Chapter Twenty-Eight Hunter
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hunter
Best man duties aren’t as onerous as I thought they might be.
I had to take care of the rings, give a couple of pep talks when Ed’s nerves were at their highest, and dance with Ed’s mom and granny.
Even my speech was warmly received. People laughed in all the right places.
I couldn’t help but notice Lucy laughed more loudly than most. From what I can tell, the wedding has been a success.
Katherine looked really pretty, and when I told her so, she found no invisible lint to pick from my lapel.
No one fluffed their lines at the altar, and I haven’t heard Mrs. Jones quote Jane Austen once.
Everything seems to be as perfect as Lucy could have imagined for her sister. I’m happier about that than I’d ever admit to Lucy.
“You’re the best friend a guy could ever have,” Ed says, slightly slurring his words. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Ed drunk before.
I slap Ed on the back. “You, too, my friend.”
“I mean it. I love you so much.”
I chuckle. Now we’re declaring our love for each other. This is new. “I love our friendship. I love our business.”
“And I want you to be godfather to our first child,” he splutters.
My stomach falls to the floor. “Katherine’s pregnant?”
“Not yet, but when the time comes, tell me you’ll say yes?”
He looks up at me like he’s proposing and terrified of rejection because he already bought the ring and told his family.
“Yeah, of course I’ll be godfather.”
“Lucy will be godmother, of course. This is perfect. It’s all working out. You two just need to get engaged now.”
Lucy and I haven’t been ignoring each other.
But we haven’t seen much of each other today either.
This morning we were all busy in our respective hotel suites.
Since the ceremony, every time I look around, she’s talking to another elderly aunt or uncle.
She’s keeping everyone happy. I guess that’s how it should be at a wedding when she’s the maid of honor, but it’s clear this is what Lucy is used to.
She desperately wants to be the daughter her parents want.
And as much as she tries, she’ll never live up to Katherine in their eyes.
Because she’s not Katherine and she shouldn’t even have to try to be her.
She’s enough, even if she doesn’t realize that.
“Well, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. I want to focus on work. You know that.”
“The business is going great, man. You don’t need to worry so much.”
“One of us has to,” I reply.
“You really don’t. The place runs itself.”
“No, Ed. It doesn’t. We need to make sure we’re providing our clients with what we say we will. We need to ensure we’re compliant with the new regulations coming in, and we—”
“I have a proposal for you,” Ed interrupts.
“Hate to break it to you, man, but you’re already married.”
Ed laughs like I’ve told the best joke ever. “No, but seriously, I think we need to hire someone. Maybe a couple of people. One person can be in charge of regulatory and compliance. And we need a really good office manager.”
“But I lead on regulatory and compliance.”
“Right, and you’re working around the clock. I know you’ve picked up the slack for me in the lead-up to the wedding. We need more people. But if we employ them, you need to be prepared to loosen the reins a little.”
Loosen the reins? Is that what my dad was doing when he started to go off course in his business? He probably got to a point where he thought the business ran itself and he could sit back a little. I don’t want to fall into the same trap.
“Let’s talk about this another time.” I’m sure when Ed’s sober, he’ll have a change of heart. He knows you have to keep a tight grip on things in business.
“I mean it, man. You need to have a life. We both do.”
“I don’t mind working hard,” I say.
“Neither do I. But I also want to hang out with my wife, and we’re going to have kids soon. I want to work, but I also want to be able to have family vacations and Sunday barbeques.”
This is exactly what I was worried about.
Ed’s priorities have shifted. He’s not thinking about work and building a business.
He’s thinking about vacations and not working.
And this is before he’s even had kids. Maybe I should offer to buy him out of Portis, except I can’t afford to and it was his idea in the first place.
The back of my neck prickles, and I tip my head from side to side, trying to release the building tension, but it doesn’t work.
“Surely you want to hang out with Lucy,” Ed continues. “Go antiquing or whatever it is the two of you do when you hang out.”
“Antiquing?” I ask, wondering if he’s ever met me. I’m not a guy who goes fucking antiquing.
“Or maybe you can take up fishing again,” Ed suggests. “We need more of a balance. We need to enjoy life.”
The thought of fishing tightens my chest. The heat in the ballroom seems to have gone up ten degrees.
I wonder why more men haven’t taken off their dinner jackets.
The last thing I want to do is to take up fishing again.
“Let’s talk about it all when you’re back from the honeymoon.
” I pat him on the back. I need some air.
As I head to the exit, the girls are gathered to catch Katherine’s bouquet. Lucy has stepped to the side, despite Katherine pleading for her to move to the middle.
