Chapter Eleven Damion
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Cats are funny little assholes who love you on their own terms. I respect them more than I respect most humans.”
—Remington
Damion
Dad: Call me NOW.
“You’re seriously going to just keep ignoring him?” Beckett asked as my phone chirped for the sixth time in the past two minutes.
“Yep,” I said as I went down the park steps, glancing over at the yellow trees to my right, where I’d seen a Cape May warbler before school. “I’m going to be home in a couple hours and I can argue with him then.”
“God, I could not blow off your dad,” he said, dribbling as soon as we reached the path. “Quinn is fucking scary.”
“He’s all talk,” I said, ignoring the knot of dread in my gut that was the direct result of his talk.
But what was the point of calling him now? He was at work, and I was on my way to shoot hoops. Arguing about the upcoming weekend served neither of us and would only result in a fight with zero resolution.
This weekend was a special event at his fraternity, so my dad wanted me and my mom to accompany him to Dartmouth. To my father, the idea of the three of us engaging in a weekend of alumni schmoozing was, like, the ultimate.
To me, the idea was fucking suffocating.
Mostly because it felt like a trap, like the walls were closing in on me.
All my dad wanted was for me to follow in his footsteps, to go to Dartmouth next year like he’d done, like his father had done before him, like his grandfather had done before him.
Actually, it wasn’t a want at all.
He expected it to happen, just like he expected the sun to rise in the morning.
His son was—of course—going to follow in his footsteps.
It was what the Rutledge men did.
They were born, they played manly games, they graduated from Gardenwood, and then they attended Dartmouth.
After that they could take their rightful spot within Rutledge Investments, wherein they would spend the rest of their days poring over financial statements and hoarding wealth the way wild people on TLC hoarded animals.
As the heir apparent to take over the family business, it was just assumed that I was going to fall in line.
Nope, though—it wasn’t for me.
I had other plans, better plans.
But the fact that my dad was on my ass to confirm I was coming along on the family trip meant he was pressing the gas on getting my future going.
He wanted a weekend to get a good visual on what the future would look like.
I wanted to avoid that weekend entirely.
So I wasn’t going to attend.
Because if I went, I’d either have to lie the entire trip or tell the truth.
Each sounded equally awful.
“Just tell him,” Beckett said. “Tell him you’re not going. Tell him you have to help me with… something.”
“First of all, you just said you’re scared of him, so ‘just tell him’ falls a little flat, you wuss,” I said. “And second of all, even if I had to help you give CPR to nuns, he’d still say Dartmouth is more important.”
“I hate to break this to you, but your freshman year is coming fast whether you like it or not. You can’t keep putting off the inevitable.” Beckett shot me a look and said, “If you’re actually going to do the damn thing, the conversation needs to be had sooner rather than later.”
Beckett was my best friend, probably the only person who really got me, even though we were total opposites. He understood what I wanted and respected my goals, but he was all about following in his dad’s footsteps and doing exactly what was expected of him.
He looked forward to meeting his parents’ expectations, couldn’t wait to go to Harvard and join his father’s fraternity, and he was genuinely honored to follow in his dad’s vocational footsteps.
He was the golden child.
So yeah—he thought I was out of my mind with my alternative plan.
But still, he supported me.
He was the only person in the world—now that Remi was gone—who knew what I actually wanted to do next year, what I was trying to make happen.
Everyone else on the planet just assumed I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.
“I know,” I said, but I just didn’t know how to do it.
When Remi was here, we’d had a plan.
Now it was just me, trying to find the words to disappoint my dad and the way to make it happen.
“Maybe do something terrible at alumni weekend,” he said with a smirk. “Make him relieved you don’t want to attend his alma mater.”
“Vomit on one of his fraternity brothers?” I said, gesturing for him to give me the ball.
“Get arrested for taking a piss in the campus fountain,” he suggested, sending me a bounce pass. “An indecent exposure charge will distract him.”
“Great suggestion,” I said.
His phone buzzed and he glanced down at it. “Oh, good, Liam’s meeting us.”
“Liam? Lowell?” I asked. “At the courts?”
“Yeah,” he said, putting his phone back in his pocket. “Is that okay?”
“Sure,” I said, dribbling the basketball. And yet the last thing I wanted to deal with at the moment was one of them.
A Lowell.
Beckett seemed to really like Liam—everyone did, actually, but they also didn’t know what I knew about his family. The people of Gardenwood might suspect they were new money, but no one had confirmation of that rumor.
Or the fact that the money had come via questionable methods.
I’d briefly considered telling Beckett everything, but then I thought better of it. What was the point in mentioning it when I had no proof? It seemed smarter to wait and see if my dad was going to be able to reverse the will.
Please, God, let him be successful.
It felt urgent and imperative that we do it, like we’d all be failing Remi if we didn’t right that wrong and get his house back.
But with each passing day, it felt less possible.
The longer they were in that house, the more it felt like it might actually be theirs.
God help me, Riverside Manor felt like it was slipping out of our hands.