Chapter Thirty-Three Hunter
Chapter Thirty-Three
Hunter
The last place I expected to be on a Monday morning was Boston.
But here I am. I need to be here today. I want to see Ed through the fresh eyes I’ve been able to view the world with since visiting my parents and speaking to my father.
Having my father try to dismiss what happened to my face rewrote the ending on every last story I’ve told myself about how I’d been responsible for the failure of our family business.
Even though I knew my father handed me a business that couldn’t survive, I couldn’t lay the blame fully at his feet.
Not until I watched him try to so blatantly shirk any responsibility.
“Hunter?” Ed stands when he sees me walk into his office. “I was just about to call you. What are you doing here?”
I smile at my friend and business partner. It’s really good to see him. “What can I say? I missed you!” I pull him in for a hug. “Nice tan, buddy.”
“Belize, man. It was fantastic.”
“Yeah?” I say. “Tell me all about it.” Normally, I’d be down to business immediately, but my best friend just got back from his honeymoon, and I want to hear all the details.
“Wanna catch me up on what’s been going on in the office?”
I shrug. “That will wait. Let’s go grab a coffee, and you can tell me about Belize.”
Ed grins like I just handed him a cheesecake and a fork. “I could use a coffee. I’ve been in the office since five.”
I laugh at his early arrival in the office.
How could I have been worried that Ed was going to slack off?
He’s just as much of a workaholic as I am.
We’re cut from the same cloth. He knew that when he suggested we go into business together.
I’ve known it deep down from the start. I just didn’t trust that knowledge.
My self-doubt has clouded my vision for too long.
But I’m free now. Free to trust Ed. Free to trust myself.
Free to let go a little. It may take some practice.
My training wheels—my long-held beliefs about myself—have come off, but I’m still wobbly.
But I know the more I live in this new reality, the easier it will become.
My father’s fantasy of me being the son who failed his family is just that.
A fantasy. He’s a father who failed his son.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay with what my father did. But the knowledge is more good than bad. I’m more positive and invigorated about the future of my relationship with Ed, and about our business, than I ever have been. I just need to be open with him today. That’s why I’m here.
We head out into the crisp Boston morning, looking for coffee.
“How was the food?” I ask.
“Incredible. And the beaches? Two weeks away is like . . . medicine or something. I feel like a new man. I’m so pumped about this quarter. And now with the move, I’m going to make it in earlier.” He’s full of energy. Full of life.
“I was thinking about your idea for recruiting more staff,” I say.
“You’re right, our quarter is showing huge growth again.
And we need more hands on deck if we’re going to be able to keep growing at this rate.
Let’s get ahead of it and not wait until we’re creaking at the seams to bring in more people. ”
“Exactly!” Ed says. “That’s what I was thinking. Let’s recruit in advance and be ready for our next phase of growth.”
He pauses, then looks at me carefully before he opens the door of the coffee shop. “Are you okay? You seem . . .”
“Let’s get coffee.” Once we do, I suggest we take a seat rather than walk back to the office right away. “I went to see my parents this weekend,” I say as we sit.
“You don’t go back very much, do you?”
“It’s been awkward for a long time now. I feel all this resentment toward my dad for what happened with Bain because we’ve never spoken about it openly. You know he’s never acknowledged what happened or the fact the business was dying when he handed it over to me.”
A look of disappointment crosses Ed’s face. Not long ago, I would have interpreted his expression as disappointment in me, but now I recognize he’s disappointed for me. Disappointed that I had a father who would do that to me.
“This weekend . . . something changed. I couldn’t not say something.”
Ed’s eyebrows lift practically to his hairline, and he shifts forward in his chair. “You confronted him?”
I nod. “I did. I told him I knew what he did.”
“What did he say? Did he admit it?”
I pull in a breath. “No. He got defensive. Told me failure was ‘the making of me.’ But no, he didn’t take responsibility.”
Ed shakes his head. “God, I’m sorry, man.”
“Don’t be,” I say. “I feel like I’ve been carrying around a sack of rocks, and telling my dad what I knew and who I knew him to be .
