Chapter 7
JANE
Wyatt was up on the mat, shaking out his arms and his headgear strapped tight. He bounced on the balls of his feet like he was made of adrenaline and nerves. He was only seventeen and already built like a tank.
Mom said he was the only Thayer child who had inherited our grandfather’s frame, broad and grounded like an oak tree. But right now, he looked impossibly young, shifting his weight while the ref called the wrestlers to order.
My phone buzzed as he dropped into his stance.
Mom: Going out tonight. Don’t wait up.
I blinked once. Then twice. Then worry flooded my senses like a tidal wave. Going out? Going where? With who?
My fingers flew across the screen to ask where she was going, but after I’d sent the reply, three dots appeared, then disappeared and never returned. Anxiety and unease bloomed in my stomach, chewing at my gut as I rolled my lips into my mouth.
According to Colin, for the first couple months after the news had broken that my father was being investigated for a white-collar crime, she’d tried to keep up appearances.
She’d gone out with friends, ignored invitations that had suddenly been withdrawn or gotten lost in the mail, and gone on with business as usual.
All that had stopped when he’d been convicted. These days, a message like this from her was as rare as a flawless, natural diamond. Immediately bringing my phone to my ear to call her, I kept a close eye on my youngest brother on the mat.
Wyatt was circling his opponent, so he was fine, but Mom didn’t answer, sending me straight to voicemail instead. I ground my teeth, switching tactics and calling Colin instead.
“What?” he asked when he answered. “I’ve only got a minute.”
“Mom’s going out tonight.”
“Okay?” he said, like this was normal.
“Alone.”
“Oh.” He paused for a beat. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“She’s not answering her phone.”
He sighed. “She’s an adult, Jane.”
“Barely.”
“Maybe, but this could also be a good thing. Keep me posted. I’m heading into a meeting now. Try not to worry too much, though. Maybe she’s just finally getting her mojo back.”
I doubted that. Intensely. But Colin hung up and I had to admit he had a point. Mom was, in fact, a grownup. I just didn’t have a good feeling about this coming when just a couple weeks ago, she’d been paralyzed with fear over the Westwood dinner.
Shoving my phone back into my coat pocket, I looked up just in time to see Wyatt take his opponent down with a clean, brutal sweep that ended with the other kid flat on his back. The crowd erupted and Wyatt’s hand was raised in victory.
I leaped to my feet and cheered, whooping and clapping along with everybody else. Then I settled back down and tried to follow my brother’s advice not to worry about our grown mother going out by herself.
After the wrestling meet, Wyatt was ravenous. He never ate or drank anything all day to make his weight class, which always made me nervous even though he insisted it was fine. We left the school together, walking out into the nice, calm winter evening.
Snow curled to the ground in slow spirals, but the walk to the cheap, greasy burger joint he liked wasn’t far. Wyatt tugged his hoodie up around his ears, his duffel bouncing against his hip as we crunched through the snow.
“I’m so hungry, I could eat a whole cow,” he groaned.
I chuckled, my hands buried deep in my pockets and my chin tucked into my scarf. “You always say that.”
“Because it’s always true.”
A little bell above the door jingled cheerfully when we walked into the diner, and we were instantly immersed in the heat blasting our faces.
I inhaled deeply, the scent of old oil, ketchup, and heaven infiltrating my nostrils and making me strangely grateful for the turn our lives had taken that had led us to discover the joy of places like this.
Together, we trudged across the dimly lit dining room and claimed a booth. Wyatt practically inhaled the menu with his eyes. “I’m getting two doubles. Maybe three.”
“You’ll get a heart attack.”
He shrugged, gray-green eyes twinkling as he glanced up at me. “At least I’ll die happy.”
The waitress came by, her pen tapping softly against her notepad as she grinned at us. “What can I get you folks tonight?”
We placed our order, and while we waited, I leaned forward and tried to keep my voice casual.
Wyatt was like my baby. I’d mostly raised him, and since he’d only been twelve when Dad had gone away, he was the one of us who remembered the least of the before.
That made it more difficult for him to understand exactly where we were at right now, as a family and the keepers of a hundred-and-fifty-year-old company we would never stop fighting for.
“So,” I said. “How’s life going?”
He picked at a paper napkin, not really looking at me. “Fine.”
“Fine,” I echoed. “That’s a very detailed assessment.”
A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “We’ll know about Yale in a few weeks.”
There it is, that tiny flick of worry inside him. The giant tsunami inside me.
I nodded, doing my best to keep my expression steady. “You’ll get in.”
“Maybe.” He scratched at the condensation on his water glass. “It’s Yale. They’re not really known for taking just anybody.”
“You’re a top student,” I reminded him.
Thank the powers that be we got you into the public school district with the best AP offerings, because I definitely couldn’t afford the private academy the rest of us went to.
Obviously, I didn’t say any of that. I just grinned at him, already proud no matter how worried I was at the same time.
At least Yale has wrestling scholarships.
“Your grades are perfect,” I said when he didn’t respond, still just staring into his water like he wasn’t sure he believed me. “And you’re not just anyone. You’re a Thayer.”
He snorted. “Like that means anything these days.”
I opened my mouth, but thankfully, I was saved from having to lie when the waitress arrived to drop off our milkshakes. “Your burgers will be out in a few.”
She flitted away again and I watched as Wyatt leaned back, stretching his long legs out under the table and bringing his gaze up to mine. “It’s fine, Jane. I applied just like everybody else, and just like everybody else, I’ll find out if my application was successful in a few weeks.”
“Yeah, I guess. I still don’t understand why you wouldn’t let me read your entrance essay.”