Somewhere along the way, I’d started to allow myself to believe that everything was going to turn out okay. It was just a chink of hope. The tiniest sliver of optimism that I wasn’t going to be a complete failure, and now this.
Fuck these people. Fuck weddings. Fuck fishing. Fuck everything.
I get to the exit as cheers erupt behind me. Someone’s caught the bouquet. I just need to breathe. To get out of here. To escape.
I want to hold off the reality of what Ed’s just said a tiny bit longer.
I need to sort through what’s going on in my mind.
I want to think about what Ed is really saying to me—and what he’s not saying.
What he’s hiding. Does he want out completely?
Or maybe he just wants to be a silent partner.
We’re earning good money from this business, but it’s not enough for him to never work again.
Especially if he and Katherine are planning to raise a family.
Does he have other plans? Maybe he wants to work for a competitor.
Or maybe he doesn’t want to be his own boss anymore and just wants to work a nine-to-five.
I stumble to the bench underneath the apple tree in front of me and put my head in my hands.
The music has started up again, and I wonder whether I can go back to the hotel.
Would anyone notice I was gone? I need space to think.
I’ve always known Ed and I are different.
He comes from old money in Boston. My family is from good Irish working stock.
We’re not as polished as Ed. And we expect to work.
Maybe Ed has some inheritance I don’t know about.
My thoughts are all jumbled, and I just wish I could tear off this stupid tux and breathe.
“Hey,” she calls.
My head is in my hands, and I don’t look up. I know it’s Lucy. I don’t need to see her to know it.
She sits beside me on the bench. “I caught the bouquet. Well, Katherine passed it to me. I’m not sure it counts.” She stops. “Are you okay? I saw you talking to Ed.”
I nod, but I can’t find the words. She smooths her hand over my back, and I sit back finally.
“What did he say that’s sent you spiraling?”
“I need to step back,” I blurt.
“From the business?” she asks.
I shake my head. “From everything that isn’t the business.
” I’m going to have to be the one who takes all this on.
I can’t rely on Ed. I don’t want to bring in new people.
If he’s going to step back from the business, I need to step forward.
I need to work harder. Harder than I’m doing at the moment.
I need to keep all the plates spinning. I glance over at her, and she looks like I’ve struck her.
I hate myself, but I don’t have any other options. I need to refocus.
“What did he say?” Lucy asks.
“He wants to step back from Portis. He wants me to ‘loosen the reins.’” My mind is racing, trying to find solutions, to come up with a silver bullet that’s going to solve this problem. “Fuck,” I spit. I knew this was coming. Why wasn’t I more prepared?
“But he’s not saying he’s leaving, is he?” she asks.
He might as well be. “No,” I say. “He wants to have more balance. To have barbeques at the weekends and stuff. I don’t know.”
“And that’s not what you want? You work really hard, Hunter.”
“The reason we have a successful business is because I work really hard.”
She sighs beside me. “If you say so,” she says.
“What?” I ask. I’m caught up by my own thoughts, but it feels like she’s imparting some important wisdom that I don’t want to miss.
“If you think you’re successful because you work a lot of hours, then you’re successful because you work a lot of hours.”
Is she saying my success doesn’t come from working hard? She knows how hard I work. She knows what time I arrive in the office and what time I leave. “Running your own business takes up your whole life. That’s just how it is.”
“If you believe it, then it’s true.” She stands and smooths down her dress, like she’s done.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that unless you see that your success is more than just the hours you put in, you’re never going to work fewer hours.”
There’s no point in responding. Lucy has never worked for herself. She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t understand what it’s like to be responsible for paying salaries and making sure you don’t default on a lease.
“The thing is,” she says, fiddling with one of the flowers in the bouquet. “If that were true, there’d be a low ceiling on success. There’d be no Warren Buffett or Steve Jobs. People would have a cap on how much they could achieve because there are only so many hours in the day.”
I try to hear what she’s saying, but it’s like she’s spouting quantum physics. I can’t make sense of her words, and I’ve already got too much spinning around in my head. I can’t take anything else in.
“I’m going to leave you to take your step back,” she says. “From me. And I’m going to go and enjoy the party.”
This is my window of opportunity. I could say I didn’t mean I wanted to take a step back from her. Because I don’t want to lose her. But I don’t have a choice. I have to let her go.
She turns and heads back into the marquee. Part of me wants to bury everything I’m feeling about my conversation with Ed and follow her. I want to dance and laugh and hold her close. I want to spend the night naked and tangled up with her breath on my skin and her fingers in my hair.
But I know now’s not the time to lose it, not the time to give in to temptation. We’re at a tipping point. Ed is stepping back, and I need to step forward. I have to save this business.
I have to save us.