Pent Up (42 page)

Tibbitt closed his mouth in an ugly crumple.

“Honestly, Herb,” She scoffed at him. “I’m not a child.”

But Andy chuckled. “No, Mother. We’ve been out in the woods, got lost, separated. Couple mishaps finding our way home.” The lie came smoothly off his lips. His predator eyes flicked to Herb, daring him to pipe up. “We found each other again.”

“One of those survival weekends,” Ruben offered. “We survived.”

She beamed back. “Oh good. My son’s up in that apartment too much.”

“Amen.”

Two skinny waiters returned to clear the plates and top up the drinks. The bill landed in front of Tibbitt. Cilla waved to a family with a baby.

Ruben muttered to Andy, “I love your mother.”

Andy said, “Give her time.”

“Hush, you.” Cilla turned back, but she looked pleased at the teasing.

Herb glared with all the menace of a confused bath mat. His mouth opened and closed but nothing emerged.

Ruben understood perfectly. Andy’s announcement had stolen the righteous victory from Tibbitt. At the very moment the old man would have raised a glass in the country club and crowed about the Apex partnership, he was forced to zip it.

If it hadn’t been for you meddling kids.

Cilla stroked the rim of her glass. “You two had better play nice now.”

“She’s right.” Andy swung cold eyes back in that direction. “Dad.”

Tibbitt looked relieved. “Excellent. We’ll speak tomorrow.”

Cilla stood. “Oh, now….”

“Well, we didn’t mean to crash, and we’ve got a meeting back in the city. Lawyers.” Andy stood. “Don’t get up.”

Tibbitt did not.

Cilla did. She looped her arm through Ruben’s. The pressure on his bruised ribs felt like fire, but he let her. “I suspect you’re a treasure. I like him, Andrew.”

“I do, too, Mom.” Andrew’s blue-felt eyes fell on them. “A whole lot.”

“And you boys will come to dinner. Now that my son has finally zipped his pants.” She rolled her eyes and whispered to Ruben. “Whoring around, I mean. He gets that from Royce. His father, I mean.” A glance at Tibbitt. “Biological, you know. Promise you’ll come.”

Ruben squeezed back, almost following her logic. “Cross my heart. And you’ll come to dinner too.”

“Do you cook?”

“No, ma’am, but I make a mean reservation.”

“My favorite.” Cilla laughed like chandelier crystal knocking together.

Ruben made his way through the brunchers at an easy pace, happy to be stared at for once.

Andy’s hand rested on his back with proprietary pressure. “Let ’em look.”

Ruben laughed. “Poor bastards.”

Outside they waited in happy silence, retrieved their stolen car, and drove home to break the bad news to Hope.

CHAPTER TWENTY

YOU ONLY
live once. But if you do it right, once is plenty.

Ruben drove them back, five miles under the speed limit. This time of day on a summer weekend was dead, and they made it back to Park Avenue crazy fast. Ruben parked out front. As they passed the desk, Andy tossed the keys at the doormen.

A floppy-haired kid caught them. “Sir.”

“Just park it in one of my spots.” Andy hesitated long enough to explain. “A guy will come pick it up sometime this week.”

Ruben went right to that elevator button. He needed to get off his feet, throw up, eat something—in whatever order came naturally.

Andy joined him as the doors opened, and they rode up in relieved silence.

Happily, Hope was waiting for them upstairs, and the police were not. She stood in the living room, looking out over the city.

“Well, hello, Ms. Stanford.” Andy headed for the living room. “Some day off.”

Ruben smiled at her and nodded.
We’re okay.

“Oh thank God. You don’t know. What a day.” She turned to Andy, her face hopeless. “I’m fired.”

“What?”

“You’re firing me. Are they putting us all in prison?” She vibrated with anxiety.

Ruben held out a hand. “What are you talking about?”

“Look at the pair of you. I’m gonna call the cops now.”

“No!” Andy held up a hand. “Not necessary.”

“Andy, you tell me what I gotta say and I’ll say it. You been good to me.” She straightened. “You know I will.”

For a second, Ruben could see the ballerina in her, her long neck and the line of her proud jaw. “Apex.”

“C’mere.” Andy smiled gently. “C’mon. Jeez, I never should have dragged you through all this.”

“No.” She looked like a guitar string on the verge of breaking and curling.

“I’m out of business. That doesn’t have to mean you are.”

She blinked. “Bullshit.”

Ruben shrugged. “What the man says.”