He smirked. “Because you would have edited it to death.”
“Editing is an expression of love.”
He rolled his eyes, chuckling under his breath as he shook his head. “I wanted them to hear my voice.”
“That’s probably a good thing. Your voice is brilliant. Much better than mine.” I meant that, too.
Wyatt was a phenomenal writer, honest and raw in ways business had never let me be. That was what he wanted to study. English. Literature. Entire worlds made of words that lived on endless shelves.
Sometimes, when I was exhausted, angry, or just done, I imagined a life for him far from here, free of the churning gears of the company business, legacy, and the mess our father had left behind.
In those daydreams, I imagined him in Ireland, living among green cliffs and old stone, attending Trinity for his postdoc and spending his life surrounded by dusty books, quiet libraries, and everything he loved.
A life where he doesn’t have to save anyone but himself. I wanted that for him so badly, I would do anything to make that dream come true. Absolutely fucking anything.
The burgers arrived, steaming and glorious, and Wyatt lit up like Christmas morning. I watched him devour the first one in three bites and told myself things were fine. That they would have to be fine, but if they weren’t, I had no idea how I was going to get him through Yale to Trinity.
I would eat nothing but saltine crackers for the rest of my life if it meant Wyatt got everything he deserved. I would sell our family home and every last antique, move all of us, my mother included, into some shitty row house in the bowels of Chicago, and I would do it gladly.
Anything to pour every remaining dime into his education, his freedom, and his chance at a life not chained to the fractured legacy of being a Thayer. Unfortunately, however, it would literally take every last dime to make it happen.
Frankly, we were pretty close to broke. Outside of Colin, my brothers didn’t know how bad it was and he only knew because he’d helped me decode the numbers when they’d stopped making sense. The others were blissfully ignorant and I was determined to keep it that way.
If they ever realized that my trust fund, the only one spared, was the only reason they were still in school and the only reason Thayer House was still ours, they’d fall apart. The whole structure of our family would collapse under guilt, fear, and panic.
Again.
I thought I would’ve had it fixed by now, but only because I thought I would actually earn a worthwhile salary as COO.
Enough to put a dent in this mess, but nope.
What I earned was appallingly low for someone in my position, but Thayer Steelworks was a sinking ship and I’d boarded it like an idiot, convinced I could patch every leak with hard work and loyalty.
Hard work did nothing. Loyalty even less. The pittance I made only stretched so far and I’d been trying to keep us living at the same level we’d been used to. Because my brothers deserved it and Mom…
Well, I don’t know what would become of her if she loses even more.
After dinner, Wyatt and I grabbed a cab home and he sprinted inside like he’d been released from captivity. He dropped his bag somewhere in the disaster zone that was also known as our hallway, and shouted over his shoulder, “Homework! Thanks for the burger.”
“Please take a shower!” I yelled after him. “You smell terrible.”
He didn’t respond, just thudding up the stairs, past the second floor, and onto the third-floor chaos he called a bedroom. Once I lost him to teenage land, the house felt unnervingly quiet.
I headed up to my own bedroom, slipped out of my work clothes, and tossed them onto the chair I would stop using as a laundry mountain someday.
After changing into my comfiest sweats and my favorite oversized sweater, I sat on the edge of my bed to pull on my socks, and naturally, my mind picked that moment to betray me.
Finally alone, the tide of memories I’d been fighting back all day came surging into my brain, with Alex front and center. That clean, spicy, expensive scent he carried so effortlessly. His voice, deep and smooth, with the steady confidence of a man who didn’t flinch at responsibility.
The warm seat that had had, perhaps literally, saved my ass. And then, of course, there had been his hands, big and sure on the steering wheel, like the car would obey him and be grateful for the privilege. God. I’d obey him and be grateful for the privilege.
As soon as I had that thought, I snapped myself out of it. What is wrong with me?
I should’ve been thinking about Wyatt’s Yale application, or our budget, figuring out which bill I’d stall if I had to make any payments to Yale to secure Wyatt’s place when he got in.
Instead, I was recalling the way Alex’s eyes had flicked over me, looking like he was trying not to notice me, yet absolutely noticing me. When I realized I’d fallen right back into that fantasy spiral, I let out a bitter laugh because this was pathetic.
I had a drowning company to manage. A family on the brink of financial ruin. A little brother pinning all his dreams on an acceptance letter.
Yet my brain had decided to fixate on a man with warm seats and good bone structure. I jumped off my bed and headed downstairs, grabbing a wine glass from the kitchen. It was time for my nightly wind-down ritual.
The couch, a blanket, a glass of wine, and if I was really lucky, a bit of numbness. Man, I really need numbness tonight.
I was just walking into the living room with my glass in one hand and the bottle in the other when the front door opened and my mother came in. Smiling.
Nora Thayer was actually smiling. I could even see her pearly white teeth for the first time in half a decade. Her cheeks were flushed and there was a brightness in her eyes I hadn’t seen since before the trial.
Before the humiliation had made her fold in on herself like a ghost still haunting her own life. She closed the door behind her with a giddy little giggle.
I stared at her, hard, trying to figure out if I was hallucinating. “Did Dad die in prison?”
“God, I wish,” she said cheerfully, waving a hand. “But no.”
She turned toward me, her eyes not even just bright but sparkling. I noticed then that she was dressed to the nines, her shirt fully tucked into her linen skirt, her makeup flawless and she’d even accessorized.
“This news is better,” she said excitedly. “I’ve just saved us all, Jane.”
Her smile widened and every muscle in my body tensed. I suddenly had a very, very bad feeling about what that meant. Because whatever she’d done, I seriously doubted it would be good.