Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Owen
“We had a verbal agreement,” I snap as I march back and forth across Jason’s office. “This is completely unacceptable. A breach of contract. A deception on levels never seen before!”
“Well, at least you look hot,” Ryan says, leaning back in Jason’s chair, feet on the desk, that dreaded magazine open on his lap. “I think this will be good for you.”
“Good for me?” I choke out. “Good for me? You can’t be serious. This is the disaster of the century. Catastrophic. Chernobyl level of debacle.”
Jason chuckles. He’s sitting on the leather couch with another copy of that wretched magazine open on his thigh.
“Are you laughing?” I snap, whipping my head around to glare at him.
“No,” he says, unsuccessfully trying to hide his amusement. “No. It’s just… Did you really say you have a soft spot for rescue dogs? You hate dogs.”
“She made it all up!” I shout, throwing my hands in the air. “She’s a liar. A swindler. I didn’t say that. I didn’t say any of that. This is reverse plagiarism!”
Ryan chuckles. “You’re overreacting, bro. It’s all going to blow over in a few weeks.”
“A few weeks?” My stomach drops. I feel ill. This is going to be the longest few weeks of my life. I’ll have to go into hiding. I’ll have to get plastic surgery to change the main features of my face. I’ll probably need a new passport…
“Let’s take a deep breath,” Jason says, tossing the magazine on the desk as he stands up. “It’s not the end of the world.”
My eyes dart to the cover of the shiny magazine. Madame Gossip. There is my face, a close-up no less, with the words OWEN LAVOIE - TORONTO’S MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR written underneath.
The inside is even worse. A full seven pages written about me and they’re all lies, lies, lies. I do not slow dance in the kitchen, I hate spontaneous adventures, and I would absolutely loathe long drives with no destination. I don’t know where she got these asinine ideas. It’s ridiculous!
There are several photos of me—severely photoshopped no less—and none of them are centered around my chemistry lab as was agreed upon with the photographer. They’re all centered around my physique. They didn’t even print a picture of my Zeiss Elyra 7 Lattice SIM2 microscope.
“I’m suing,” I say as I pace around the office.
Jason and Ryan share an amused look. A grinning, ridiculing look. I know that look between my brothers well. I’ve seen it enough over the years whenever they think I’m ‘overreacting.’
“Who are you suing?” Ryan asks with a laugh.
“The magazine publisher,” I say as adrenaline surges through my nervous system. “The distributor. The journalist. You.”
“Me?” Ryan asks with a laugh. “What did I do?”
“You deceived me,” I say, turning on him. “You set this whole interview up under a fraudulent premise. I entered into it under false pretences.”
“You’d better lawyer up,” Jason says with a chuckle.
“Oh, I’m suing you too,” I say, turning to glare at him.
He laughs. “Don’t bother. You can have all my money. I’ll just make more.”
I’m beyond frustrated as I flip the page so hard it tears.
“Look at this,” I say, pointing to the small type.
“This article claims I love picnics in the park with a good bottle of wine. I’m pretty sure drinking alcohol in public spaces is prohibited by law.
Now, I’m going to have a criminal record on top of all this. ”
I’m getting nausea and vertigo. As if this day couldn’t get any more calamitous…
I sink down into a chair and take a deep breath. My body temperature is increasing and my armpits are beginning to perspire.
“It’s all good,” Jason says, walking over and putting his hand on my shoulder. “Nothing bad is going to happen. You’re not suing anyone and you’re definitely not going to get arrested. It’s just a harmless article. A puff piece. Something for bored moms to read while their kids are napping.”
I look into my older brother’s bright blue eyes and feel my heart rate beginning to decrease. My brothers love to tease me and laugh at my reactions, but I know they would never do anything to hurt me. They have always been in my corner, even though I haven’t always made that an easy place to be.
Even in high school, they had my back, throwing more than a few punches to stop the other kids from bullying me.
“I’m sorry,” I say after a few deep breaths. “I will not go through with the lawsuits.”
“Thank goodness,” Ryan says with a grin. “You know, there could be some benefits to being the city’s most eligible bachelor.”
The only benefit in my life would be to have more time in the lab and I can’t see that correlation occurring.
“But I’m not the most eligible bachelor in Toronto. I’m nothing of the sort. I’m not even the most eligible bachelor in this room.”
