Chapter 35
Cameron
“Cameron, you’re not drinking enough,” my sister’s husband says as he pours more wine into my glass from across the table.
“Thanks, Scott but I’m not looking to get hammered tonight,” I say, making a cut-off motion with my hand.
“Why not?” he asks. “It’s Sunday dinner with your family. You really need to learn to relax,”
I smile in response, wiping my mouth with my napkin.
We are having dinner as a family. Me, my sister, Scott, Ian, Josh and a few of their friends.
When our dad was alive, it was something we did pretty often.
But since then, not as much. It’s not the same without him.
That and he was always the mediator for Josh and I because even if we aren’t in a work setting, we’ve never exactly gotten along.
“I’m on call,” I remind them, as if they don’t know. Our father was always on call, whether he was actually on call or not. He just loved his job that much. As his oldest son, I am walking in his footsteps which means I have to be able to walk a straight line.
“So is Joshy here but you don’t see him laying off the booze,” Stacey teases as Josh finishes off his glass.
“Good lord it is going to get wild in here isn’t it?” Our friend George asks and his wife Julia smiles. George is a lawyer, as chill as he is, and Julia works in the radiology department at our hospital.
“Would it even be a Reinhart dinner if it wasn’t?” Julia asks and they both laugh. Scott and Stacey do too so I add a little chuckle for good measure though Josh is just grimacing, which honestly, is the only reason I manage the chuckle at this point.
Dinner at Stacey’s is always a double edge sword for me.
On one hand, she and Scott have a lovely home, a brick two story far away from the city enough to feel more suburban with a backyard and a pool and a covered porch.
Stacey is an architect and designed their home so it’s one of a kind from the sleek butcher block counters to the custom cabinets and the hand painted back splash.
Their bathroom looks like a sauna and their vaulted ceilings showcase exposed beams. And to top it all off, Stacey always makes it homey.
Family photos and cozy furniture. The walls are all painted warm colors, nothing is impersonal.
It reminds me why I like these dinners in the first place.
And what I’m missing. What I’ll never have.
“How about we flip the conversation around,” Josh says, clearly done with the teasing.
He never could take a joke. And he can’t even use being the youngest as an excuse, he’s not.
He’s the middle child and even our little sister razzes him.
Dude just needs to lighten up. “I want to hear more about this woman Cameron is seeing.”
“Josh…” Stacey warns.
But Julia and George are mostly oblivious.
“You’re seeing someone?” George asks. “This is new.”
“No, I’m not,” I shake my head, reaching for the wine glass. But before I say anything else, Josh goes on.
“Actually it’s not new at all. Right Cam? You’ve been seeing her for a while. Long enough that we didn’t even know you were falling in love enough to want to marry her.”
“Josh,” Stacey says again, this time more sternly. But he doesn’t quit. He never does.
“In fact, he proposed to her, out of nowhere in front of everyone. Immediately after we met her!” Josh laughs but it’s not a joyous sound. He’s mocking me. With every word he’s stabbing me in the back.
“So you’re engaged?” George asks and Julia shakes her head subtly, placing a hand on George’s arm. She doesn’t fully know what’s going on. But she knows the dynamic well enough to know that this is going to end badly.
“He is. But…it’s complicated, isn’t it Cam?”
“Josh, that’s enough,” Stacey snaps.
“I think we need a conversational turn,” Scott says.
“What?” Josh laughs casually. “I’m just asking Cameron about his relationship. The love of his life. The woman who, if he signed the papers, would not only give him everything he ever wanted…a family, a doting girl on his arm but also, access to the trust we’re all thinking about.”
“You need to choose the rest of your words very carefully,” I warn him.
“But why though?” Josh asks. “If there’s nothing wrong with the picture, if the ring is real and your love is real and it all happened to just fall into place conveniently when we need to take the lock off the trust, why are you hiding it? Or should I say…what are you hiding?”
He’s talking about the email. The contract. He already sank the ship at the hospital and now he wants to make a fool out of me in front of family and friends. Well, I’ll be damned if he is going to do that. I’ve been through enough this week.
I shove up from my chair hard enough that it falls over. The rest of the men at the table stand up too. Except for Josh. Josh just sits there with a smug smirk on his face and challenge brimming his eyes.
