Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
PASTA POCKET
Griffin
The next morning, I drove Theo to school myself instead of Brock.
My angry little boy sat in the passenger seat staring out the window. Silent, as he’d been giving me the cold shoulder for days now, existing in the same space like I was a stranger.
I gripped the steering wheel, trying to find the right words.
“Theo,” I said finally. “I need to talk to you about something.”
No response.
“I know you’re angry with me. I know you miss Jessa. And I—” My throat tightened. I swallowed a lump. “I messed things up with her really badly.”
He didn’t respond. Didn’t even turn his head.
I pulled up in front of the school. Put the car in park.
“I don’t know if I can fix it. But if it would make you happy, I’m going to try to bring her back.” For Theo’s sake, I needed to. For mine…?
Theo’s hand was on the door handle. For a long moment, he didn’t move. A rude mom honked her horn behind us.
Then he turned and threw his arms around me.
He didn’t say a word. His small body pressed against mine, his face buried in my shoulder. He shook and the wetness of tears fell against my neck. Hot tears came to my eyes, too. Something I hadn’t felt since the day Elsa left us.
“I love you, buddy,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
He squeezed tighter for one more moment. Then he pulled away, grabbed his backpack, and ran into the school without looking back.
As I drove off, I lost it. I choked up. Tears in my eyes blurred the road so much I had to pull over. I sat there in the car for a long time trying to remember how to breathe. I fought for control but it was useless.
This wasn’t me. I always kept my emotions in check. But I hadn’t planned on Jessa screwing with my heart.
She did. And my son’s too. We were both in love and neither of us could face another day like this. I’d do anything to stop my son’s heart from aching, and mine too. These adult-sized feelings weren’t fair for a young boy to go through, hard enough for me.
I had to figure out a way to bring Jessa back. If she would even want me.
Eventually, numbed, I made my way to the West Games building. I used to wake up excited to be here, the pulse of the company practically in sync with mine. Not today—or lately if I was honest.
Marianne greeted me, the worry lines speaking volumes about her concern for me. “Sam wants to see you before the morning update.”
“Great,” I flatlined. Ever since the West Games Benefit, I’d been avoiding him, working from home.
“Do you need a coffee or anything?”
“Not coffee. And unfortunately, what I need nobody can help with.”
She quizzed me with her face as I walked away.
By the time Sam arrived, he caught me staring out the window. The view here differed from home, pointing east to catch the morning sun. Supposedly made for a more productive work space. Not for me today.
“Nice to see you in the office, Grif,” his smug voice grated on me.
“Well, I own the company. I can come and go as I please.”
“At least until you go public,” he laughed at his own joke, stepping closer. “What are you looking at?”
“The future. This IPO. I’m having a difficult time remembering why we’re going public in the first place.”
He snorted. “For the money, my friend, a shitload of it. From there we’ll expand across the world.”
“Doesn’t the company have enough money though, and me, too?” I side-eyed him.
He studied me back for a moment, squinting at me. “Okay. I know what you’re going through. We’ve been pushing toward this goal for weeks now. It’s only natural to have a crisis moment.” He poured a drink and walked it over to me. “Here, drink up.”
I took the glass from him and set it down.
“I remember your father talked about leaving a legacy behind,” he said.
“Wasn’t West Games enough of a one? We have one of the finest reputations in the world. The company made each of his sons rich. What more did he want?” I scoffed.
“In his final year before he passed away, he talked about going public nonstop. This was his dream.” He gestured wide with his arms.
“His dream. Right.”
“Taking the company public is the legacy you’ll leave your son,” he pointed out.
I snickered at the implication my son would care. “Theo’s almost ten. He collects comic books, video games, and plays hockey. CEO isn’t on his radar.”
“He might want it someday.” He looked at the time on his phone. “Okay. Enough of this. Put your doubts aside because the meeting starts in a few minutes. We’ll be going over the detailed prospectus the team has drafted. Just one more step toward your legacy.”
Before he reached my door, I called after him. “Don’t think for a minute that I’ve forgotten or forgiven you for what you said to Jessa.”
He stopped cold and faced me. “I was on medication that night, mixed with alcohol… Things were said that probably shouldn’t have been.”
Likely excuse.
“Tread lightly around me, Sam. Very lightly.”
His face reddened as he left.
Thirty minutes later, I sauntered into our largest boardroom. Sam’s team had the detailed prospectus pulled up—charts, projections, revenue forecasts. Words that used to thrill me. Numbers that used to mean everything.
Now they blurred and sounded like excruciating noise.
I sat down in my usual chair at the head of the table, but something poked me through my pants pocket.
I shifted. The poking continued.
Frowning, I reached in to see what it was.
My fingers closed around something small and hard.
I pulled a red pasta noodle.
Dry this time, and perfectly intact.
I stared at it in my palm, my heart suddenly hammering.
Theo must have slipped it into my pocket this morning when he hugged me.
