28. Lance
Lance
I sleep through most of the day after a long night shift.
By the time I drag myself upright again, the apartment’s gone dark. I shower properly, shave like I’m trying to rejoin society, then dig the charcoal trousers and white Oxford out from the back of the closet, where they’ve lived untouched for ninety-eight percent of the year.
These are Seattle clothes. It’s the version of me that got marched into donor dinners and charity galas. It’s where I learned how to survive three-hour meals, where everybody spoke in polished full sentences and somehow made “interesting” sound like an insult.
I button the shirt and look at myself in the mirror, already exhausted by the memory of my mother’s dining table and the standing house rule that you dressed properly no matter who was coming over.
Marcus always followed that rule. I know him well enough to be dressed before I even see where we’re going.
Turns out I’m right.
The place is called The Foundry Room. I’ve walked past it a couple times without ever going in.
Ground floor of some restored brick building in the Gaslamp, exposed beams, dark walnut, low lighting, and enough polished metal to make the whole place look expensive before you even touch the menu.
The cocktail list runs four pages. The whiskey section gets its own booklet.
We get seated in a corner booth with leather chairs.
Marcus settles into his seat easy, jacket perfect, collar open just enough to stop short of corporate hostage negotiator territory.
He’s got that calm, terrifying rich-person competence that makes staff magically appear before he even asks for something.
The waiter hands us menus.
My brother is nine years older than me, and by the time I was just starting to pay attention to the world, he was already leaving for college. He returned on breaks and holidays with the same non-energy every time, a yawnfest.
Marcus has spent my entire life managing me like I’m a high-risk corporate asset. I love him for it. It also drives me insane.
The waiter reappears. Marcus orders a Scotch without so much as glancing at the menu. I order a Mezcal Negroni mostly because I had one the week I turned twenty-one and spent the next years pretending I was more of a beer-and-whiskey guy than I actually am.
Marcus gets the dry-aged ribeye. I study the menu longer than necessary before deciding on the sole meunière. Haven’t had it since the endless dinners at my mother’s table where everybody wore cufflinks.
The drink feels appropriate somehow, or psychologically damaging. Hard to tell now.
“How’s the firm?” I ask once the waiter leaves.
“It’s been busy. We’ve got a merger case that’s been running for fourteen months and shows no sign of resolution.
” He folds his hands loosely on the table.
“We brought in two lateral partners last quarter, which should help with the load, but it won’t feel like help for another six months at least.”
“Do you even sleep?”
“Technically.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “That answer alone says no.”
“I sleep enough.” He picks up his water glass. “Don’t nurse me.”
“Hey,” I point at him. “I’m your brother before I’m a nurse.”
“I could say the same thing to you.” He pauses, and now he’s just my brother, the one I grew up with, not anything else. “You look good though, despite everything.”
“Despite what?”
“The long hours.” A small shrug. “The life you’ve chosen.”
“I like the life I’ve chosen.”
“I know you do.” He takes a sip of water. “Mother asked about you.”
And there it is. One mention of our mother and suddenly the entire restaurant feels like I’m twelve again.
“What did she say?”
“She asked how you were, whether you were eating.” He pauses. “And whether you’re happy.”
“Yes to all of the above,” I respond, trying to sound indifferent.
“I keep telling her to call you herself.”
“She knows my number.”
Marcus sighs, his voice softening. “She misses you. You used to be close.”
I say nothing to that.
“Do you miss her?”
I examine his face across the table. He’s asking it straight, no angle, just the question. Marcus doesn’t play games with the people he cares about.
Other people get Corporate Marcus.
I get the version that asks emotionally devastating questions over eighteen-dollar cocktails.
“Yeah,” I admit after a pause. “I do.”
The silence settles comfortably between us after that. Marcus and I learned early there wasn’t always anything to say, which makes sense when you grow up in a house where people are either completely present or completely absent with not much in between.
Our father, Richard, is the absent version. He’s not unkind, just constitutionally unavailable. Some men build their whole personality around work and then act surprised when nobody knows how to talk to them outside office hours. He’s one of them.
Marcus has been walking the same path for years. I’ve never said it to his face, partly because it’s not my business and partly because he probably already knows it. He must have feelings about it too. He just handles them privately, which is how he handles most things.
