4. Lucas
LUCAS
“ A h, he lives!” Adrian yelled over his shoulder as he rearranged various vegetables and meat cuts on the grill. I was only three minutes late for our weekly family dinner, but he was here already, so in his eyes, he had the moral high ground and he was going to milk it.
“I’m three minutes late, asshole.”
I pulled a beer from the case I’d stopped for on my way and handed one to Leo as he stepped out onto the deck with me. Adrian was wearing a ridiculous grilling apron and flipping his utensils around like a flair bartender.
Watching our brother, Leo muttered, “He’s absurd.
But his food is good, so I’ll continue to tolerate the reality show audition he pulls here every week.
” He sighed as he walked to the table where our father was already sitting, scotch and water in front of him.
I followed and gave him a one-armed hug as I passed .
“Hey Pops. I hope you have great homeowner’s insurance letting this idiot man the grill.”
My father chuckled. “He’s got an acceptable track record so far.
I’m willing to chance it for that prime rib.
” He glanced over at Adrian who was flipping pieces of squash in the air and catching them in his mouth.
“It doesn’t make sense that he cooks it to perfection every time.
He’s barely paying attention. But who am I to mess with success? ”
I took a seat next to my father and kicked my legs out under the table.
“You’re right. I’ll never tell him, but I think he’s got some sort of grilling sixth sense.”
Adrian was more often than not a pain in my ass, but my dad had a solid point. He grilled an amazing steak dinner and, like the rest of the family, I would tolerate a fair amount of antics to obtain one.
Plus, Adrian hadn’t always been this gregarious.
Right around when our mother died, we lost him a bit.
His usually shiny personality had dulled.
We saw him less. He kept mostly to himself for years.
His return to the Adrian we all knew and loved had happened suddenly.
One day he was a shell of his former self, the next we had our brother back.
At the time, it’d been more concerning than relieving.
My older brother instincts had been sounding alarms. It didn’t make sense for him to have such a rapid turnaround.
People didn’t just get better overnight like that.
But it had been years without incident, so eventually I’d given up bugging him about it.
I still kept a watchful eye, just under the radar now .
We started doing these weekly dinners after we all moved out, when seeing each other daily wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Even though our shared business meant it was rare for me to go a day without seeing my brothers, it was more difficult to fit dad in without intention.
I didn’t always want to drag my ass over here, but once I got here, I was always happy I did. It was important to show up. That was one value that was drilled into us as children. You show up for the people you care about.
My brothers needed to know I’d always be a constant in their lives. There for them if they needed me. There if they didn’t. Just there. When you lose someone and that constant presence isn’t a guarantee, it suddenly becomes more valuable.
“So, how’s business, boys?” My father always started the evening checking in on our company.
I shared some general business—projections, plans for new hires, fleet maintenance issues. Adrian chimed in from his spot at the grill with updates from his architecture department here and there. Then Leo took the lead, telling our dad about the Arnoult project and the progress we were making.
There were quite a few interesting customizations on the project and Leo was in his element, walking through them in detail.
As he started explaining the fireplace mantel that would appear to be an old beam, but open up to house electronics and television components, Adrian walked over with the food laid out on platters.
“Ah. And whose idea was that mantel, dear brother?” Adrian baited as he took a seat with us and eyed me like prey. Prey he was going to play with a bit.
Leo just looked at me, expressionless. Clearly, he would not field this one for me. I sighed.
“Helen Arnoult hired a designer that she asked us to work with from the beginning planning stages of the project. So, we ran our original plans through her and she made some modifications. We met with the client this afternoon and got everything approved.”
“She’s talented. The team was excited about everything she sent over. She also happens to be an absolute smoke show,” Adrian interjected.
I was going to murder a family member. Screw constant presence. I didn’t think it was possible I would ever take one of their lives by choice, but here we were.
“Not only is that irrelevant, it’s fucking inappropriate, Adrian.” I snapped.
My dad looked at me as he loaded his plate. “Well, well. You seem a little sensitive, son. I’m sure your brother would never make the lady feel uncomfortable. No harm in pointing out that she’s an attractive woman.” He smiled and worked on cutting into his prime rib.
My father was possibly the world’s biggest advocate for chivalry and would never tolerate one of us treating a woman poorly.
So I knew my brother’s description of a professional contact was bordering on inappropriate for him too, but he was choosing to shelf it for the moment in order to gauge my reaction.
I was almost certain Adrian would get a stern warning later tonight about respecting women.
“I’m not sensitive. I was just raised not to speak about women like pieces of meat. Especially ones I’m in a professional relationship with.” I stared pointedly at Adrian. Then my father.
My dad reached over and squeezed my shoulder.
“That’s right, son. Your mother would be proud of your little speech there. For its content and its attempt to divert attention from the actual topic of you having a thing for this young lady, which I assume is the reason your brother looks so damned pleased with himself.”
He smiled from ear to ear, knowing I couldn’t put him in his place the way I did Adrian.
I huffed out a breath and looked to the sky, hoping for some sort of divine intervention that would grant me a level of patience I didn’t currently possess.
“Leo, what do you think of her?” Dad asked. Leo had been quiet since the topic of Olivia took over the conversation. He was a nuts and bolts type of guy and didn’t particularly love socializing, so gossip and women were a definitive way to get him to check out.