“I think we should take this conversation into the kitchen,” I state.
“Gladly,” he answers, throwing his cloth napkin on his plate and following me. Luckily, Stacey has a farm door that slides which offers us a small amount of privacy. I’d rather our nice, oblivious friends not witness me rearranging my brother’s face.
“You got a lot of nerve,” I growl the moment the door swings shut. In the other room I can hear them saying something about how nice the weather is despite it being nearly Christmas and that cake on the veranda sounds nice.
“I’m sorry,” he says with a grin. “Did I say something wrong? Because I am pretty sure I hit the nail on the head in there. If any of it wasn’t true, please, by all means, correct me.”
“I am going to correct the structure of your jawline if you don’t wipe that fucking smirk of your face.
You must feel like such a man right now.
Sabotaging my attempt at getting our family our money.
Defaming me at the hospital in front of colleagues, the board and our family lawyer who is also my friend.
Not to mention ripping me apart in there.
Well, you’re wrong. You look like a jackass and they all agree. ”
Josh chortles a laugh through the grin that has only widened.
“I look like a jackass? You almost married a woman you don’t even know.
You actually spent money on a diamond ring the size of her fucking hand in the hope you could blind everyone from seeing your circus act.
And don’t pretend that you did it so that our family would have access to the funds.
We all know it goes straight to your bank account and what you do with it is your choice. ”
My jaw goes slack at that. “You think I’d keep it for myself?”
“I think money changes people. I think you’d do whatever you felt like doing once you saw all those zeros.
Would it go to the clinic? Maybe. Would you invest it back into the gaping hole in the middle of our hospital?
If you were in the mood. You strut like you’re our father but at the end of the day, you’re not him.
You pretend to be a saint but you are clearly out for yourself.
Hell, I doubt Stacey and I will see any of that money… ”
I. Am. Done.
I close the space between us and grab him by the shirt just as the door flies open.
“What in the actual hell is going on in here!?” Stacey demands.
“I had to send everyone onto the porch so they wouldn’t have to listen to the two of you bicker like fucking five year olds.
I don’t care who started it,” she says and my eyes shoot a bullet in Josh’s direction. “But I am going to finish it.”
“If you’re going to lecture us, I suggest starting with the man who has been attempting embezzlement,” Josh says.
“Embezzlement?! It’s my money!”
“See! Your money! Jesus Christ, Cam. Are you ever going to stop playing the victim in our father’s death?”
“Enough!” Stacey shouts louder than either of us.
Loud enough that I am pretty sure the guests heard it all the way outside.
“I…have had…enough of both of you. All you’ve ever done is fight.
I’ve grown up watching it my whole life, listening to it my whole life, mediating it my whole life and I’m sick of it.
You two are going to work it out. Come to an agreement and see eye to eye. ”
“Doubt it,” Josh mutters and I rake my hand through my hair.
“Oh no that wasn’t a suggestion,” she says with a smile that is less than amused. “You’re going to. And you’re not leaving this room until you do.”
Stacey walks out and when she does, the door slams and locks.
“Did she–” Josh points.
“You have to be…” I trail off as I walk over to the door, attempting to open it only to realize that I can’t. “Fucking kidding me!” I yank on the handle before pounding on the massive hunk of wood.
“Is it locked?” Josh asks, walking over to me.
“No I just thought I’d bang on it for no fucking reason,” I snap back.
“Well, she can’t just trap us in here!”
“She did,” I say, turning away from the door and accepting my fate.
“Well, rip the damn thing off the rails!”
“Don’t be an idiot,” I say with much less fight in me.
Honestly, after everything, after a lifetime of this and my father’s death and losing Riley possibly forever, I just don’t really have anything left in me right now.
So I sit on the floor, my back against the kitchen sink cupboards.
Meanwhile Josh is tugging on the edges on the giant slab of wood, his fingertips turning white.
“What the fuck is this thing made of?” he grunts.
“If I had to guess? Oak. A slightly less dense substance than your head.”
“This is all your fault, you know,” he snaps as he spins around to face me. I just stare at him.
“My fault? I’m not the one that threw a hissy fit during what should have been a lovely family dinner–”
“Oh cut the holier than thou act!” he talks over me. “Nobody is buying it! Jesus!”