Owen
And the hits just kept coming.
I’d woken up to a text from my mother. She’d included Jude and Finn and Gus as well.
More than anything, I wanted to lie in bed and obsess about Lila. Or sit on the porch with a cup of coffee, stare out at the mountains, and obsess about Lila.
Instead, I’d get to face Cole after his bullshit performance and deal with the fallout from whatever tantrum he was throwing today.
Finn had stepped in and bailed him out. Once that update came through, I stopped paying attention to the family text chain.
I was too enraged to do anything but fume each time I thought about last night.
It figured that just as we were ready to close this chapter on our shitty family history, he’d find a way to fuck it up.
Cole had always been an entitled brat. As the result of my father’s affair with his twenty-one-year-old secretary, he had always felt like he was on the outside.
My mother had done everything in her power to make sure we all built relationships with him.
His own mother had little interest in being a parent, just like our father, so he could often be found hanging around our mom’s house.
And my mother, the saint that she was, had always treated him like one of her own.
The day our parents sat us down and explained that they were getting divorced was as fresh in my mind now as it was when I was nine years old, so stunned I couldn’t wrap my mind around the concept.
At the time, my life was perfect. My parents were awesome. I had four brothers and a forest for a backyard. We lived in a big house with a tire swing and a tree house.
In an instant, everything I thought I knew had been flipped upside down.
Within months, Dad married Tammi. Then Cole was born. Then Mom moved us from our cool house with the big backyard and into a little house in town.
It took years to understand that we’d gotten the better end of the deal.
Seeing Dad on weekends and when he felt like it was a hell of a lot better than living with that piece of shit every day.
The five of us had turned into semi-functional members of society, thank fuck, and it was all because Mom had been our primary parent.
And now she was standing, arms crossed, glaring at us in front of a needlepoint that read It’s a Good Day to Have a Good Day.
She looked around the room where we had assembled, her lips pursed. Gus stood against one wall, looking pissed off. Jude was on the couch, perfectly silent and probably writing a song in his head and tuning the rest of us out.
Finn was sitting in an old armchair, one leg bouncing, with his phone in his hand in case Adele needed a pint of ice cream or a foot rub.
And then there was Cole. He was lying face up on the loveseat with a pillow covering his head. I had to fight the urge to stomp over there, yank him to his feet, and shake him until he developed an ounce of common sense.
“You,” Mom said sternly, “cannot press charges against your brother.”
“Half brother,” I mumbled.
“Owen,” she snapped.
Shame washed over me as I dropped my head. God, I was such an asshole. But being here in this living room with my brothers, when I could be with Lila, was driving me insane.
“It’s not up to us. That’s not how it works,” Finn explained, his tone as patient as ever.
“The district attorney is an old friend of Alicia’s.
She spoke to him this morning. If Cole agrees to plead guilty, they’re willing to drop the charges down to misdemeanor trespass and drunk and disorderly and sentence him to community service only. ”
If it were up to me, he’d be held accountable, but I kept my mouth shut, grateful that Finn was dealing with this.
His ex, Alicia, was a high-powered attorney with all kinds of connections.
There was a good chance she could have this taken care of quickly, and if that was the case, then there was a chance it wouldn’t set back the sale.
Even so, anger still surged through me. “What the fuck, Cole? Do you have anything to say for yourself?” If I wasn’t concerned about upsetting my mom, I’d pick his punk ass up off the couch and punch him in the face.
Or I’d try. He was the biggest of us all. Though if anyone could take him, my money was on Finn. Or Jude, the wildcard. It was always the quiet ones.
He rolled over slowly and narrowed his bloodshot eyes. “I’m a fuckup. Haven’t you heard?”
“Cole,” Mom chided, her expression a mix of disappointment and compassion.
I tried and failed to suppress an eye roll. My mom had long mistaken Cole for an injured puppy instead of a grown man in need of a lot of therapy and a thorough ass-kicking.
“I am a piece of shit. Please, throw me in jail. At least then I won’t be sleeping in Debbie’s guest room, watching Wheel of Fortune every night.”
“Hey, do not bring Wheel into this,” Mom warned, planting her hands on her hips.
“I get it. I’m not one of you. I suck. Can you just leave me alone now?”
“Cole.” Gus grunted and sat on the sliver of cushion beside Cole’s legs. “We want to help you.” In true Gus form, he was ready to jump in, protect us all, and fix the situation.
“Fuck off and leave,” Cole said into the cushion.
“Yeah, not happening dude,” Finn said. “You fucked up badly, and now it’s time to face the music. Why did you do it?”
Cole rolled over and pushed his hair out of his face. It was long and shaggy and dirty, and his newly grown beard was bushy and unkempt. He really did look like shit.
A twinge of pity hit me again, but I forced it aside.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I was drunk and high, and it seemed like a great idea. A fuck-you to Dad. A way to blow off steam. Who cares?”
And just like that, all my sympathy turned to rage.
“Who cares?” I scoffed, shaking my head. “You don’t have the IQ points to understand how your actions affect the rest of us.”
I was getting a full head of steam now. One wrong move, and I’d veer right into full-on shouting territory.
“I’m working my ass off, neglecting my actual paying job, to help save your asses. I abandoned my own life to help get this shit fixed so that we can all move forward with our lives.
“And you’re up here, fucking things up left and right for the rest of us, sabotaging our chances of moving on without losing everything because you have hurt feelings? Liabilities impact our ability to sell, dumbass.”
