After dinner, Jaime summoned all four of us and we took Vicious’s Jeep north to L.A. Face-to-face board meetings were always in an office. We couldn’t risk losing our shit in public, which happened more often than not when the four of us shared the same space.
Things got intense in the vehicle before we even broached the topic that brought us all together. I was behind the wheel because I was the only guy who hadn’t had a drink. Vicious sat next to me, looking glum. He must’ve had a general idea what we were going to ask him for—put two and two together, I’m sure—and Trent and Jaime were in the back, talking football.
“How’s Luna doing?” Vicious asked Trent sometime during the last seven miles on Interstate 5. Everybody shut up immediately, and Trent cleared his throat, looking between Jaime and me in the rearview mirror.
“Not terrific.”
“How come?”
“She doesn’t eat. Doesn’t talk. Doesn’t walk.”
“Does she know how to walk and talk?” I’d give Vicious one thing, his voice wasn’t hard or rough. Plain conversational.
“She does,” I intervened. “I saw her walking last time we were in Todos Santos in August.”
“Wanna know my angle?” I saw Trent from the rearview mirror scratching his head on a heavy sigh. “I think she’s depressed. I’m not sure what’s happening yet, but we’re having it checked out.”
“Trent’s mom is in Chicago.” Jaime’s eyes met Vic’s in the mirror. “She is helping him out with Luna for the time being, but his dad can’t leave here. He has his own mother to take care of.”
The complexity of life met me in an odd place. We were going to grow old someday, too, and I wondered how the hell I was going to be there for my own folks. Because I definitely wanted to be there for them. Which reminded me that I still had to visit my dad tonight after this was all over in L.A.
We parked in Vicious’s parking space and went into his office. Everything was minimal, cold and impersonal, just like him. When we switched branches a year ago, I refurbished the whole thing and put in new furniture and a bright green wall just to piss him off when he came back.
Now every time he saw the color green, he thought of me.
Vicious and Jaime took a seat on the black leather couch overlooking Vicious’s glass desk. I plopped down on the desk, tucking my hands into my pockets. Trent stood in the center of the room, his hands folded over his chest. We all looked at Vicious. And Vicious looked pissed off.
“Well?” He lifted one eyebrow, even broodier than usual. “Go ahead and fucking ask for it. You’ve been dying to, and you can’t wait to see my reaction, right?”
“You need to switch branches with Trent.” My voice was cut and impersonal. I was always the one to go against Vicious. I think Jaime was helpless when it came to this fucker, and Trent harbored the real dark shit none of us ever experienced, so he ought to slaughter him if they talked about it directly and Vicious refused his request.
“Not gonna happen.” Vicious hitched a shoulder, lacing his hands behind his head and making himself comfortable. He flung one of his legs over the other and looked about as chilled as a motherfucker could be under the circumstances. I leaned forward, a nonchalant smile on my lips.
“We’re not asking. We’re giving you time to wrap your head around it and pack a bag.”
Maybe I was too forward, but there were special circumstances in this case. I was talking full-blown, fucked-up situation, and Trent needed to be here more than Vicious did. That, we all agreed on.
“Jesus fuck, Cole. Don’t you have a bottle of liquor to drown yourself in? There are actual grown-ups having a conversation here.” Vicious’s words were venom spreading through the room as he chuckled.
“One more comment like that, and a bottle of something will be shoved in your ass,” Trent said, jumping to my defense.
“Listen to the guys, Vic.” Jaime pursed his lips. “I think you know Trent has the right to be here.”
“I have just as much right, Jaime. Trent has a baby. I have a baby on the way. We both need to be next to our families.”
“You have Millie. She can take care of the baby.”
“And be away from her family? After all the time she has already spent away from them? Yeah, not doing this to her. No matter your motivational speech, which, by the way, is horribly lacking.”
“You were the one who did this to her, fucker.” I laughed. It wasn’t even hostile. I was just wondering what the fuck went on in that sick head of his. His backward logic fascinated me. Vicious yawned as he took out a fat blunt and lit it, inhaling deeply. I didn’t smoke all that much these days—blame Rosie, the number one party pooper in America—and was dying for a few hits, but kept mum.
“Doesn’t matter what happened. I’m not moving away. You all knew that before you came here. But Trent is welcome to come back.”
“Who is going to manage Chicago?” Jaime frowned. “The tooth fairy?”
“We can hire an outsider,” Vicious suggested.
“Fuck that. I work seventy-hour weeks breaking my back so that some stranger can step into what we created and rule it?” I snorted out. “This is our empire. We reign it. We lead it. No outsiders. That was the rule when we incorporated it.”
“It was going to happen sooner or later, Dean.” Vicious sounded so calm, which was difficult for me to comprehend. “How much longer do you think you can keep going the way you do? Rosie is bound to get sick,” he said, and Jaime stood up, ready to yell at his sorry ass, and Trent took a step toward Vicious, too, but I held my hand up, still bracing myself against the glass desk. He continued. “It’s true. Why the fuck are you guys trying to sugarcoat it for him? Rosie will get sick eventually. I saw what state she was in last year. And Millie told me she always gets worse in the winters. Or even if she doesn’t get sick, you’ll still want kids, right? A family? A wedding? All the fancy shit. I know you do, Dean. I fucking see you with her, man. You’re going down, hard. Think you can put the same amount of hours in at work a year from now? Two years from now? You’re fucking tripping, man. Here, maybe this will make you think straight.” He got up and passed me the blunt, and I took it, closing my eyes as I let the rancorous smoke crawl into my throat.
Fuck, I missed it.
“And, Jaime.” Vicious continued, pacing across the office now. He planned it all along. Knew that we were going to corner him. Sly bastard. “Don’t you want to move back to Todos Santos? Have Daria grow up with Luna and my kid and Dean’s kid and her grandparents? Don’t you want that?”