Page 39 of Relentless (The Titans of Founder's Ridge 2)

“That’s because the last night of camp that summer Ivy and I had sex. We’d been exchanging letters for years, and that summer, we started developing feelings for each other. We were each other’s first kiss, first everything.” The chair creaks as I lean back. “I wrote her as soon as I got home because our first time was not planned and not good. It just kind of happened, and I was worried about her.”

“Why didn’t you call her?” Griff asks.

“We never exchanged numbers or emails because of the school she was at. She couldn’t have her phone during the week, and it was fun to send each other letters, romantic I guess.”

“Awwww,” Con croons like the sarcastic dick that he is.

“Fuck off.” I punch his shoulder. “Anyway, when she showed up last year, she claimed to have never received my letter, and I sure as fuck didn’t get her letters either.”

“So how the fuck did the stepmonster get them? If they were going to the boarding school?” Con asks.

“It’s probably pretty easy to hold kids’ mail. I bet all she would have had to do tell the Headmaster or Mistress not to send the mail to Ivy and to hold the outgoing letters, too. What boarding school was she at?” Griff asks as he pulls out one of his smart phones.

I rattle off the name and Griff’s fingers fly across the screen.

“I’ll look into it and hopefully have answers in a day or two.”

“Why would she do this anyway? What was her angle?” Con rests a hip on my dad’s desk. “They weren’t even seeing each other yet, were they?”

“I don’t know when exactly they started seeing each other, maybe in the spring of my freshman year?” I try to think back, but I never paid much attention to my dad’s love life. “Fuck. What if she saw these letters and zeroed in on my dad that way?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her. She’s been salivating over my dad at every chance. She’s a scavenger,” Con says as he closes the safe. “You need to keep that closed, how much do you keep in there, one hundred-K?”

“Roughly.” I answer, it depends on what we have going on, sometimes there’s more.

“I hope Jennifer doesn’t have the combination,” Con quips.

“She doesn’t need it when she has a black card,” I roll my eyes.

“What the hell is this?” Griff points at the desk calendar.

November 16: Ivy breast augmentation w Dr. Samuels

“Why is Ivy getting a boob job right before the swim season starts?” Griff looks at me for an answer.

“She’s not. She wouldn’t want one at all.” I have zero doubts about it because it doesn’t take a genius to figure out fake tits would cause a lot of drag. “Jennifer is so toxic to Ives. She’s always making snide comments at family dinners about the amount of food Ivy eats or how boyish her figure is.”

“Cunt,” Con tosses out in disgust. “Why do we all have such terrible mothers?”

“Speak for yourselves,” Griff mumbles. He’s the only one out of the group with parents who are just as much, if not more, in love than they were twenty years ago, and his mom is amazing.

“Alright, I have to scan these tax files and send them to my dad and then we can get going to school.” I glance over at Con and see him checking his phone with a smile on his face. It’s good to see him like this, so much lighter than he has been. I mean, he’s still a raging dick ninety-eight percent of the time, but there’s a softer edge visible if you know him as well as we do.

I have to try to figure out a way to get some answers from Dad about the timeline of his relationship with Jennifer. She’s not his favorite subject anymore, and they barely spend time together. I’m not even sure if Dad goes to his penthouse in NYC when she stays in the city with him. I’ll ask him if he wants to golf with me this weekend, he’ll never turn down a chance for a little friendly competition between us.

* * *

I meet Dad in the garage Saturday morning to drive to make our tee time at the club. He’s putting our clubs in the trunk of his Maserati when I walk up to him. I’m equal parts annoyed and amused that we’re basically twinning in gray Nike golf pants and long-sleeve blue polo shirts. He looks at me and then down at himself and chuckles.

“Looks like we had the same idea getting dressed this morning,” he quips.

The only difference between us is that my shirt is a muted navy and his more of a royal blue. We’re even wearing the same hat. If it weren’t for the laugh lines that extend from his cheeks and bracket his mouth, we could be twins, same height, and I’m only about ten pounds heavier. We probably look ridiculous folding ourselves into his car, but it’s so worth it.

We spend the fifteen-minute drive by making small talk. He asks about school, if I’m keeping all my grades up. He asks about Con and Griff. He skips valet and parks us himself when get to the clubhouse. Not many people are out today. It’s overcast and chilly with a foggy mist hanging in the air.

Our conversation ebbs and flows as we get out to the first hole.

“What are we going to wager on this game?” he looks over and asks me.

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