I was standing now, my fists clenched. “Get your shit together.” I hissed, turning to leave. If I stayed, I couldn’t be certain I wouldn’t clock the asshole, and if I did that, I’d hurt my mom.
He hauled himself off the couch faster than seemed possible and shoved me hard. “Fuck you, Owen. You are the last person to throw stones. You haven’t come home in years.”
I whipped around and shoved him back, satisfied when he stumbled. “Staying away is not the same thing as petty crime and sabotage, you dumb fuck.”
He lunged at me, practically growling, and I pushed him down onto the couch.
“You’ve had every opportunity laid out for you on a silver platter. The rest of us had to scrape by. We made do without state-of-the-art sports equipment, SAT tutors, or luxury vacations.”
My heart was racing now. What I wouldn’t give to be back in Boston. I’d always enjoyed my simple life, and the minute I’d set foot in the state of Maine, everything had gone to shit. And they wondered why I never visited.
“Finn joined the Navy. I bartended to put myself through college,” I gritted out, looming over where he was sprawled out. “Every single one of us had hardship, but you don’t see any of us throwing tantrums and causing thousands of dollars in damages because our feelings are hurt.”
Gus appeared beside me and put a hand on my shoulder, pulling me out of my rampage.
I took a step back and rolled my shoulders. This had already gone too far.
Mom jumped in then. “Boys. What’s done is done. I asked you all here so we could figure out what we’re going to do about it. Not to make things worse by dissolving into fights.”
Chest heaving and blood still boiling, I stomped away from my idiot brother. On the other side of the room, I settled beside the bookshelf where Mom displayed all our high school graduation photos, including Cole’s. It took effort not to pick it up and smash it. He didn’t deserve my mom.
“We’re all hurting. The last few years have not been kind to any of us.” She pinned Cole with a glare. “You will make amends, both with the law and with our family.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he grumbled, hanging his head.
She turned toward me, shaking a finger. “I raised you better than this. We forgive in this family. I’ll drag all your lazy asses to church on Sunday if I have to so you can remember your values.”
She walked toward me, her expression softening a bit.
I forced my shoulders to lower and blew out a long breath as she stopped beside me.
“Now, how can we repair the damage and work together? Owen has taken on a lot.” She shifted and focused on me, even managing to give me a small smile. “How can we help you?”
I shrug. “There really isn’t much you can do.”
“No.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t believe that. This room is full of smart, capable people. If we work toward a common goal, we can do it.”
“I have a buyer—they’ve made one shitty offer. They’ll make another, but I don’t think it’ll be much better. Every decent buyer I’ve found has been scared off by the incomplete financials and outstanding orders.”
Deimos Industries and the mystery invoices were a problem, not to mention the consulting business and the conflicting environmental reports. We’d pull on one thread and find several others all tangled up.
“I’ve already been here for two weeks,” I said. “I need to get back to Boston, but there’s still so much to get done.”
“I can chip in with whatever you need,” Mom said.
Finn tapped out a message on his phone. “I’ll ask Alicia to help with legal stuff.”
“And if you need to go back to Boston for a bit, do it. We’ll hold down the fort here.” That from Gus. “We need this sale, but we also need a fair price or we won’t even be able to pay off all our debts.”
He was right, and until my trip to Portland yesterday, I’d cared more about unloading the company so I could be on my way. But this was a family business, and even though we’d lost the majority of our force, its sale would still affect many in the community. Nothing would be simple or easy.
“You don’t have to stay.” Jude pushed his glasses up his nose. “Come back and forth if you need to. Gus and I chose this life. You didn’t. I don’t want you to lose your job or give up your life in Boston for this. It’s not worth it.”
I considered him for a moment while I worked out how to respond to them all. Jude and I had never been close, but every time I spent time with him, I was impressed by his maturity. Where Gus could be a hothead, Jude was always thoughtful and calm. I tipped my chin, grateful he was on my side.
“We’re struggling, as well,” Gus said, roughing a hand through his hair. “Jude and I are working with a skeleton crew so we can fulfill the last of our orders. But the roads are shit this time of year, and the soft ground is slowing us down.”
“Okay,” Mom said with a firm nod. “Cole can help. He needs to spend his time productively.”
“Cole?” Finn laughed, stroking his beard. “In the woods?”
“He won’t have to operate heavy machinery,” Jude said. “There’s a ton of grunt work to get done. Checking loads, taking measurements, cleaning equipment, that kind of stuff.”
Cole scoffed and slumped back against the cushions.
“We can’t default on our outstanding contracts,” I reasoned. “The last thing any buyer will want is a company in litigation for a breach of contract.”
Mom rubbed her hands together. “Okay, that settles it. Cole will report for work tomorrow. Jude will teach him what he needs to know. We’ll all chip in if Gus asks. That includes Finn and Owen.”
I spun to face her. “Me?”
“Yes, you. What good is all this work you’ve been doing if things fall apart at the last minute?”
She had a point there. So with a long sigh, I nodded.
“Now,” she said, scanning the room. “You are my boys, and I will say this once. Cut the shit. Work together and support one another. When things are hard, that’s when we learn who we really are. And I raised scrappy fighters who aren’t afraid of hard work.”
She’d perfected the mom look years ago. The one that made us fall in line. And it was just as effective as ever. Every one of us was nodding and acquiescing by the time she put her hands on her hips and said, “Who wants pancakes?”