“You’re not fired. I’m retiring. Hang on.” Andy trotted down the hall toward the office.

Ruben and Hope eyed each other.

She didn’t move. “He okay?”

Ruben nodded.

“You?”

He shrugged, then smiled.

“Okay.” She exhaled, as if she’d been holding her breath.

Sounds down the hall. A low curse. Ruben sat down at the dining room table, and after a couple of minutes, Hope did as well.

Andy’s voice came back down the hall as he did. “Mr. Oso and I have negotiated a very fair settlement with the other party.”

Hope waited.

He dropped a stack of pages between them on the table. “I’m giving you half of Apex. Fifty percent.”

No reply. She turned to look at Ruben. “Is he shitting me?”

Surprised, Ruben shook his head.

Andy grinned. “Nope. Half the company. But there’s a catch. A big, ugly one.”

“Goddamn it.” She kept managing not to cry. “I can’t to go to prison. I’ve worked too damn—”

“Hope, look.” Andy initialed the pages swiftly.

Ruben nodded. “This is the truth. He’s telling the truth.”

“But—” Andy signed the last page. “In exchange, you have a partner who’s an asshole.”

She choke-laughed. “No shit.”

“Not me.” He looked at Ruben. “Effective immediately, I’m retiring so we all don’t go to prison. My boyfriend over there thought that seemed like the wise move.”

Ruben raised his hand. “That would be me.”

“Good.” Hope shook her head. “But I’m not comfortable with this retirement.”

Andy bent over the table to write a check. “I’ve made some rash decisions that compromised clients, and we’re going to make good on those accounts. My stepfather will be your partner on paper. He has no say on the business. He will collect profit, but you have control.”

Her eyebrows creased.

“Not like that.” He offered her the pen. “He’s a thief, but a stupid one. He’ll have no authority.”

She shook her head. “What if he’s an asshole?”

“No ‘if’.” Ruben glowered. “He is, but you’ll eat him alive. Second he steps outta line, you call the feds.”

Andy nodded. “Nothing’s free. You’ll have working capital and your own offices. Hell, you can hire an assistant. From now on, this is just my home. Ours.” He glanced at Ruben.

“Hope? You don’t have to agree,” Ruben said.

“I’m trying to stop.” Andy’s tone begged. “This is out of control and it’s not fair to anyone.”

Ruben sat down. “We’re trying to unmake the mess is all. He’s trying to make amends, get clean.” His eyes held hers. Andy didn’t know she was sober, and he wouldn’t betray her trust. “This transfer is only a step. He’d become
powerless
over all this.” That word came straight out of the
Big Book
, Step One.

She looked up. Message received.

“Powerless and stupid.” Andy continued the thought. “Business. My family. I don’t want to keep making the same mistakes.”

She nodded. “I get that.” Another nod. “Amends. But why give all this to me?”

“Because you earned it.” Andy offered the pen. “Because I’m out of control. Because Oso asked.”

“Oso’s right.” She smiled for the first time since they’d walked in. “What if I’m not ready to run a fund?”

Ruben snorted and made a face. “You already were.”

“What if I fuck up?”

“Fix it.” Andy grinned.

She shook her head at the table and the papers. “Andy, you scared the hell out of us.”

He nodded.

Her phone made a chirping sound, but she didn’t answer it. “I gotta go. My fiancé’s parents already think I’m nuts.”

“We gotta deal?”

“Bauer. Give it a rest with the pen.” She exhaled. “You
know
I’m not signing that craziness here.” Her eyes scanned the document for a moment. “I’m having it checked by every lawyer I know. And a priest, maybe.”

Ruben laughed. Andy looked sad.

Hope patted his arm. “How the hell are you going to survive without someone keeping an eye on you?”

Ruben chuckled. “Covered.”

She stood up. “If you’re not my boss now, what are you?”

Andy paused. “Your friend.”

“I can live with that.” She looked up and shook his hand. “Deal.” And then she picked up her Chloe bag and was gone.

Ruben turned to look at Andy a moment before he spoke. “Tibbitt. What if he hassles her?” Hope, he meant.

“He can’t.” Andy walked slowly toward the living room.

“No more financial hitman bullshit.”

“No. No. This is more ninja.”

“Andy.” Was he serious? “The last thing we need.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Andy agreed. “Not a hit job. Promise.”

Ruben rolled his eyes, like his brother actually. “What, then?”

“Banking booby traps. And a landmine.”

“Bauer….” Ruben glared.

