“Seriously?” a man slurs from the far side of the room with numerous empties on the table beside him. The bartender slides a glance over to Amy as if to say, he’ll handle him if need be.
“Seriously,” she repeats with an understanding smile. She holds her finger up. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t sell you a bottle of your favorite poison now . . . or what’s left of a bottle so you can drink at your own leisure throughout the night.” A few whoops sound off across the room. “I thought that might make some of you happy.”
Clapping breaks out in a show of our sad state of desperation, and Amy curtsies.
Ellery leans over, that sunshine scent present again mixed with her shampoo, and murmurs, “I guess it’s time to make a decision, Ford.”
“About?”
“Whiskey or beer?”
CHAPTER THREE
Ford
Four Hours Earlier
It’s eaten at me all night.
That’s a lie.
It’s eaten at me ever since I read chapter twenty-two. The one titled Fatherhood. The chapter where my father talked about his three boys. His greatest accomplishments. He detailed his struggles with Callahan and how proud he was of him, and then how Ledger was the epitome of him, clearly born to step into his professional shoes when he chose to vacate them.
Paragraphs upon paragraphs devoted to my brothers and their place in the Sharpe family. The Sharpe universe, really.
“What’s your deal tonight?” Callahan asks as he walks into the penthouse. Shit’s everywhere—clothes, food, luggage, their wives’ makeup cases—from all of us flying in and getting ready here for the event. He doesn’t care. He picks up a piece of candy and pops it in his mouth as he sinks down onto the couch. “Did you take that stick Ledger removed from his ass and insert it into yours?”
“Callahan. He was the one who challenged me the most,” Maxton says with a laugh. But beyond the laugh is a sense of pride. A sense of love. A feeling that the only thing that could bring this hard man to his knees was his boys. “Callahan’s stubborn streak is a mile long, but damn does he continue to surprise me. He hides his intuitive nature and knack for knowing just what to do behind his reckless behavior. Almost as if he’s uncomfortable being as good as he is at whatever it is he sets his mind to. He was just like his mom in that respect. And having him around is like having her near me still.”
“Back off, Callahan.”
Wrong thing to say.
That’s like throwing chum to a shark when it comes to my little brother. I can practically see his ears perk up at that.
And maybe I want them to. Maybe I want him to push me on this so I can have the fight I’ve been itching for all night long.
“Ooooh,” he says with a whistle.
“What’s that sound for?” Ledger asks as he enters the room, looking from Callahan to me and then back to Callahan.
And this is why being a triplet is a pain in the ass. It’s always a plus that we can intuitively sense what’s going on with each other . . . except for when you don’t want anyone to know.
And right now . . . shit, right now I don’t know what the fuck I want.
“Your stick? It’s up his ass now,” Callahan fills in.
“Fuck off,” I mutter.
And now Ledger’s intrigued.
“My oldest. Ledger Maxton Sharpe.” The namesake’s said with the softest of smiles and admiration adorning his eyes. “When I look at him, I see a younger version of myself—only ten times better. If there is an obstacle, he faces it head-on. If there is a challenge, he can’t wait to prove he’s better than it. He’s a formidable opponent in all things business.”
“Is that how you think people perceive you?” I ask and get what I’ve learned to expect from the man across from me. A slow crawl of a smile deepens the lines etched in his face. Lines I’d love to know the history behind but have a feeling that would equate to book after book filled with his stories.
“I don’t care how people perceive me. Never have. I think Ledger is similar in that respect. He’s more dogged than I was if you can believe that, but he shows more of his heart than I do. He’s more in touch whereas I was so busy trying not to be Maxton Sharpe of the Bronx that I didn’t care who I stepped on to get where I needed to get.”
“And what of that?”
“It makes him a better man than I was. Than I am. With that comes higher expectations, but I doubt the man that Ledger grew into will have any problems exceeding them.”
“First you didn’t drink tonight and now the attitude,” Ledger, ever the diplomat, says as he perches himself on the edge of the couch, catty-corner to me. “What’s going on?” I hear his question, but all I see is page after fricking page of praise leveled in his direction. Top of his class at Wharton. Young Entrepreneur’s Award. Story after story of how he’s exactly like the man he idolized.
The man I idolized too, but now feel like I was invisible to.
“Ford?” he asks again.
And as if on cue, Callahan shifts on the couch, and a thud sounds as something hits the floor. He leans over and chuckles.
“It looks like Dad wants in on this conversation too,” he teases as he picks up the advanced copy off the floor and sets it on the table. “You know how much he hated when we fought.”
Silence falls over the room as we stare at the book’s cover. A close-up, black and white photo of our father. You can’t tell the color of his eyes, but the clarity in them—in both the quality of the picture and the striations of his irises—is mesmerizing. His expression is stoic, and his lips, identical to ours, are in a straight line.
It’s a stunning snapshot of the man we all loved. One that somehow reflects the intensity of the man we grew up with juxtaposed by the softening heart of a man nearing the end of his life.
A lump forms in my throat as I try to process the emotions that book cover, and those three hundred thirteen pages after it, represent.
An exposé on his life. The moments of his childhood that were life-defining. Poverty. A father who ran off. A mother who struggled and worked nonstop. His desire to never be in the same position when he grew up. How he scraped his way through college only to never graduate because funds ran short.
How he started his empire by being a busboy who befriended the right guests who later believed in him and backed him, only to be rewarded handsomely when he’d reached a level of success only most dream of.
The biography talks about the love of his life, our mom. His first thoughts when he met her. His last thoughts as he buried her at such a young age. And the heartache he still felt to that day.
There are chapters on underhanded deals and people who tried to sabotage him. On his antics and superstitions. On his philosophies in business and in life.
Most of it I knew. Some of it I learned for the first time and will be forever grateful to have more to hold on to of the man who was our whole world for most of our lives.
And who now is gone.
What I didn’t expect was to feel curious—hopeful even—to get insight into how he looked at me as a man. And when I read his take on Callahan and then his thoughts on Ledger, I held my breath when I turned the page.