Page 15 of Vicious Arrangement
“Oscar was a controlling, cold, unfeeling man to me. And yeah, to you and Josh, he was nice, and I thank you for coming to the funeral, but I’m fine.”
“Let me put my therapist hat on for a moment. Complicated relationships bring conflicted and complicated feelings about things like death.”
“Oh, fucking kill me.”
He darts a look over to the living room. “Fucking language, Noah.”
“I’m good.” And it’s not complicated. My grandfather resented me, and I loved him without a drop of love back.
That’s about as simple as it gets.
But I change the subject and we talk about the hot kindergarten teacher I noticed one time I dropped Josh off for Asher.
“You gonna ask her out?”
“I’m not dating his teacher.”
I look at him. “Are kindergarten teachers real teachers?”
“You walk fine and dangerous lines, Noah.”
“What lines? Can I draw lines?” Josh says, looking about, appearing from nowhere. The kid sometimes has a stealth mode when he isn’t operating his noise-making one. “I’m hungry.”
Asher adds the now-chopped tomatoes to the salad, and wipes his hands, and grins at his kid. “Well, we better do something about that.”
“And no woman’strying to marry you for food like that,” I say, pouring another glass of wine.
Asher snorts a laugh as Josh is spread on the sofa, Spiderman in one hand and sound asleep. “I haven’t met one I want to impress yet.”
Shit, we’re both as skittish as the other, but the difference is Asher would meet someone in a heartbeat if he didn’t think it could put strain on Josh. He doesn’t want to be one of thoseparents with a different flavor of mommy or special friend every other week. Right now, his focus is on his kid.
But he, unlike me, should have someone.
“You want help getting him to bed?” I ask.
“Hell no. Move him right now and he’ll be awake. Noah is here, so he’ll be up for hours trying to show you how cool he is.”
“He is cool.”
Asher smiles and picks up a small slice of the chocolate-raspberry pie I bought. Josh and Asher love this bakery and I’m fond of it, too. Plus, it’s around the corner from me in SoHo.
“He is,” Asher says. “Want to tell me why you’re so quiet? More than usual.”
“Fucking Oscar put stipulations in his will. Marry some girl or finish the merger with Sanderson Inc. in order to get the billions I’m meant to inherit, along with being president of Templeton’s.”
He frowns, then shrugs. “So go through with the merger. Billions can take a merger. I know of Sanderson, but they’re not huge, just known and have been part of the New York landscape for forever. It won’t send you under. Fuck, I doubt it’ll rock Templeton at all.”
I give him a sour look as I set my wine glass down, that anger coiling up inside once more. “Fuck that. The merger’s a terrible business idea. I’m not doing it. And the worst thing? Oscar knew that, right from the start. So that’s off the table.”
“Well, I guess you’ll be getting married, then. Congrats?” He leans in. “Who is the lucky lady, anyway?”
I open my mouth and close it again. “Fucked if I know.”
He chortles with laughter. “Oh yeah, you’re a great businessman.”
“Her name’s Aria Sanderson and I just have to marry her for however long, a year or so. I don’t have to fuck her.”
“Charming.”
