Chapter 6
LILA
It’s chilly tonight. The early April air feels cool and damp against my face as I sit down on the front steps of the firehouse with my iced pink milk.
I wrap my oversized cardigan tighter around my shoulders as a cool bay breeze hits me, and for a moment I wish I’d made myself hot tea instead.
But then I take a sip. It tastes like nostalgia; a rush of memories filter through my mind of a trip to Thailand when I was eleven.
I loved seeing the country, but complained constantly about the sticky, humid heat.
Mom bought me one of these ice-cold milky drinks from a street vendor and teased me for not being able to stomach the weather.
“Miss American Thai,” she called me, singing it to the tune of “American Pie,” and I giggled and thought how lucky I was to be both of those things.
I loved growing up in San Francisco, and I also loved having a Thai mom who’d cook incredible food and tell me fairytales about brave demon slayers and princesses trapped in magical boxes.
I knew my dad was white, but never much cared what, or who, he was.
To me, he was just the dickhead who abandoned us before I was even born.
Being Thai was always part of who I was, but now that Mom’s gone, everything’s different.
Not only did I lose my mother and my best friend, I also lost the biggest connection to my heritage and its culture.
And if the firehouse gets destroyed, I’ll lose yet another huge part of my mom, and also of the life I’ve been trying to carve for myself since she passed.
A knot tightens in my chest and I place my knuckles there, trying to knead it away. Everything will be fine. I will figure this out…I have to.
“Lila?” A deep voice cuts through my thoughts and I jerk my head up so quickly, my drink sloshes in my hand, causing a river of pink liquid to run down my arm.
“Who’s there?” My heart thuds in my chest as I look around, squinting in the direction the voice came from.
After a moment, my eyes make out the form of none other than Archibald Fisher standing in the shadows nearby.
I breathe out a sigh of relief. I don’t like the guy, but he seems harmless enough…
I mean, at least I know he’s not here to murder me.
Our eyes meet—his widen, mine narrow.
I went to City Hall a few days ago to learn about the process of registering a property as a heritage building or landmark.
When the clerk heard I was talking about Fisher Group’s new potential acquisition, she basically laughed me out of the place.
Since then, I've been clinging to a shred of hope that the recent turn of events in the Fisher family might somehow change their immediate plans for the firehouse—but it’s a hollow hope at best. Made even hollower by him being here right now.
It’s like he thinks he already owns the place, stopping by to scope out his property.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Fisher winces. “Again.”
I set down my glass and shake the excess liquid off my arm. “How long have you been standing there? And how do you know my name?”
“Not long.” Fisher takes a step forward, out of the shadows and into the glow of a nearby streetlight.
He looks different. Unshaven, with his hair sticking up in multiple directions, and dark circles under his eyes—although somehow, the bruise-purple color makes his eyes appear even greener.
There’s an ornate glass bottle clutched in his hand that looks like expensive whiskey.
If I were to paint him right now, I’d depict him as a fallen angel.
Still beautiful, but slightly broken…Hercules at his lowest, after being tricked into surrendering his strength.
“And as for your name, I heard your friend use it last week, outside the gala,” Fisher adds.
“Ah.” I’m amazed he remembered hearing that, especially with everything that’s happened in the few days since the gala.
That night, the ambulance sped off with the Fisher family limousine following, and by the next morning, every news outlet in the city was reporting the same headline story: Billionaire Real Estate Mogul Louis Fisher the Third Dead at 92 After Suffering a Heart Attack.
I let my gaze sweep over Fisher’s disheveled form again, and wonder if he’s really cut up about losing his grandpa. “Are you…okay?” I ask hesitantly. I feel bad for the guy, but I still don’t trust him.
“Sure am.” Fisher smiles, revealing a perfect row of white teeth and one of those charming dimples. His eyes are flat, though, not twinkly like last I saw him.
“I thought your family would all be in Atlanta right now.” After I read the news about the Fisher patriarch passing, it didn’t take a lot of googling to find out more about the family.
Old money, with southern roots as deep as a Georgia pine, plus a multi-billion dollar property empire with an array of good looking, clean-cut blond men at the helm.
As I expected, Louis Fisher the Fourth will now take over as Chairman.
His eldest son—Louis the Fifth, of course—is the new COO.
Most unexpected was finding out that the younger son, Archibald, doesn’t work for the family company at all, but plays for the San Francisco Lions.