Our mother is different.
Eleanor Bradford walks into a room and the room adjusts itself. It’s not because she asks it to. Because it learns fast.
She’s the founding partner of Bradford-Caldwell Group, one of the most powerful political strategy firms in the Pacific Northwest. They’ve been behind three gubernatorial campaigns and more senate races than I can count off the top of my head.
My mother doesn’t make the news. She makes the people who make the news.
She knows every name that matters on the West Coast and a few that don’t yet realize they do. And the ones she hasn’t met yet are usually already halfway through an introduction someone else is making on her behalf.
I know she loves us, fiercely. The problem is she loves us with the same energy she applies to everything else, which means there’s always a plan attached to it. It’s not malicious—never that. It’s just inevitable.
“Mom still has that photo of you in the front hall,” Marcus says eventually. “The one from the state academic decathlon. She was so proud you won that she had it framed.”
“Ugh. I didn’t want it on the wall.”
“She had three copies made.” The corner of his mouth almost moves. “One for the office, one for Grandma Elaine, and one for the hall. She showed it to Senator Vanderhart at a fundraiser dinner four months ago.”
I stare at him. “You’re fucking joking.”
“I’m really not.” He picks up his Scotch. “She told him her younger son could have argued any case in the Treaty Room and won.”
I laugh despite myself.
The Treaty Room is what we called the formal sitting room growing up.
Marcus named it at fourteen after he noticed no argument in that house ever made it past the door.
Something about the room forced people to stay civil.
Probably our mother’s doing and the way she angled every chair so you had to look the other person in the eye.
Marcus and I used to sit on the stairs and listen through the gap in the door when we were supposed to be in bed, me still in pajamas and him old enough to know better, both of us trying to read the voices on the other side.
There’s something deeply ridiculous about the two of us sitting here now in a restaurant where the lighting probably costs more than my monthly utilities, and this somehow being the most relaxed I’ve seen him in years.
“How’s George’s shop?” Marcus asks, once the food arrives. “You mentioned he’s working through something.”
“It’s complicated. He’s got a buyout situation with his business partner and the timing on the financing options is difficult.” I keep it vague. “He’ll figure it out.”
Marcus nods, eyes on the glass. “You’re already involved.”
“I’ll help if he lets me. Or possibly even if he doesn’t.”
He doesn’t say anything to that right away. He cuts into his steak before looking up at me again. “George seems…comfortable in your apartment.”
I point my fork at him immediately. “Where are you going with this, Brother?”
“I’m making an observation.” Completely calm. “He has a key.”
“He does.” I take a bite I don’t taste. “I insisted he keep it.”
“He seems well acquainted with the organization of the house. He arrived with groceries before you got home from your shift.”
“He’s been over a million times, and I asked him to grab a few things when he does his own shopping.” I fight to keep my composure.
“He has additions,” Marcus continues, not deterred by the evident edge in my voice now. “And he appears to anticipate your needs.”
I rub a hand over my face. “He’s my best bud. Of course he does.”
Marcus rotates his Scotch glass once against the table. To an impartial observer, it just reads like going beyond the bounds of a typical friendship. His gaze is unyielding. “Is that really the full extent?”
His face gives nothing away. I’m not sure what he’ll make of my answer.
“We’re…friends,” I manage to say, but even I can hear the half-second it took me to get there.
“Okay, then.” He nods once, then sets his glass down carefully. “So, we need to talk about North Harbor.”
And there it is.
“I’m on it, Marcus.”
“I don’t think you are. Dr. Cameron emailed me last week. She copied me in because she knows I am associated with the hospital through the firm. She wasn’t going around you. She was following up.”
“I get what she’s doing.”
“She’s been patient, Lance. You’ve deferred twice.”
I lean back against the booth, hissing “Jesus Christ.”
Our main courses arrive. Neither of us touches them yet.
I know the pitch. I’ve heard it from Marcus, Dr. Cameron, and from our mother, who called me about it exactly once in a conversation that lasted just a few minutes and ended with her saying she hoped I’d think carefully about my future. That’s the closest she’s gotten to asking me to return home.
“It’s in Seattle,” I say, like it’ll explain why I’m avoiding the topic.