Chapter 17 #2
Trent sat at one end of the dining table. Mrs. Calloway sat at the other. Isa and I were placed side by side, which should have helped except her mother kept looking at me like she had discovered a dessert menu no one else knew about.
“So Drew,” Mrs. Calloway said, leaning toward me over her wineglass, “Isa tells us you had quite the season.”
“She did?”
Isa took a sip of water and avoided my eyes.
“She did not say enough,” Mrs. Calloway continued. “But I looked you up.”
Of course she did.
“I hope the internet was kind.”
“Oh, very.” Her smile widened. “The internet has been very kind to you.”
Isa coughed lightly.
I put a hand on her knee under the table because if I didn’t touch her, I was going to get up and leave before dessert.
Mrs. Calloway’s gaze dropped.
She saw the movement.
Her eyes brightened.
Like contact was proof.
Like we were a campaign going well.
“Stanford football,” she said. “Possible NFL future. Montgomery family. My goodness, Isa.”
“Mom,” Isa warned softly.
“What?” Mrs. Calloway’s lashes fluttered. “I’m proud of you.”
My stomach turned.
Proud of you.
For what?
For sitting beside me?
For catching me?
For trading Vale’s polished basketball almost for a football player with hedge fund blood behind him?
Trent cut into his meat with unnecessary force. “NFL future is a lottery ticket. Most of them don’t last.”
I looked at him.
He didn’t look sorry.
“Daddy,” Isa said.
“I’m being practical. He knows it.” Trent pointed his fork at me. “That’s why Stanford matters. Gives you something to fall back on when the body stops cooperating.”
“My body is cooperating fine.”
“For now.”
I smiled.
Barely.
Isa’s hand covered mine under the table.
Her fingers were cold.
That calmed me more than warmth would have.
She was uncomfortable too.
Trent leaned back. “Your father probably has the right idea. Get the degree, get the contacts, come back to Miami, wear a suit, and stop letting boys from Oregon State try to give you brain damage.”
“My father has a lot of ideas.”
Trent’s eyes narrowed. “You disagree?”
“Usually.”
Mrs. Calloway touched my arm again.
Under the table, Isa stiffened.
“Oh, I like that,” her mother said. “A young man who doesn’t just follow orders.”
Her fingers dragged lightly along my sleeve.
I shifted back and picked up my wineglass, forcing her hand off me again.
Her smile did not dim.
It made my skin crawl.
I’d had girls flirt with me in stadium lots, campus bars, classroom rows, DMs, hotel lobbies. I knew how to laugh it off. Knew how to redirect. Knew how to be charming without offering anything.
This was different.
This was Isa’s mother.
This was a woman who had kissed her daughter’s cheek at the door and was now looking at me like dollar signs had shoulders or worse, like I was a man first and her daughter’s boyfriend second.
‘Fake boyfriend’— my brain supplied.
I took a long drink.
Isa looked at me.
I looked back.
Something passed between us.
I thought maybe she’d say something.
Maybe a joke. A correction. Anything.
Then Trent started talking again.
“So, Montgomery Capital,” he said. “All that money. You ever ask yourself where it really comes from?”
The table went quiet.
Mrs. Calloway sighed. “Trent.”
“No, I’m curious. Young man should know the family business.”
“I know enough.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Doesn’t it bother you? All that wealth from speculation? Market manipulation dressed up in a better suit? Your father goes on television, talks about discipline and corrections, meanwhile normal people lose jobs while men like him call it opportunity.”
Isa’s hand tightened on mine.
I stared at her father.
He wasn’t entirely wrong about the world being ugly.
He was wrong about why he was saying it.
This wasn’t moral outrage.
This was insecurity.
Richard’s money made him feel small, so he made the money dirty.
I understood the impulse.
I didn’t respect it.
“My father doesn’t need me to defend him,” I said evenly.
Trent’s smile sharpened. “But you are.”
“No. I’m saying if you’re going to insult him, at least be accurate.”
Isa inhaled beside me.
Her mother’s eyes glittered.
Like tension excited her.
Trent set down his fork. “You defending hedge funds at my Christmas table?”
“I’m defending facts.”
He stared at me.
I stared back.
The air pulled tight.
Then Isa’s voice cut in, smooth and bright in that practiced way I was starting to understand came from too much childhood spent surviving rooms like this.
“Daddy, Drew does not work for his father. And I’m pretty sure no one wants a securities-law debate over mashed potatoes.”
Trent looked at her.
For a second, I saw something like surprise.
Then irritation.
Then he smiled at me without warmth.
“Fair enough. We’ll save it for dessert.”
I smiled back.
“Looking forward to it.”
Isa kicked me lightly under the table.
I squeezed her knee.
The rest of dinner dragged.
Mrs. Calloway kept asking questions that sounded sweet until you listened too closely.
Where did I summer?
Was my father’s place in Miami the primary residence or just one of them?
Did I see myself staying in California long-term or would I eventually “come back to where the real money is?
Had Richard met Isa?
What did he think of her?
That one made Isa go perfectly still.
I answered carefully.
“My father thinks Isa is impressive.”
Mrs. Calloway practically glowed.
Isa looked down at her plate.
And me?
I felt something ugly settle in my gut.
Because I remembered Richard’s face when he looked at her.
Impressive.
Disciplined.
Quality.
And now I was watching Isa’s mother hear those things like approval from my father was another step up a ladder.
By the time dessert came, I was done.
Done with Trent’s market-manipulator commentary.
Done with Mrs. Calloway touching my sleeve every time she laughed.
Done with the way Isa kept smoothing the room instead of breaking it.
Done with being looked at like I was both threat and jackpot.
But Isa’s hand stayed on my leg under the table.
Cold.
Tense.
Holding on.
So I stayed.
For her.
I could do that.
I could survive a dinner.
I could survive Christmas.
I could survive anything if, at the end of it, she looked at me and I knew she saw Drew.
Not Montgomery.
Not Richard’s son.
Not a bigger prize.
Me.
The next morning, I slept late.
That never happened.
I blamed the travel, the wine, the late-night tension humming in my blood, the fact that Isa and I had spent half the night in her childhood bed not having sex with the kind of discipline that should have gotten me a medal and immediate medical attention.
She had fallen asleep with her back against my chest, one of my arms wrapped around her waist, her fingers tangled with mine.
At some point, I must have actually slept.
When I woke, she was gone.
The room was bright with morning sun and too quiet without her breathing beside me.
I reached across the bed.
Cold sheets.
My stomach tightened before I could tell it not to.
Downstairs, faint voices drifted through the house. Coffee. Dishes. Christmas music low in the background.
I pulled on sweats and a shirt, ran a hand over my hair, and went looking for her.
I found her before I reached the kitchen.
Or heard her, anyway.
The patio doors were cracked open, and Isa’s mother’s voice floated in on the cool morning air, light and pleased.
Too pleased.
I stopped just inside the hallway.
I shouldn’t have.
I knew I shouldn’t have.
But then I heard my name.
Not Drew.
Montgomery.
“Well, baby,” Mrs. Calloway said, “I have to admit, I was worried.”
Isa said something too low for me to catch.
Her mother laughed softly.
“Don’t make that face. I’m your mother. I’m allowed to be honest.”
I moved closer without meaning to.