It was the missing piece.
Sam started running the team through the document, line by line, but the roar of my pulse in my ears tuned him out.
Jessa was my missing piece too.
Not only Theo’s. Mine.
She’d filled all the empty spaces I didn’t even know I had. Made me remember what it felt like to want someone to go through life with. She made me whole.
We made a baby together.
And I’d let her go. I fucking let her go.
The walls of the boardroom closed in. The voices around the table became white noise. All I heard were the things Jessa had said to me.
“Maybe you’re working for the wrong thing, and all the wrong reasons.”
“The baby needs a father, not a landlord.”
“Give me one reason to stay that has nothing to do with money or contracts.”
I closed my fist around the red noodle and shot up out of my chair.
The room went quiet, all eyes on me.
“I-I need to take care of something.”
Sam huffed. “Now? We’re in the middle of—”
“It can’t wait.”
I hurried out the door, the red noodle clutched in my fist.
“Griffin!” Sam shouted at me down the hall, his shoes squeaking against polished marble. “What the hell are you doing? You can’t just walk out mid-meeting.”
“There’s something more important I need to do.”
He caught up with me at the elevator, huffing and red-faced. “The entire executive team has been working hard—”
“I know.”
“Then what might be more important than this—”
“Everything is infinitely more important than this.”
The doors opened. I stepped inside.
Sam blocked the threshold. “When will you be back? I can reschedule—”
“Don’t.” I met his eyes. Somewhere along the way, I’d become my father’s son, chasing his dreams and legacy, not mine. “I’m done with the IPO.”
His mouth fell open. “What?”
“I’m pulling the plug. West Games stays private.”
“You can’t—” He sputtered. “Do you know what you’re risking?”
“Nothing.” The word came out calm. Steady. “I’m risking nothing compared to what I’ve already lost.”
“Griffin, this is insane—”
“You’re wrong. For the first time in months, I’m actually thinking clearly.” I took a breath. “You’ve been loyal, Sam, working very diligently for my father first and then me. But the IPO is canceled. West Games stays private.”
“Wait. Is this about Jessa?” He shook his head. “That woman. Since the day she arrived, you’ve been off your game.”
I stepped forward, fuming, close enough that he could see I wasn’t playing anymore.
“You’re fired.”
The elevator doors slid shut in his face.
As the car ascended, I opened my fist at the red noodle in my palm.
My missing piece.
Off the elevator, Marianne looked surprised to see me back from the meeting so soon.
“I just called off the IPO. Prepare a press release, please,” I barked. She gasped. At my door, I whipped back, calmer. “And Marianne, thanks for your years of service to my dad and to me. It’ll be nice to get things back to normal around here, doing what we do best, won’t it?”
She beamed from ear to ear. “Yes, sir. It will.”
For an hour, with her help, I made other calls to lawyers, investors, and my PR team, spreading the word to anyone who had been involved.
“West Games is staying private,” I told them all. “The IPO is canceled. Effective immediately.”
The protests came fast. Including several irate messages from Sam, which I forwarded to HR to handle.
When I hung up the last call, a strange calm settled over me.
“You did well today, Griffin.” Marianne gathered her laptop and notes to return to her desk. “Your father would have been proud.”
“Would he? Because he talked about going public a lot before he passed. I just destroyed our chances.”
She tilted her head in thought at first. “Maybe, but he also loved what he built here. Believe me, if he’d really wanted to take the company public, he would have done so before he passed away.
I think he didn’t because he preferred knowing he could pass along something to you boys.
I know he worked a lot, but you five kids meant everything to him. You were his legacy he left behind.”
I swallowed the lump in throat, only nodding as she left my office.
For a long time, I sat and thought about life, and everything that had happened lately.
Marianne fielded more calls dutifully, people and press wanting to know what the hell happened to our run for a public offering. Let them all be angry and confused. Let them think I’d lost my mind.
Maybe I had.
Or, for the first time since I was old enough to inherit the company, maybe I was finally thinking straight.
I wasn’t chasing “more” anymore.
I understood what “enough” looked like: Jessa, Theo, and our baby.
They were all I needed. I suddenly knew what I had to do.
I sent a text to Atlas, informing him of my plan, and climbed into my car. I headed north and within twenty minutes, Manhattan shrunk in my rearview mirror—as was the life I’d thought defined me, all of it fading fast.
My pulse was steady. My hands, too.
For the first time in days, I could breathe.
I slipped the red noodle into my shirt pocket. Right over my heart.
Every mile between us flew by, pulling me closer to the only person who mattered. I didn’t know whether Jessa would forgive me. Or if I could find the right words to convince her to take me back.
But fear wouldn’t call the shots anymore. I let go of all control.
I was going to bring Jessa home, somehow, someway.
This time, I wasn’t letting her go. I’d fight like hell to be the man she wanted—and the father our kids deserved.