. . It’s like I set that sack down. I feel lighter.
I feel like this is fresh start. I know it’s not.
We’re in the middle of a business relationship, and Portis is far from new, but .
. . I feel different. I want a chance to start again. ”
“What do you mean start again? You’re not leaving, are you?” Panic flickers in Ed’s eyes.
I shake my head to reassure him. “Absolutely not. But I want to do things differently. I feel like I can finally do things differently. The first thing I want to do is apologize to you.”
“Me?” Ed says. “You’ve got nothing to apologize to me for.”
“I do,” I reply. “I haven’t trusted you.
I’ve thought the worst of you. I’ve almost been expecting you to make a mistake, or to let me down.
You’ve never given me any reason to doubt you, but that’s what I’ve done.
I’ve doubted you and you didn’t deserve it.
” Saying it makes me realize how true it’s been.
I haven’t trusted Ed. I’ve been waiting for him to fail.
When your own father lets you down, you expect the rest of the world to as well.
“I don’t know what to say,” Ed says.
“There’s nothing you need to say. I’m sorry. I want to tell you that I do trust you. With my life.”
Ed nods. “That’s how I feel about you. That’s why I asked you to go into business with me. I knew I could trust you with my life.”
I take a sip of coffee, trying to swallow down the lump in my throat.
“You can trust me,” I say. “I want to embrace our partnership. I trust it—trust us.” It’s not just Ed I’ve put my faith in. After this weekend, I finally trust myself too.
We smile at each other, and Ed nods. “It’s really good to see you,” he says. “Katherine’s going to be excited too.”
I wince. “Actually, I’m booked on a flight back to New York this afternoon. I have some stuff to do in the city.”
“Stuff? That sounds ominous.”
“Yeah. I got pretty stressed when you went on your honeymoon.” I didn’t see my stress for what it was until the conversation with my father.
I didn’t see that it wasn’t Ed I didn’t trust. It was myself.
“I don’t think I trusted that I could run the business for two weeks without you so I .
. . I pushed Lucy away.” My heart aches at the thought of hurting Lucy.
I’ve taken my self-doubt out on those who mean the most to me.
Ed. Lucy. Neither of them have deserved the way I treated them.
“Ahh,” Ed says sagely.
“Ahh?”
“Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. You’re going to try and get her back?”
“I don’t know if she’ll have me.”
“The Jones sisters are pretty stubborn,” Ed says.
I know that about Lucy. She’s so strong and resilient. It’s part of what makes me . . . love her.
I exhale at the realization of how strong my feelings really are.
“How long had you and Katherine been dating before you knew it was serious?” I ask.
Lucy and I haven’t really been dating at all, but I know I can’t walk away from her.
Maybe the thought of losing her was what gave me the courage to say what I needed to say to my dad.
I knew if I kept going the way I had been, I’d never be able to be with her.
I thought I had to give everything I had to the job.
A grin unfurls on Ed’s face. “Pretty early. Like maybe even our first date. I knew she wasn’t just some girl I just wanted to take home once and never see again.
She was so kind and so fucking sweet. I could imagine what our lives would be like.
I had this super clear vision of how it would be in our future. ”
I nod. I can see my future with Lucy. We’ll live in New York our entire lives.
There’ll be no moving out to the suburbs.
We’ll get brunch every Sunday and meet for lunch every weekday.
She’ll kick ass at law school and be a baller at a white-shoe firm.
We’ll double date whenever Ed and Katherine are in town, and we’ll argue about whether Katherine is perfect.
I’ll tell her that it’s always been Lucy who’s perfect.
For me. She’ll lift me up when I doubt myself, and I’ll try to do the same for her.
And eventually, she’ll look stunning pregnant, in a white dress, standing underneath the AC, wondering whether we should move to Boston.
I’ll know she won’t mean it, but I’ll tell her we can move if that’s what she wants—because I’d follow her anywhere.
“Yeah,” I say. “I see it too.”
I just hope she does.