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There was a tightening in my chest that I tried to ignore as she smiled and turned to the door. We weren’t kids anymore. I wasn’t supposed to have a crush on her.
“Well,” Camden said, “now that it’s just us, we can drink and burp and fart all we want.”
“Carmela being around never stopped you before,” I laughed.
“True,” he said, handing me a beer and a cold mug, “but now I don’t have to feel bad about it.”
“Fair,” I said.
“Here,” Camden said, holding out his mug for me to clink mine into. “To good days, both past and future.”
“To good days,” I said.
I let the cold, delicious beer slide down my throat and pull back memories with it. There was something about the brown lagers in this area of Texas. They were just objectively better. The one we were drinking, Flat Tires, was one of my favorites, and was hard to find outside of the region.
“Man, I missed this beer,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s damn good. Hey, did you know that Murdock has its own microbrewery now?”
“No,” I said, intrigued. “Where?”
Camden was grinning wide. “Downstairs,” he said.
“What?” I asked. “I didn’t know there was a downstairs in this place.”
“I finished it out two years ago and created a little brewery there. It stays nice and cool naturally, and I have a backup generator just for that room and the refrigeration units. I’ve been making my own beer for about sixteen months now. I’m bottling it and passing them out as Christmas gifts this year. If people like it…”
“You son of a bitch,” I said. “Not only have you taken a dilapidated ranch and turned it into a booming business, but you are becoming a micro brewer too?”
He shrugged. “No wife, no kids,” he said. “I’ve got to do something to fill the time and spend my cash.”
I laughed. “Most people take up golf.”
“Fuck golf,” he said, laughing. “I’ll take the alchemy of making beer any day.”
We hung out for a while, drinking a few beers, including one of his own creations.
Around ten, I decided to go to my room and settle in for the night. Saying good night to Camden, I made my way to bed, feeling glad that our two rooms were on opposite sides of the house. From what I understood, Camden had a house on the property that was his primary residence, but he spent a lot of time at the main house.
A little TV was mounted on the wall of my room, and I flipped it on using the remote on the bedside table as I undressed and pulled out my suitcase.
Putting away my clothes in the drawers was a surreal experience. I was back, and putting my clothes away felt like an act of finality. I was closing the door on a part of my life, at least for now.
With my clothes put away and my favorite sweatpants and T-shirt combination on, I crawled into the bed and arranged the pillows so I could sit up for a bit. Then I pulled my phone off the charger and looked at my messages. I had an email waiting for me from the estate lawyer that simply said ‘urgent’ in the subject line.
No skipping that one until tomorrow.
I opened up the email app and read it, cursing halfway through.
The estate lawyer had assured me everything was straightforward as it pertained to my father’s will before I moved back home. Yet here he was in an email telling me that, essentially, none of that was true. In fact, it was getting wildly complicated.
Dad’s sister, an aunt who I had probably only ever seen about four times in my life, all of them before the age of five, was contesting the will. Apparently, their father had left the clinic to both of them, and when Dad took over, my aunt left to get married. Dad had operated on the assumption that she didn’t want anything to do with it and claimed it for himself.
He’d built his entire career on that practice, becoming wildly successful and putting a large amount of money into it. But now my aunt was claiming that since the business was put down as going to both my father and her in my grandfather’s will, that she was legally half-owner. Her husband had passed a few years ago, and now as a widow, she was looking to get what was hers in any way possible.
Even if that meant screwing over her nephew.
I groaned, putting the phone down and turning over on my side in the bed. This was not what I was hoping for when I came down. Murdock Drama. I didn’t need or want it, and yet it had found me. All I could do was deal with it—and my aunt.
But that was a problem for Future Mark. Current Mark was busy getting a good night’s rest. It had been a long day, and one that was filled with some confusing and complicating feelings. It would do me good to get some shuteye and see how I felt in the morning about all of it.
