Chapter 29
“Please fasten seatbelts in preparation for landing,” the flight attendant says while walking through the cabin.
Don’t worry, darlin’, my belt is firmly fastened.
Go check across the aisle where a raven-haired beauty is the seatbelt for our moody boss.
For someone who had never flown on a private jet before, Bri has sure made herself at home.
We’re in the final stages of a get in, get it done and get out mission for Abe Grenfer’s signature to commence the pilot shows for his radio stint.
Abe is an elusive old bastard, but Mason has Bri and me on that matter, while he catches up with another network executive.
Two birds, one stone, and all that. That was the best news I’ve had in weeks because if we manage to wrap this up before Christmas, I’m sure the pudding will go down a little easier.
And that will be the only thing going down, unless Bri manages to snap Mason out of his moody funk with some exceptional oral work.
“Welcome to Houston,” says the attendant.
“The weather is a temperate sixty-three degrees.” Thank fuck for that.
The ever-present chill from the snow is beginning to seep into my bones and turn me into a geriatric complainant before my time.
I love New York, don’t get me wrong, but I hate long periods of cold and snow that just won't let up.
“Come on, Bubble, the sooner we get that signature, the sooner we can get back. The autograph might turn Captain Grumpy into Captain Gracious, for once.”
Mason fires me the look that weakens the resolve of floundering interns and makes adversaries pause to consider him more. Yeah, Mercer, I’ve known you half your life. I have years of walled immunity to that stare.
The get in, get it done and get out memorandum was fine in theory.
Well, reality can be a bitch, and Abe Grenfer can be one difficult motherfucker to get a hold of.
Mason took the jet back to New York. Sabrina was summoned to return with him until both of us realized she’d be more of an asset down here than back up there.
Soft-spoken, empathetic females are often used as a kind of savvy business Trojan horse.
Their curves can provide that razor’s edge swipe needed to cement a deal or sever one.
Now Bri and Isaac Grenfer are winding up contract talks that continue to have roots in stubborn southern persistence.
Abe won’t meet face to face, still self-conscious.
Bri has opened up about her childhood, need for asthma medication, and the side effects of the drugs almost overnight, and colossal weight gain.
Both of us sit transfixed, listening to this confident, capable woman talk about her struggle with self-worth and body dysmorphia.
When she touched on the shaming by Juliette, my chest jack-knifed with powerful surges of furious anger, and the need to protect this woman at all costs from all threats.
Isaac continues to sip his negroni, interjecting with confirmations and anecdotes about his own life in the shadow of his famous father.
How he’d often miss out on seeing him for weeks on end when filming his many game shows and interviews took him out to the West Coast and away from his family.
That’s the thing about the media industry, I guess.
While it brings the news and current affairs into the sitting rooms of billions worldwide, linking every family to world events in real time, others are torn from theirs as they report, film, or debate the latest declaration of war or celebrity cheating crisis.
As I listen to Sabrina recount her childhood and own conflicts of maturity and search for inner strength, I’m forced back into the attic of boxes in my brain, where some of the most blissful and painful memories are catalogued and stored in neatly indexed rows.
Three people are sitting and sipping at a corner table in a Houston Jazz House.
One, a proud southern man of color whose father is one of the most iconic presenters of our time, his career spanning decades.
Me, the only child of a Texan tycoon, the widowed man intent on keeping his skeletoned closet firmly locked and dead bolted.
His desire to keep those secrets from ever seeing the light of day and somehow tarnishing his impeccable reputation is only shadowed by his audacity to bed every socialite drawn to his silver tongue and soaring bank balance.
Then there is Sabrina Arden Broe, rhymes with snow.
The one thing I want to see less of, yet want to fly us back to JFK to surround ourselves in it.
The daughter of Irish immigrants, part of a big, boisterous family of eight.
A family who, unlike the Grenfers, or the Hynds, or even the untouchable Mercers, holds family and connection above all else.
While Isaac, who prefers to go by Zac, Mas, and I all had the latest gadgets and toys.
We vacationed in carefully selected holiday spots depending on the need to broadcast wealth and excess or escape the prying eyes of both, Sabrina had no such luxuries.
