Chapter Seventeen
Madden
Madden pushed the folder to the side, looking for that sustainability report from last year when the phone rang.
Adryan’s name lit up the screen. He pressed the button, fumbling to put the speaker on. He needed his one good hand to find that damn report.
‘Michael knows about us and is pissed,’ Adryan said, his voice not entirely stable.
A folder slipped to the floor. He bit a curse.
‘And how would he know, Adryan? Did someone happen to tell him we slept together?’ He should call Vicky and ask her to help, but he had the unreasonable feeling he would lose if he did.
‘I’m sorry, I said something.’ Adryan sounded, indeed sorry.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he replied. He didn’t care if Michael knew or not. He lifted the financial reports, still searching. Except that his phone was on top, and started sliding off the table on the other side. He stood up, reaching quickly for it. His hand landed on its screen before it fell.
‘Need help?’ Theo popped his head through the door, his gray hair perfectly combed, his salt-and-pepper beard cleanly trimmed, as he walked into Madden’s office.
Madden pulled his phone toward him. The call had disconnected.
Fuck. He’ll have to call Adryan back later.
‘You know, you see these people doing absolutely astounding portraits with their feet, and you don’t realize how truly amazing it is until you have to go without the use of one hand and come face to face with the reality that you’re useless, one-handed.’
Theo chuckled, undoing a button on his deep blue blazer as he sat down.
‘I didn’t expect you back so soon. I was hoping some young farmer had seduced you into not being an anal workaholic I’ve come to know and love.’
Madden rolled his eyes.
‘Not that kind of small town,’ he said, leaning back into the chair.
He looked at his phone. Well, someone had seduced him.
Or was it he who had seduced Adryan? He wasn’t quite sure, but either way, he couldn’t erase the image of Adryan’s liquid blue eyes from his mind, nor the pain etched in them when they last looked at each other.
‘Oh dear,’ Theo said, seeing as he didn’t answer. ‘It’s worse than I thought.’
Someone knocked at the door. Madden looked over, it was Geraldine, Theo’s assistant.
Madden waved her in.
‘This came for you,’ she said, handing a large brown envelope to Theo, a red, ‘urgent’ stamp printed on its front.
‘Thank you, my dear,’ he said to Geraldine, who smiled as she adjusted her glasses over her nose.
Madden watched his desk covered in folders and papers for far too long, overwhelmed by the mess he had made. They had all started in a nice, tidy pile.
‘What…’ Theo said.
His business partner frowned at the paper in his hand.
‘What is it?’ Madden asked, leaning forward.
‘Hmmm?’ Theo looked up, and his gaze cleared. ‘No, nothing. Just nonsense.’
He crumpled the paper and shoved it into the envelope, throwing it in the bin.
Madden watched him, confused. Theo wouldn’t meet his gaze, but Geraldine seemed concerned. The wrinkles on her forehead deepened as she stood behind her boss.
‘Do you need me to call—’ she tried.
‘That’s not necessary. Don’t worry. I’m just going to help Madden wade through the shitstorm that has become his desk.’
Geraldine replied with an uncertain ‘Okay,’ and left them alone.
‘Is everything okay?’ he asked Theo, once they were alone.
‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘What is it you’re looking for?’
The man stood up and started pulling all the folders and papers together, then split them into two piles, handing him one back.
‘Remember that sustainability proposal we got last year.’
‘For our packaging needs?’
Madded nodded.
Theo froze, the first folder in his hand.
‘I see…’ he said. Theo was good putting two and two together quickly. ‘Well, butter my ass and call me a toast, you really are in it deep, aren’t you?’
The boardroom was buzzing with low conversations when he came in.
Business analysts, financial analysts, the business development director, and the acquisitions director, as well as the logistics director, all sat around the table.
Theo joined him at the door and everybody inside seemed to stir, getting their folders and computers ready.
‘Are you sure about this?’ Theo asked.
‘We were going to do it sooner or later,’ Madden said. ‘We’ll be lowering our carbon footprint and helping a small community. It’ll be great PR.’
‘Is that what you told Eric so he would sign off on it?’ Theo laughed, straightening his jacket.
As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what he had done. Eric, their other business partner, only cared about one thing, and that was results and everything that could bring results, so that’s exactly what Madden showed him.
‘Let’s get this show on the road,’ Madden said, walking into the boardroom. The door silently closed behind him as someone switched on the projector.
