CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Callahan
Ten Years Ago
“Wait a minute. You’re saying this is our fault?” Ledger says, exasperated and frustrated as all three of us stand before our father.
No one refuses a summons from Maxton Sharpe.
But I sure as hell wanted to.
Especially now.
“I’m saying he’s your little brother and it’s Ford’s and your responsibility to look out for each other,” our father says.
“Little brother by five minutes, Dad,” Ledger says.
“Exactly. We’re all the same age,” Ford says and then looks at me. “I love you, man, but your bullshit is your bullshit and I’m over it. I refuse to let it drag me down too.”
I nod. It’s all I can do because my focus is on after this meeting. On the wrath I’m more than certain my dad is going to lay upon me—or threaten me with—that will be way worse than my brothers’ dismay.
“You’re family. The three of you will be all you’ll have someday,” my father says. “So yes, it is your responsibility to pick each other up and carry each other when the other falls.”
“You’re right,” Ford defends, “we are family. And sometimes when family fails because they are too busy with their head up their ass partying and getting laid, you let them fail and learn the hard way instead of enabling them by babying them.”
“Dad, in their defense,” I interrupt, even though it’s probably best for my own sake to keep my mouth shut— “it’s not right to blame them for—”
“See?” our father says, pointing at me. “That’s exactly what you two should be doing. Defending him like he’s defending you right now. That’s what family does.”
“With all respect, sir,” Ledger says, the derision in his voice not masked particularly well.
“Where was this lecture when I was failing undergrad? I believe the words you told me were don’t be an embarrassment to the Sharpe name.
That if I couldn’t figure my shit out, I might as well get a new last name.
” His eyes harden. “I’m not hearing any of that right now. ”
“I love you and treat you all the same,” he says and not one of us believes it. Not even him.
“No, you don’t,” Ledger says angrily. “If this were Ford or me dropping out of Wharton, you’d have kicked our asses out and threatened our inheritance.
We would have heard the endless no one embarrasses Maxton Sharpe bullshit.
But it’s not us. It’s Callahan and he can never do any wrong in your eyes. ”
I stand there more than ashamed and hating that with each passing second, the weight on my shoulders that had lifted by finally dropping out of Wharton, is being piled back on with every one of Ledger’s and Ford’s words.
Our father’s sigh is heavy. “I expect to see your up-to-date grades on my desk by tomorrow morning.”
“You mean Ledger’s and my grades, right?” Ford asks. “What is it that you’re requiring from Callahan to keep his place and prestige in this family and company?”
“I think I can handle my own son,” he says, making it clear the conversation is over. He lifts his eyebrows, welcoming the challenge, but neither Ledger nor Ford do. They’re well versed in this, and I fucking hate that I’m in the middle of it. “You’re dismissed.”
All three of us visibly release a sigh of relief.
“Callahan, sit down.”
Fuck.
I guess it’s deserved though considering I am the one who dropped out of one of the best business schools in the country. One my brothers—my equals—are kicking ass at.
The weight of his stare is unnerving as he waits for the room to clear. The door clicks. The dread hits.
“Explain yourself.” Two words and fucking endless possibilities.
“I can’t learn like that, Dad. If I read one more textbook or create one more spreadsheet, I’m going to stab my eyes out.”
“That’s a bit dramatic, son.”
“I’m hands on, Dad. I always have been. School is a lesson in futility, and in learning that if you stroke a professor’s ego long enough by filling his head with how great he is, you’ll ace the course.
Why am I forced to regurgitate facts and statistics when I can be out in the world creating my own? ”
“You need the foundation though. You need the structure and the—”
“Fuck the structure,” I say and then wince, waiting for the reprimand, but when I look at him, I’m shocked to see a soft smile on his lips and affection in his eyes.
“You’re just like her.”
I don’t ask who he’s talking about because I already know. Mom.
“She was spontaneous and hated convention and bucked the system more times than not. She was . . .”
I’ve heard it all before but let him talk anyway. I know the words he’s going to say and the adjectives he’s going to describe her with, just as I know how his eyes are going to fill with tears he only ever cries for her.
He may have had many girlfriends since her death, but our mom was the true love of his life. I truly think he never got over her death and so sometimes he looks to me to remember her.
She was his soft spot.
As I am now.
“I’d tell you dropping out is unacceptable, Callahan, but I know it doesn’t matter to you.
You simply don’t care about my opinions or that you’ve given new meaning to the Sharpe legacy at Wharton.
And not in a good way.” He sighs heavily as he leans back in his chair and levels a stare at me.
“I sat and questioned how I was going to handle this, handle you. I wondered what kind of lesson I’d be teaching you by allowing this sort of thing to happen. What do you have to say for yourself?”
I stare at my father. He’s tough as nails expecting the most out of his boys. His name and his legacy mean everything to him, so to have one of us fail was never an option.
But Ledger is right. When he struggled with the everyday expectations of duty as a Sharpe and college course load, my dad had no mercy or sympathy for him. He held him to the fire with words about being a disappointment and threats about losing his place in the Sharpe dynasty.
Ford and I worried about him. His mental health. His state of mind. But that toughness is what spurred him to shake out of his funk and currently be sitting at the top of our class. Failure isn’t an option.
Is it because Ledger is a cookie cutter of our father that Dad accepted no less?
And does the same hold true to me? Because I’m our mother that I get more leeway than a child should get?
What about Ford? Is he a mixture of both so our father is hard in some ways and not in others, so he’s left in that middle child, no-man’s land where he wonders where he falls?
He loves us all. No doubt there. But he loves us in a way so very different that at times it’s unfair.
The issue? Just like now, I’m too fucking grateful not to be held to a bar of their height that I just shut my mouth and smile.
“Well?” he asks.
I rub my hands on my thighs and think of the shit I’ve done, the stunts I’ve pulled.
“There’s nothing to say that I haven’t already said.
I’m not going to apologize for being who I am, Dad.
I’m not going to kiss your ass and beg you to forgive me for disappointing you.
I am who I am. A Sharpe who doesn’t live up to your standards.
I live up to mine, and right or wrong, that’s me. ”
He twists his lips and swivels back and forth in his chair. “And your plans moving forward?”
“I don’t know.” I have no problem whatsoever with hard work, but sitting in an office with a tie cinched around my neck every day isn’t exactly what does it for me.
“You will not rest on your laurels.”
“No one said I was going to.”
A smile ghosts his lips. “You’re your mother, remember? I do know you.”
He rises from his seat and moves to his favorite corner of his office, shoves his hands in his pockets, and stares at the people down below. It’s his thinking corner. The place where he makes decisions.
I know better than to speak, than to push him to decide when I want out of this recirculated air and concrete confinement.
“Then you start your tenure with Sharpe International Network today.”
Oh Jesus.
Dropping out of school meant I was going to get fresh air and freedom. It meant I was going to be able to sit back and decide who I was without being surrounded by people who only looked at me as a Sharpe. Who only want to know me because of my last name.
I close my eyes and quietly groan.
This would be my brothers’ dream. To jump onto the pedestal and start their climb up the corporate ladder. The ladder that is superficial since they’d be walking in day one on the top rung. This is their everything.
And they’ll see it as more favoritism. More Callahan is the pet.
To me, I was just handed a death sentence.