“Wait, you’ve never heard of a tin can potluck?” she asks, hand covering her chest with indignation and alarm.
“But you’re going to share with the group, right?” Zac commands our complete attention with a flourish of his hand. Unnecessary, because we’re both hanging on her every word.
“It started when we were camping. You both know camping, right? You pitch tents and sleep on lumpy air mattresses and have to sleep in all your clothes, so you don’t freeze to death?
” We nod. We both understand camping, obviously.
The last time I was in a tent, Mason Mercer was sharing it with me.
We were on an overnight hike as part of our boarding school’s team building and resilience activities.
“Okay, well, we used to get the cans from stores that didn’t have labels.
Most of them were like ten or twenty cents.
Some had tiny dents and stuff; those were pretty sketchy, but anyway, we used to get whole trunkfuls of these cheap cans because the stores couldn’t sell them.
When we went camping, and I’m talking most of the aunts and uncles, all the cousins, not just the few you met at Thanksgiving, Trys. ”
All the cousins? There are more?
“Yeah, so there were lots of mouths to feed and not much money to go around. My dad worked two jobs, and so did his brother. My mom worked long hours. Anyway, we didn’t go on fancy holidays unless it was for something big like a milestone birthday or something everyone had saved their pennies for.
Camping was our way to get everyone together on a budget.
So, the tin cans would be in these massive clear plastic tubs that the boys would carry in.
We had a rotating roster for meal preparation, and the tins were a feature.
You picked up a tin can and another and another, and once you opened them and worked out what the hell was in there, you had to come up with a meal to feed everyone using the contents of the cans. That was tin can potluck.”
“Cans have stamped writing on them, though. Did that provide any clue to what was inside?” Isaac questions.
“Not really. Most of it was code or a bunch of numbers followed by a use-by date.”
The sound of Isaac’s hearty laughter ekes out my own. It’s raucous and unapologetic. “We had some winning meals, I won’t lie. Like sloppy joes with sliced peaches that someone turned into some kind of savory sauce. Good times.”
Sabrina raises her glass to toast her memories, and we both follow suit.
“To tin can potluck,” Isaac declares.
“To tin can potluck,” we confirm, before downing our glasses and ordering another round.
Bri and I are curled next to each other in the suite’s sitting room overlooking the meandering Buffalo Bayou and Memorial Park. Views my father’s office shared.
We’re booked on an early commercial flight, and Mason’s face is still roguish and ruggedly handsome on the laptop propped up on the coffee table as Bri fills him in on our meeting with Zac Grenfer only because his father canceled—again.
“This is pissing me off. Either that man wants to work, or he doesn’t.
Fuck, he could do the fucking radio from a studio in his home if he wanted to.
He’s the one making a big fucking production about the contract.
” As he talks, his shirtless torso flexes and ripples.
He’s backlit by the fireplace in his bedroom at Onyx One, having been called back to a booked calendar of back-to-back meetings and reports requested by Mercer Group prior to the retirement of Magnus Mercer on January 1 after sixty-five years at the helm.
While his rhetoric is important, I can’t help but focus on the cleft of his chin, almost invisible under his signature stubble.
Or the way his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.
Bri is equally enamored, eyes laser-focused on the screen, and ears attuned to instructions and requests.
Can he have this report by close of business tomorrow? Yes, Mr. Mercer, no problem.
“Trys, did you hear me?” His impatient tone makes me think this isn’t the first time he’s asked me that question. “No, sorry, can you repeat that, please?”
“I said that I’ve told Malice that you and Sabrina will both be joining us for Christmas. I don’t want you to be alone again, especially after seeing you break out of your shell on Thanksgiving.”
“I still think Cousin Gail was flirting with me,” I muse.
“She’s full-blown Irish. And she was drunk; she flirts with everyone.”
Mason hesitates, his jaw clenching while the telltale signs of him chewing the inside of his cheek play out. His mouth works, followed by his jaw as the flesh is pulled between his molars. His composed look of calculation. What’s up with him?
“Both of us?” I reiterate, confused.