I know zilch about hockey, but even I’m aware this must not have been the obvious career choice for a man born into a family like that.
“The rest of my family is still there.” Fisher nods now, his expression impassive. “The funeral was earlier today, so I got back a couple hours ago.”
And he came straight…here?
I frown, my distrust growing again. For all I know, the Fisher Group could be expanding into San Francisco because the youngest grandson wanted a brand new skyscraper for his birthday.
It’s not like I’m well-versed on how the world of billionaires operates, but I do know one thing: if Fisher is here right now, on the same day of his grandpa’s funeral, it must be business as usual.
Nothing has changed and the sale is still going ahead as planned.
Hell, Archibald here is probably the one spearheading it; a fun little side project for him to toy with now that hockey season is almost over.
Maybe City Hall filled him in on my hilarious visit, and he’s out here drinking that whiskey to celebrate, not drown his sorrows.
My lips twist. “Did you come here to gloat?”
Fisher swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I…don’t know why I came here.” He looks tired. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”
I’m about to agree with him that no, he definitely shouldn’t have come here, yet for some reason, I bite my retort back.
I don’t know if it’s the look on his face, or that I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts any longer, but I find myself meeting his eyes. “Well, you’re here now.” I nod at the bottle in his hand. “And since you made me spill my drink, the least you can do is share.”
Fisher’s green eyes flicker in surprise, but he holds the bottle out to me without hesitating. “Be my guest.”
I take it from him and glance at the label, confirming it’s whiskey.
Ugh. I unscrew the lid. It smells like warm vanilla and bad decisions.
I wince, then dump some into my half-full cup of pink milk.
Who knows, maybe the sweetness of my drink will counteract some of the whiskey’s nastiness.
I take a tentative sip, and somehow, it’s actually pretty good.
I take another, bigger gulp, and look up to find Fisher watching me in amusement.
“Did you just mix a Macallan Vintage with…strawberry milk?”
“With Nom Yen, actually,” I correct.
“Ah, yes. Of course. Nom Yen. That world-famous whiskey mixer.” There’s another smile playing on Fisher’s lips, but this one is accompanied by a gleam in his eye that makes him look more like himself again. Which is weird to think, because I barely know the guy.
“It’s a common drink in Thailand,” I explain as Fisher sits down on the step below the one I’m sitting on. He’s so tall, we’re still practically at eye level. I pass the whiskey back to him.
“Cool.” Fisher looks thoughtful as he sets the bottle down on the stoop next to him without taking a sip. “I don’t think I tried that when I was there.”
Of course he’s been to Thailand. He’s probably been on a first class trip to every country on earth.
I shrug. “It’s mostly popular with kids there, I guess. But I thought it might make the whiskey taste better.”
“Did it?”
“Anything tastes better than whiskey, so yeah.”
I wait for him to start mansplaining proper whiskey-tasting etiquette to me, but instead, he laughs. It’s a great laugh; sandpaper-rough with soft edges. “I agree.”
“You do?” I fail to keep the surprise out of my voice. I assumed men like Archibald Fisher all had a hard-on for sitting in boardrooms, smoking cigars while sipping thousands of dollars worth of liquid and talking about how great they are. I’ve seen Mad Men. “But isn’t this a MacArthur Vintage?”
“Macallan. All tastes the same to me, though. So much bullshit about notes of oak and caramel, but no matter the whiskey, I just taste sewer water—much to my family’s eternal embarrassment.
” Fisher looks at me and grins. “In fact, I’m sure my granddad is rolling in his grave as I say this while drinking an eight-thousand dollar bottle of the shit. ”
I almost spit out my drink. “Eight thousand dollars?”
He lifts a shoulder as he looks at the bottle, his nose wrinkling. “Says it’s a thirty-year-old double cask, so probably.”
That’s more than I pay Rebekah in rent for six months, for goodness sakes. “Why the hell would you spend that much money on something you don’t even like?”
Another smile. “I stole it from the plane.”
“You stole it from…” I trail off, and then the penny drops. “Wait, you have your own plane? That’s wild. I’ve never met anyone with a plane. Hell, I hardly even know anyone with a car.”
“I don’t have a plane,” Fisher insists. I raise a brow in challenge, and he sighs. “The Fisher Group does, though.”