Page 42 of My Dear Mr. Corporate

“To be honest I’m angry,” she answered. “But what can I do? Given the road he’s taking I couldn’t allow him to carry us both down the bankruptcy road.”

I frowned at her. “What?”

“Your uncle has always been a gambler, Tate. Often he would fly into Vegas to spend the weekend. It’s only gotten worse over the years.”

“It can’t be that bad,” I said with a nervous chuckle. “He and Dad used to go once in a while. Plus, it would take a lot to blow through his millions.”

“The difference is that your father did it for fun and he always knew when to fold. Your uncle knew no such thing. He’s barely been able to keep afloat because he was earning as a C.E.O. And still, sometimes I wonder…” She trailed off and glanced away. “Is everything okay at the company?”

I nodded. “I think so. Why?”

She shook her head and gave me a forced smile. “You should talk to him, really talk to him. We were standing over there talking just now but he didn’t want to meet your boyfriend, so he left.”

“He probably didn’t come over because they already met,” I told her, giving him the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t get the impression from the last time they met that my uncle was homophobic. We got along quite fine.

A loud explosion sounded everyone paused. “Oh my God, what was that?” Aunt Susan gasped.

I’d fired a gun too many times, living in the woods, to be as confused as the others. My first thought was of Bryan who was still not back from the bathroom. In a way the situation seemed ridiculous. This was a birthday party for a sixty-year old woman. Why would anyone pull a gun?

“I’m going to go check on Bryan,” I told Aunt Susan. “Call 9-1-1 and stay alert. I don’t know what the hell that meant but it was definitely a gunshot.”

I ran towards the door, pushing past the confused people who were not sure what they should do. I had one intention and that was to get to Bryan. There had been no repeat of the single shot that had been fired which eased my mind a bit that it might have been accidental, but who the hell had their gun on their person at a party anyway? I moved with caution and headed for the bathroom, checking the halls for an assailant who might have gained entry into the house. The halls were empty except for a confused serving girl who gasped when she saw me, as though I was the shooter.

I ran past her to the nearest bathroom where I had directed Bryan and tried the door. Locked from the inside. My heart skipped a beat. I pounded on the door.

“Bry!” No sound. I pounded some more. “Bry, if you’re in there, open up.”

I was about to shoulder the door when it opened from the inside and an ashen-faced Bryan appeared.

“Shut the door. He might still be out there.” He grabbed me by the shirt front and pulled me into the bathroom before slamming the door shut. He was shaking like a leaf, so I grabbed him to me and hugged him.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked him. “We all heard an explosion.”

He rested his head on my chest and took in a deep breath that rippled through his body. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Come on.” I rubbed his back. “I know you’re upset but I need to know.”

“I was about to leave the bathroom,” he answered, groaning a little. “The pin for my lapel fell off and I bent to retrieve it. Talk about luck. All I saw were the shoes and the gun. If I hadn’t stopped to retrieve the pin, Tate…”

My blood ran cold, and I squeezed him even tighter to me. “This doesn’t make any fucking sense. Why would someone shoot at you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“And you didn’t see who?”

“No. I wouldn’t have even known it was a man if I hadn’t seen the shoes.”

It just didn’t add up but staring ahead as I was, I could see the hole in the wall where the bullet had penetrated. My heart lurched in my chest as it dawned on me that I could have lost him in such an unexpected way.

“I wish I knew who that fucker was!” I growled and held his head between my hands as I kissed him hard. “If I’d lost you tonight, Bry, I don’t think I could have survived that.”

“I’m okay. Just a little shaken. It was so unexpected. Maybe somebody mistook me for someone else?”

He sounded so hopeful and while I thought that was the case, I wasn’t going to take it for granted.

“Maybe, but we don’t know. We don’t know and that’s the scary part.”

“What do we do now?”

“We wait for the police to get here,” I answered. “For what it’s worth I think the shooter already left but just to be on the safe side we’ll stay here. Aunt Susan called the cops and they should be here soon.”

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