“I swear. Long as my stepfucker watches his step and leaves us alone, then they’ll be fine.”

“And if he gets pushy.”

“I left Hope an SEC nuke and a big red button to press. But the only way he’ll run any risk is if he breaks laws to come after us.”

“No more stupid bullshit. I’m watching you.” Ruben grinned, but he meant it.

“Totally legal.” Andy tapped the door. “I exposed a vulnerability. That doesn’t mean I exploited it. I found a security risk.”

“Which your stepfather’ll take advantage of.”

“Not if he’s smart. It’s flagged all the hell over.” His square face lit up.

Ruben had been waiting to see that grin for so long that he actually sighed with relief. “And?”

“And the feds would come knocking in about fifteen minutes if he got stupid enough to breach the security.”

“You booby-trapped Tibbitt.”

Andy shrugged and stretched. “Well, it only works if he’s a complete boob.”

“Which he is. I rest my case.”

“You come rest your case over here.”

“I may be too beat up to fool around just now.”
Ruben gestured at himself. “Okay if I take a shower?”

“I, uh….” Andy’s brow creased. “Of course, man. You don’t ever have to ask.”

Ruben went to his old room—the guest room—and peeled out of the musty clothes, revealing his gritty and bruised body to the mirror. He didn’t need to go to the hospital, but the bruises on his ribcage looked like an Everglades sunset. He’d pay for that tomorrow.

He could only handle lukewarm water, but seeing the grime and blood swirl down the drain felt right. Whatever came next, at least he felt clean. Afterward, he pulled on jeans and didn’t bother with a shirt. Too hot, too sore.

When he emerged, he didn’t find Andy in the office or the kitchen or the living room, till he looked through the double-height windows. “I see you.”

Andy sat on the terrace with his feet propped up on the ledge, handsome and tired under the July sky.

Ruben tugged open the door and, sure enough, found Andy relaxed, no shark left in him now.

Andy stood. “Well, hey.” Tired blink.

“How’s tricks?” Ruben nosed into the nape of his neck. “You’re gonna get a sunburn.”

“Before you say anything.” Andy looked down at the street below and back. “I wanna say something.”

“That can’t be good.”

“I’d like for you to stay here.”

“Tonight?”

“For a start. For more. For good.”

“Nah. I think you probably need some space for a while.” Ruben shook his head. “And, uh, I think I’ve gotta get my ass to a meeting. Work my Steps right.” Moral inventory. He’d need a sponsor.

“I want to be part of that. If you’ll let me.”

“I lied. All this. I lied to myself. My bullshit Fourth Step. Peach. I don’t even know where to start.”

“You take a step. We’ll figure it out.”

“I’m not… that’s not how it works.” Ruben sighed. “I’m not s’posedta even date for the first year in the program.”

“But—” Andy looked back again. “But people get sober without leaving their families. I mean, AA doesn’t make you break up.”

“Of course not. I never should’ve let any of this happen. We shouldn’t.”

“Well, maybe not. Maybe that’s so. But this isn’t theoretical anymore, Rube. We’re not just dating, are we?”

“I guess not.”

“I mean, are we? You live here. I love you. I want you to get clean and be happy.” Deep breath. “With me.”

“You don’t know that.” Ruben didn’t feel like he could control where this was headed.

“I do know. I’m being serious now. I know what your Steps are; I did my due diligence. And I say we’re together. Do you agree?” The son of a bitch was negotiating their relationship.

Ruben fought the smile.

“And if you need me to move things or do things to take away temptation—”

Ruben filled his lungs with hot, wet oxygen, drowning in midair. “No, Andy. Look. Nobody gets sober living in luxe with a cool job and supermodels fucking you stupid.
Seriously.
I gotta do it in a bar, surrounded by friends who put the poison in your hands and beg you to kill yourself. I gotta put my foot down wherever I am. I gotta stand up because I refuse to lie down and
die
.” Peach would’ve kicked his ass for talking like that. A lot of drunks used sobriety to wag their fingers at the world. Just another kind of control. Another way to sidestep your shitty life. One more excuse to be an inauthentic asshole. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? You’re right.”

“Maybe I am, but if so it’s accidental.” Ruben moved to stand in front of him. “I’m a dry drunk trying to get sober. That’s my shit. Has nothing to do with you. The life I wrecked is the one I was given. I got no right to lecture anybody. That’s the point. Alcohol isn’t an excuse. I’ve got no excuse for anything. No one does.”