Page 26 of The Boss I Can't Stand
I made my way to the corner booth I’d claimed with my brothers earlier last year. We met weekly for lunch, to catch up and talk about work and family drama, and when it was my turn to choose the place, we always ended up in this hole-in-the-wall diner off the highway near the airport.
Connor would fly over from San Francisco and Liam would schlep up from VeriTV Studios, neither of them complaining much, which I appreciated. We’d started coming here when the scandal about Violet and me had first broken last year. It was far enough away from the usual hustle and bustle of Hollywood that it didn’t attract the paparazzi.
I’d have eaten mud on a plate if it meant I could have a meal with my brothers without being hounded—but the food was actually really good. By this point, I was downright fond of the little diner chain and couldn’t get enough of their Reuben sandwich.
“Hey,” Connor said, joining me. He was more casual than he usually was for these lunches, dressed in jeans and a nice shirt.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Grace had a field trip.”
“Already? Didn’t school like just start?”
“There’s a special exhibit at a museum—the teacher wanted to get the kids in to see it before it moved on.”
“Anything good?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Something about coral reefs. Kinda over the heads of most of the kids. The part Grace was most excited about was that she got to sit next to Kenny on the bus. Apparently, she’s still in his good books after theRun ’n’ Gunparty. Your present seems to have gone over well.”
It’d taken considerable effort to get Violet to sign a framed poster. We hadn’t talked much after our photo was blazed across the tabloids and I felt a bit awkward reaching out, but she agreed to do it since it was for my niece. There were other things I had to agree to as well—such as a carefully negotiated line of credit in her next movie—but at least none of them would put me back in the tabloids.
“Of course it did. Point for me on the favorite uncle scale. Liam better watch out.”
Speaking of my older brother, Liam walked through the front door, heading right for us. “Mom’s looking for you,” he said, glancing down at his phone.
I rolled my eyes, checking my own phone to see that she had indeed texted me.
“You didn’t tell her you were going to lunch?” he asked, sitting down in the booth next to Connor.
I arched my eyebrow. “What? Did you want me to bring her along?”
Liam made a face—as well he should. Brother lunch was sacred. No one other than the three of us were invited, ever. “Well, no.”
“I’ll see her when I get back to set,” I said.
“How is Mom, by the way?” Connor asked. “I’ve hardly heard from her in a month.”
“Why don’t you ask him?” I inclined my head in Liam’s direction. He currently had Mom staying with him at his Studio City mansion. Part of me was still annoyed he hadn’t immediately texted me when Mom showed up on his doorstep with her bags—at least then I would have had a few hours of warning before walking in to find her in my conference room.
Liam huffed at the look on my face. “You’ve been glaring at me for weeks. I told you, I didn’t warn you because I assumed you alreadyknew! It’s your movie. Why wouldn’t you have known Mom had been hired as the historical consultant?”
“Why wouldn’t I have told you she was coming if I knew?”
“Because this would be your idea of a joke,” Liam pointed out.
I shook my head. I might be the first one to crack a joke or tease my brothers, but not when it came to Mom. “There was nothing funny about this.”
“I still can’t believe of all the experts in the country, your assistant tracked down Mom,” Connor said, glancing at his menu.
It really was some cruel trick of fate.
“Youshould have warned us both she was coming down,” I said to him.
“She barely warned me,” Connor said, a little put out. He hid it well, but I could tell by the way his nostrils flared that he was still frustrated. Mom was closest to Connor out of all of us, stemming back to when we were kids.
He was the one who’d sit with her for hours in a dark room on her bad days. The one who’d bring her water and sandwiches and coax her into taking a shower. His patience with her frankly astounded me. Lord knows, I couldn’t have managed it.
I loved my mom, but I’d also spent a lot of my childhood frustrated at the dynamic where we were more often than not the ones taking care of her when it was supposed to be the other way around. I knew real life wasn’t like the family sitcoms on TV, but it shouldn’t have been three boys raising themselves and struggling to keep their heads above water, either.