The meeting ended quite favorably and Madden was pretty positive it was going to work. Theo might laugh at him and his reasoning, but he was truly excited by the possibilities now. Their company was in prime position to make this happen.
He made his way back to his office. Vicky’s desk was empty. When he checked his watch he realized it was already lunch time. He’d order something in, and review some of the findings they brought up in the meeting.
He was already pulling his phone out when he noticed a presence in his office. He looked up, not quite paying attention, and had to do a double take.
‘Michael?’
His brother was sitting on his chair, behind his desk.
Before Madden had time to ask himself any questions, every single muscle in his body tightened, his jaw tensed as he bit down, and a tension headache began at the back of his head.
‘What are you doing here?’ His voice was so tense he barely recognized the sound.
‘Not happy to see your older brother?’ Michael smirked that ugly mouth of his. ‘You’re really living the life, aren’t you? Big office, big apartment I guess.’
‘What are you doing here, Michael?’ He insisted. How fast could security get up here?
Michael focused his stupid gaze on him and squinted.
‘You fucked Adryan.’
‘Please, tell me you didn’t come all the way from Troham to discuss my love life.’
‘Your love life?’ He laughed. ‘Is that what you call it? Your love life? You bend over a guy and you already think of love? You’re so pathetic.’
‘Get the fuck out of here, Michael, before I call security.’
‘Ah, it’s the mighty and powerful Madden Price. It’s easier to get off on power than it is to get off on some hairy ass, isn’t it?’
‘For fuck’s sake, what do you want?’
Michael’s grin grew wider for a moment, but seeing as Madden wasn’t replying, it soon fell and Michael looked away, his expression turning serious.
‘Susan served me with divorce papers,’ he said, all arrogance gone from his voice.
‘Well, talk about predictable outcomes…’
Michael’s eyes turned to him now, filled with anger.
‘You really don’t give a shit about anything, do you? Just yourself. You ran away to college and left Dad and I to rot in Troham. You never cared if we did well or not, if we struggled. You were out here, making millions and didn’t give a shit about your family.’
‘Oh please. Because you gave a shit about me? Give me a break. I didn’t run away, you piece of shit, you and Dad chased me out. I thought you’d be happy, rid of your fag of a brother. Isn’t that what you always wanted?’
‘Who the fuck cares about where you put your dick?’ Michael yelled at him, standing up, bending over the desk ‘You were a fucking nerd who looked at us down your nose, thinking yourself smarter than anyone else, too good for anyone else. You needed taken down a peg, but the more we bit you the more arrogant you got. You were a hateful little shit and that’s why no one cared enough to come to your defense.
They all knew, didn’t they? They all knew, and never did anything to help.
And now that slut shook his ass at you and you bent over backwards to—’
Michael never finished his sentence. Madden had taken two strides and grabbed his brother by the collar, pulling him harshly over the desk and sending him sprawling on the other side. He hit the carpet with a loud thud.
‘That got to you Maddy, didn’t it?’ he turned, smirking, his shirt out of place. ‘Want me to tell you how many men he’s begged to fuck him?’
‘Shut up,’ Madden warned, the bile so bitter in his mouth it might burn through his flesh.
‘Did you think he cared about you? Did you think he was pretending when he cheered for me to beat you harder?’
Adryan might have stood by and might have been a jerk, but he never fucking cheered.
Pulling his arm out of the sling, he lunged at his brother and landed a square punch across his jaw.
His hand hurt like a bitch but Madden didn’t care.
Every ugly word, every insult, every punch and prank, came back to relight a fire he had kept under control for almost thirty years.
He punched Michael over and over again. Michael tried to return as much as he got, and he landed some punches, but Madden’s anger burned so bright he couldn’t feel the pain.
Michael took a step back, and tripped over the coffee table, falling on the floor.
Madden followed and held him down with one hand while he beat the shit out of him with his other arm, the brace making his movements stiff and painful but he didn’t care.
He would break his arm again willingly on that asshole’s face.
‘Boss!’ he heard a voice, distant, like screaming underwater. ‘Madden!’
He stopped, arm pulled back, panting. He looked up, and the fog of anger lifted, his heart hammering in his chest, as Vicky stood there, looking at him with terror in her eyes.
‘I’ll call security,’ she said, after a moment.
