him, wishing I’d brought the mug with an inch of coffee remaining. Varnished mahogany stretches between us, as sparse and depressing as our relationship. There’s no paper record of these meetings. They exist without notes and never include anyone besides the three of us.
A long time ago, I thought they were my father’s way of connecting family and company in some small way. He guided Crew and I toward working here with all the subtlety of a shove, yet rarely acknowledges we’re his sons within the walls of this building.
Now, I see these meetings as having little to do with me or Crew.
They’re a power play.
My father is all about perception. He wants it to appear as if we’re a tight unit, whatever the truth might be. Wants his employees to spread word the Kensington leadership is united and infallible.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I lean back in my chair and hold my father’s gaze.
I’m expecting him to look away. Ever since he found out what happened between me and Candace, he’s alternated between ignoring me in private and heaping adulations on Crew in public.
There’s petty, and then there’s my father. He’s never met a grudge he hasn’t held.