Begrudgingly, he offered his take on Olivia Dawson. “I haven’t met her yet, so I can’t weigh in on the smoke show level, but she’s talented. Her edits to the plans were pretty clever. She understands the technical aspects. Didn’t ask us to do stupid, impossible shit for no reason.”
It made no sense, but hearing my curmudgeon brother praise Olivia for her alterations to our plans squeezed my chest with equal parts pride and jealousy.
He was right. Her alterations and ideas were all smart, creative, and skilled in their understanding of what was actually possible. They made sense for what we were trying to achieve and didn’t add complexity for the sake of it. I was impressed when she sent them back after our initial meeting.
She deserved the accolades Leo was giving her. At the same time, hearing them from another man’s mouth, my brother’s mouth no less, made me uneasy in a way I was not comfortable with. I decided to ignore it for now and evaluate when I wasn’t being grilled by my family.
By the time I realized I’d gotten lost in my reaction to my brother’s assessment, it was too late to train my face and dad had noticed my likely telling expression.
Thankfully, my brothers were too occupied with their dinners to pick up on it too, but the moment I met my dad’s eyes, I knew he'd read my every thought.
He gave me a knowing grin and returned to his dinner.
“She sounds lovely. You boys should invite her to the Fourth.”
Adrian perked up at that. Like a dog who had just been introduced to the idea of bones. When did my family become such meddlesome dickheads?
“You know, Dad, that is a great idea! We absolutely should. I’ll make sure to give her a call.”
There’s no way in hell I wanted Olivia here for the Fourth of July, but it was too late now. If I objected, they would smell blood and this would get much worse.
My next thought was that there was no fucking chance Adrian would be the one calling her. That if anyone was inviting her to our annual bash, it was going to be me. But I kept my mouth shut and my face impassive.
“Wonderful!” Our dad clapped his hands once. “I’m always glad to meet your colleagues. Now Adrian, how’s the Reiner boy doing? ”
My brothers shifted to updating our father on our staff. We started the company ourselves, but our dad had worked with us for years before retiring and knew many of the staff personally. He regularly checked in on them and visited the office enough to know the newer employees as well.
Meanwhile, I sat quietly and tried to work through exactly why I’d just had that edgy reaction to my brother’s needling. I already knew I found Olivia attractive. The debate on that topic would be like arguing if water was wet.
Since meeting her, I had learned she was also intelligent, creative, and capable. All traits I admired, but not an explanation for the pull I felt towards her.
They were no excuse for the desire I had to protect her that had surged after hearing her smoothie story at Anthony’s this afternoon.
I didn’t know what came over me at our meeting with Helen earlier. I hadn’t even touched her and it had felt like I’d performed an illicit sex act in the middle of Tony’s place.
Then we’d answered Helen’s questions on the build and hearing Olivia competently address all Helen’s concerns with grace and ease had done something to me.
I was fascinated.
It was as if her mind was a physical thing you could watch work outside her body. It had concerned me quite a bit that our discussion of disguised electrical outlets had aroused me more than any encounter I’d had with a woman in recent memory.
The residual frustration had led me to speak to her as we were leaving in a way I hadn’t planned or even had control over. But I had a primal urge to tell this woman she had done well. Her reaction had seated a deep desire, confirmed a suspicion, and thoroughly fucked me.
Since that first meeting we’d had, when Olivia had sat across from me with wide eyes, searching for approval on her input, I knew I was screwed.
Her beauty was one thing, but knowing in my bones that Olivia Dawson would use all her drive and determination to please me if I had her naked body beneath mine was another. Knowing she’d come apart for me when I told her just how well she was doing, was dangerous.
I’d had to stop myself from thinking about it during our first meeting. Wondering if I had her figured out. But after her reaction to my praise at Tony’s? There was no doubt.
My brothers finished up and started tidying the table while I stewed on all things Olivia Dawson. When they moved to the kitchen to drop dirty dishes in the sink, my dad squared me with a patented Marcus Alessi stare down.
“So how are you doing, son?”
“I’m doing fine. We have a bunch of projects going, but they’re all-”
“No, Lucas. How are you ? Not the business. You.”
“I’m fine,” I replied, not entirely comfortable with where this was headed.
“You know, I worry about you, Lucas. Worry you’re not as open to life, to love, as you should be. As you were once. ”
My father’s eyes crinkled a bit, showing a tiny amount of the pain I knew he lived with every day since mom died. He worried about all of us and how our lives had splintered since then. She was the rock of our family. He was trying his damnedest to fill her shoes, but there would always be a hole.
I gave him the only answer I could. “I’m open, dad. I'm just not willing to settle for less than what you had with mom.”
His eyes softened a bit at the mention of mom in this context. “That’s fine son, but don’t be so rigid in what that looks like that you can’t see it even if it’s right in front of you.”
“Nothing’s right in front of me, Pop.”
“Alright then. Just keep it in mind. Now let’s go help these clowns before my kitchen floor becomes a swimming pool. I don’t know how your brother still can’t wash a dish.”
I laughed and followed dad into the house while I tried actively not thinking about a small brunette in white.