Page 12 of Played
I tell her that I am, and she introduces herself as the super’s wife and tells me to holler if we need anything. Her little girl waves at me as they walk into the building, and a man shouting behind me grabs my attention.
I spin around to find my father shaking his fist in Grampa’s face. “You deceitful, spiteful, ungrateful fuck!”
Outraged, I grab him by the collar and shove him away. “Who the fuck do you think you are speaking to him like that?”
Grampa is shaking in his chair, and we’re drawing attention from passersby. Kyngston Worthington III, respectable Wall Street banker and advocate of good old-fashioned family values can’t have that.
“You haven’t heard the last of this.” He points a finger in my direction and climbs into a waiting car. It drives away, leaving Grampa and I staring after it, wondering what the hell just happened.
Amanda comes out of the apartment building and blows a strand of hair from her face, her cheeks flushed pink. Thankfully, she didn’t witness my father’s outburst, but she sees the aftermath: Grampa still trembling with fear and me with rage. I should drive after the heartless prick and smash his face in.
“Is everything okay?” she asks.
I squeeze Grampa’s hand in mine and run a soothing hand over his shoulder. “Everything’s okay,” I reassure them both. “Let’s get you inside.”
After Amanda and I finish fixing his room, she heads to the deli on the corner to get us some sandwiches for lunch, which she assures me are to die for. Her aunt lives a few blocks away, and she knows the area pretty well, which is good for Grampa and me.
I hand Grampa a mug of his favorite English breakfast tea and perch on the arm of the couch beside his oversized armchair. “All right, Grampa,” I say, keeping my tone light. “Time to tell me what the hell is going on.” He’s still pretty shaken, and I don’t want to upset him any more than he already has been, but he’s hiding something from me.
“Can’t we just leave it, King? I’m here now. With you. That’s all that matters.”
I angle my body so that I’m facing him. “Why did my father react the way he did? I’ve never seen him lose his temper like that in public before. If something is going on that affects you, then it matters. Please don’t keep me in the dark.”
His deep-green eyes fill with tears. “I didn’t want to manipulate you. I didn’t mean to.” A tear runs down his cheek.
I give his knee a reassuring squeeze. “You don’t have a manipulative bone in your body, old goat. But you gotta tell me what’s going on.”
He nods, swallowing hard. “Your parents found out about the will. I don’t know how. No doubt that shark of a lawyer they have.”
That explains Reese’s presence the other night, but not much else. “Your will?”
“No. Your grandma’s will.” His eyes sparkle when he talks about her. They always do. Both my parents came from money, but in my mom’s case, that money came from her mom. She died when I was a baby, and although I feel like I know her from the way Grampa kept her memory alive, I have none of my own memories of her.
They adored each other, my grandparents. I used to wonder what my life would have been like if she’d been alive while I was growing up. Grampa was deemed too unwell to take care of me permanently, but I used to fantasize about living with them in their Long Island house rather than the prison of my parent’s home. When Grandma died, Grampa lived a modest if comfortable life. I remember hearing my father grumble about her missing millions, but it never meant anything to me. He grumbled about a lot of things.
“What about grandma’s will?” I ask. “Wouldn’t that have all been taken care of years ago?”
His face lights up. “Your grandma was a smart woman, King. And she knew I’d never spend all her money. It wasn’t mine to spend, you see.”
“So… You have money?” I ask, shaking my head. “Grandma’s money? That’s what all this is about?”
He nods. “A little over twenty-five million, I think. My financial guy invests and such, but I don’t keep much of an eye on it.”
Wow! The old goat has twenty-five million sitting in a bank somewhere. But what good has it done him? I wish he’d spent more and enjoyed it. Then again, Grampa has always been the type to prefer lemonade on a beach over champagne on a yacht.
“But doesn’t it all go to Mother anyway?” I recall hearing her and my father discussing his will once, when he was suffering from a serious case of pneumonia. Tasteless, much like every other thing about them.
He looks around surreptitiously, a knowing smile on his face. “That’s one part of the will. Not the secret clause, which will only be read upon my death. In my will.”
“A secret clause?”
He nods. “I can’t change even if I wanted to. Your mom will get the million dollars that your grandma earmarked for her, but as for everything else, she only gets that on the event…” He screws his eyes closed.
“On the event of what, Grampa?”
His eyes are full of tears when he reopens them. “My Josephine was such a caring woman, you see. She knew I’d always have my health battles. Heck, I’m sure she’d be surprised I lasted to the ripe old age of seventy-nine.”
I squeeze his knee again. “Grampa?”