“Amen to that,” Ryan says, lifting his coffee mug at me.
“Maybe this will help you find a girlfriend,” Jason says.
I snort out a laugh. A girlfriend? Why on Earth would anyone want a girlfriend, let alone me?
The non-optional social obligations, the constant workflow and deep-focus interruptions, the requirement to engage in extended conversations about emotions and feelings, the need to navigate female subtext, which always requires an absurd amount of decoding of tone, timing, and speech patterns.
I’d rather hit myself on the head with a hammer. Metaphorically, of course.
Add to that the high failure rate and I’d be crazy to seek out such a relationship. I don’t see the appeal.
Ryan grabs my phone off the desk. “Have you been using the dating app I set up for you?”
I cross my arms and stare at him as he stands up and walks around the desk. “I haven’t opened it.”
“Why not?” he asks as he holds the phone in front of my face. The app completes a full facial scan before I can react.
“I did not consent to that scan,” I snap as he walks back to the desk and sits down.
“Do you have any idea what they do with that data? You just made me vulnerable to identity theft via fraudulent facial authentication. My face will exist in vulnerable third-party databases forever. I prefer to keep my face private, thank you.”
“A little late for that,” Ryan says as he tosses Madame Gossip at me. It lands on my lap. “Your face is on the cover of a magazine.”
I feel dizzy when I see my own face looking up at me, immortalized in glossy ink.
“Look at this,” Ryan says as he cycles through the FirstSpark dating app. The app I never wanted. The app I begged him not to put on my phone. “It’s all matches.”
His finger keeps swiping right. “Match. Match. Match.”
Jason leans over to look. “What the fuck?” he whispers. “These girls are gorgeous. They’re all matching with him?”
“Every single one,” Ryan says, his finger swiping at warp speed. “What a waste this guy got the best looks in the family and he refuses to use them.”
“Stop that at once,” I command, jumping out of my seat. “All of these women are going to expect me to converse with them.”
Ryan shows me a photo of a scantily clad woman on my phone. “You think this girl wants to converse?”
I open my mouth to say something, but his finger is too fast.
“Match,” he says with a grin.
I lunge across the desk to grab it, but he’s too fast and I miss.
“Ryan Lavoie,” I snap. “Cease all that swiping at once!”
He ignores me, swiping and swiping and swiping as Jason watches on.
My phone starts pinging.
“They’re starting to message me,” I say, feeling nauseous. Now I have to tell them all it was an unfortunate error and I meant to swipe left.
“It’s okay,” Ryan says. “I have a plan for that.”
I sink back down in the seat, feeling defeated.
First, I get to the office to find that the nighttime cleaners left behind a faint cleaning residue all over my desk, then this whole debacle with the magazine, and now this?
I just matched with dozens of beautiful women on FirstSpark. My life can’t get any worse.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Jason says, bumping Ryan’s shoulder.
Ryan matches with a few more women before he connects my phone to his computer.
“I have a new program,” he says as he starts doing something to my phone. “It will take care of the communication on FirstSpark and filter out any women who aren’t good for you.”
“What program?” I ask, narrowing my eyes on him. I don’t trust any sketchy computer program from anywhere, let alone from Ryan’s computer. “I don’t want it.”
“It’s called Love Bot,” he says as he works. “It’s just a basic chatbot. It’ll be great.”
“Chatbots are completely unreliable,” I say, jumping to my feet. “They’re prone to hallucinations and—What?”
It’s Jason. He looks concerned with the way he’s staring at me. His arms are crossed, he’s nibbling his bottom lip, and he keeps shifting his weight from foot to foot—all common signs of distress.
“The magazine isn’t the only reason we called the meeting,” he says.
There’s a sudden drop in my saliva production, my mouth going dry as my body responds to my elevated stress.
“We found a big investor,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “This is the one we’ve been hoping for.”
“Excellent,” I say, wondering how I misjudged the situation. We should all be elated.
“It is,” Jason says, a little less jubilant than I would have expected him to be. “Although, it’s not a done deal yet.”
Jason and Ryan look at each other.
“What’s the deciding factor?” I ask.
Jason takes a deep breath. “You.”
“Me?”
“He wants to meet you.”
“Oh,” I say, dropping my eyes to the ground. “I guess I could power through a phone call.”