Madden turned his eyes down to his brother. His face was covered in blood, and his eye had begun to swell already.
Unsteady, Madden pulled himself off. It was all pathetic. That man, that lump on the floor, that absolute piece of garbage was his only family left, and he barely felt close enough to be an acquaintance.
‘Leave it,’ he told Vicky, still out of breath. ‘Bring me the first aid kit and ice.’
‘But, boss…’ She glanced at his brother apprehensively. Maybe Vicky didn’t think he was the one to throw the first punch.
‘Vicky.’
‘Sure thing,’ she said, gathering herself.
A few minutes later, he and Michael sat silently on the sofa in his office, Michael with an ice-filled towel pressed against his face while Madden wiped blood from his knuckles.
‘I keep forgetting you did boxing in college,’ Michael grumbled.
‘You wouldn’t have come to pick a fight with me if you had remembered.’ Madden’s arm hurt like a bitch. He’d probably need to get more x-rays. Fuck.
‘I didn’t come to pick a fight.’
‘Shut up, Michael.’
‘I didn’t!’
‘Then what the fuck was all that shit about?’ Madden turned to Michael, anger rising into him again.
There was a silence. A long, long silence in which Michael didn’t say anything, and his eyes remained trained on the carpet.
‘I don’t know what to do with all this,’ he said, at last, his voice small.
‘All this?’
‘This feeling. This bad stuff inside my chest. This thing that kept getting bigger since Mom left, and then school and then losing my football scholarship. Susan, and the kids, and Mike who looks at me like I’m scaring him.
Dad’s shop going to shit and will go even worse once the factory closes.
And now you’ve turned the only friends I have against me. ’
Madden blinked in confusion.
‘God, you never change, will you? You’re so much like Dad!’
That seemed to make Michael stop.
‘Dude, believe it or not, in the time I spent with Adryan we spent zero time talking about you. As for Shane, I couldn’t care less about that asshole.
He can fall off a cliff for all I care, so if your friends are turning on you, maybe you should look in the mirror. Maybe you’ll find your answers there.’
‘Dad didn’t—’
‘Don’t even, Mike. He blamed mom for leaving, and then he blamed us for existing. He blamed the neighbors for the squirrels, for crying out loud.’
Silence.
‘I blame mom too.’
‘He was hateful to her, Mike.’ Madden stood up, as if stepping away would put distance between them and the subject.
‘Yeah but… he didn’t need to leave us too.’
Madden leaned back against his desk, crossing his arms. ‘I know.’
Michael let his hand fall to his lap, the ice melting into the towel.
‘Did something happen between you and Adryan?’
Madden raised his eyebrows.
‘He’s doing the moping thing he does when he gets his heart broken by one of those shits he picks.’
Madden didn’t know how to feel about that so he filed it away for another time.
Adryan and he hadn’t broken up as such, but he wasn’t sure their relationship granted breaking up either.
If this time apart had taught him anything it was that he missed Adryan more than he thought possible, but if he wanted for things to work out, he needed to take care of business first.
‘Something did happen, but I’ll fix it. Here, how bad is Dad’s shop doing?’ He didn’t want to discuss his love life with his brother, of all people.
‘Bad,’ Michael said.
Madden rubbed his face with his sore hands.
‘Listen,’ Madden said, ‘if you do me a favor, I’ll remodel the shop and hire you a business consultant to put the shop on the right path.’
Michael stared, wide-eyed.
‘Don’t look at me like that. I’m doing it for your kids!’
Madden could be going crazy, but he almost thought Michael was smiling.
‘What’s the favor?’
‘Three favors, actually, or there is no deal. First, get your shit together and stop drinking. Second, you’re going to apologize to your wife, and beg her she forgives you, and if you’re lucky enough that she gives you another chance, you will do absolutely everything she asks you.’
‘Mad—’
‘Don’t. You’re a piece of shit and a sad excuse of a human being and yet that woman loves you enough to have stuck with you all this time. She deserves better.’
Michael went red in the face, anger flaring.
‘It’s your call. If you want to ruin your life once and for all, I’ll let you.’ Madden shrugged.
Michael seemed to chew on that for a moment.
‘What’s the third favor?’ his brother mumbled.
‘What?’
‘What’s the third favor?’
‘Ah! I’m glad you ask,’ and Madden grinned, ready to deploy his plan.