“Not going to work, bro,” Ryan says. “He’s old school.”
Jason sighs. “He would like to get to know you personally. Over the long weekend. At his cottage. In Muskoka.”
My blood pressure mounts, adding to the discomfort already being experienced by my underperforming salivary glands.
“When would he like us to go?”
Jason and Ryan share a knowing glance.
“This weekend,” Jason says. “But he just wants you. Ryan and I have already met him numerous times.”
“I’ll be going alone? Out of the question.”
“He’s a great guy,” Jason quickly says as I’m about to leap up and storm out of the office. “You’re going to love him.”
“Yeah, he adores chemistry,” Ryan says.
“That’s what you said about the journalist and look how that turned out,” I shout.
“It’s just for a weekend,” Jason says in a low, soothing tone. “He has a giant lakefront cottage in Muskoka. You’ll have your own wing of the place. You’ll have lots of time for yourself.”
My jaw is clenched tight. I feel shaky all over.
“Please, Owen,” Jason says. “Edward Baines is a perfect partner for us. He’s a billionaire who is very passionate about our product. We told him our plan for individual shops and he loved it all. This is a match made in heaven.”
“Yeah, and his wife is a lot of fun,” Ryan says with a grin.
“His wife is going to be there too?” This is getting worse and worse by the second.
“And… his kids,” Jason says, putting his hands up. “But it’s going to be fine. More people will mean less pressure on you, right?”
I’m not seeing how he’s getting to that logic…
“It’s just a weekend,” Jason says. “A billion-dollar weekend. It will be over before you know it. Please do this for us. Please.”
A level of dread never experienced before sinks into my stomach.
“We’re a team, Owen,” Jason says, gripping my shoulder and staring at me with those deep blue eyes. “It’s your turn to step up. We’re counting on you.”
My brothers have done a lot for me over my lifetime.
It’s true that I came up with the patent for Temporary Ink, but I never would have been able to turn it into all of this without them.
They have never once put any limitations on the size or quality of equipment I have in the lab and they do take care of all of the social aspects of the job so I don’t have to.
I do think the travel and constant partying on the company’s tab is a bit excessive, but they continually claim it’s essential for growth. They have been good partners and even better brothers. As much as it pains me to admit, I’m lucky to have them.
But still. A weekend away with strangers? Trapped in a cottage with a family I don’t know? That’s my own personal hell.
“No,” I say with a firm, final nod. “I won’t do it.”
Jason drops his head and sighs.
“Told you,” Ryan mutters.
Jason takes a deep breath and stares me down with a steely look. “I’m cashing in.”
“Cashing in what?” I ask.
“August third,” he says in a sharp tone. “Sixteen years ago.”
Oh no. I believe I know where this is headed.
“You set the shed on fire,” he says, his blue eyes locked on mine. “I took the blame for you.”
It was an unfortunate experiment gone astray. At the time, I had no idea magnesium burned that brightly.
I had begged Jason to take the fall. If my father had found out that I was the one who burned a hole in the wall, my experiments would have been banned, my makeshift lab shut down forever.
He told our father that he was lighting firecrackers and one set off the blaze. He was grounded for two weeks and I was free to continue my experiments unabated.
“You owe me,” he says.
Ryan laughs. “He’s been waiting a long time to use that one. Can’t turn him down for that, Owen.”
As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right. I can’t.
I take a deep breath, but it does nothing to calm my buzzing nerves.
“Fine,” I say, already regretting it.
“Really?” Jason says, smiling wide. “You’ll do it?”
“With resignation. But after the weekend is over, the debt has been repaid.”
“I’ll never bring it up again.”
“Add it to my virtual calendar,” I say as I get up, feeling a headache coming on. “Are there any more impending disasters to deal with or has this meeting reached its conclusion?”
“We’re done,” Jason says, letting out a long breath. “Thank you, Owen. This is going to be good for all of us.”
I can’t see how that will be the case, but I nod to him and head for the door.
“Owen,” Ryan calls out. “Your phone.”
He unplugs it from his computer and tosses it to me. It bounces in my hands a few times before I secure it to my chest.
It’s unnaturally warm, but I slip it into my pocket anyway, excited for the month of this cursed periodical and for this ghastly long weekend to be over with.
Then at last, everything can go back to normal.