“It won’t make a difference.” She calmly tops up the glass. “Your connections are loose at best. If it’s up to anyone to put this family back where it belongs, it’ll be me.”
“Why? Why not Dad?” I move a little more in front of her, blocking some of the sun.
She scowls until I move back. “Because your father can’t own his own company again for quite some time.” Liquor passes her lips. “He’s next to useless.”
A little harsh. “I’m sure it isn’t that bad.”
“He only has a job, Lacey, because I went to school with the man who owns the company.”
Maybe it is that bad.
“Did you need anything else?”
“No.” I glance out the dusty windows and realise how many small things I took for granted before.
I never once stopped to wonder why our house was pristine, how my washed laundry got returned to the closet the same day. Or what it was that meant I got an unobstructed view of our rose garden every day.
Staff. Cleaners. People who worked for a slice of our privilege.
So many things I overlooked that I’m sure will now become a bone of contention in our household.
Mum continues to drown her sorrows while I make my way through the house toward Dad’s empty office. The room used to be home to an impressive Rimu desk with finite detail carved into the glossed wood and a sophisticated plush leather chair that I secretly wished I could have used for my own. Now when I turn into the space, the stark charcoal walls hit me square in the face as my gaze falls to my father, tucked between boxes of filed documents.
“Can I help?” I ask.
He lifts his head, manila folder in his left hand. “I’m almost done.” Dad’s eyes roam the documents before him. “Just sorting through what the prosecutors returned.”
“Oh.”
He sets the folder down, pushing the file box before him aside. “Can I help you?”
“I don’t think so.” My eyes flick towards the hall while I weigh up how much of a betrayal it is to tattle on my mother. “I asked Mum if I could spend time with my friends tomorrow night, and she said no.”
“I’m sure she has her reasons,” he responds flatly, returning to the remaining papers at his side.
“She said she didn’t want to be chasing me down if I ran off.”
His huff echoes my feelings on it all. “She wants to feel in control of something, Lacey. Humour her for me, okay?”
“I suppose.”
He drops the last of the paperwork into a box with a flick of the wrist and then promptly places the lid on top. “You have five minutes for your old man?”
“Always.”
He clears a space beside him in the sun, seated on the luxuriously soft carpet. I enter the room and drop to my knees, immediately relieved when the rays tickle my chilled skin.
“This move will be hard, honey,” he starts softly. “I want you to prepare for that.”
“I have.”
His brow furrows, dark eyebrows crashing together. “Have you? Because Colt seems firmly of the opinion that this is a minor setback.”
“Is it?” Two words, and yet I beg him for the truth.
He shakes his head, unkempt black hair sliding into his face. I note the new greys that seem to have sprung up overnight. “The terms of my deal were serious, Lace.” He lifts one leg, hooking his arm around the knee. “They’re not labels I can shake.” He seems so young when he’s comfortable like this.
So innocent and exposed.
“Labels are overrated,” I mumble, watching my fingers tickle the carpet. “They’re fleeting and fickle. A fantasy at best.”
He smiles. “You’re much wiser than your years. You know that?”
I nod, unsure what to say back. That I got my level-headed approach to life from him? That I admire how humble and heartfelt he is?
“I don’t want you to worry about your grades slipping now that you’ll be in a new school,” he mistakenly reassures me. “Your mother and I did our research before deciding where to send you both.”
“Not that there were many options, right?” I smirk.
He chuckles, running a hand through his hair. “No. There weren’t. Not on my new reduced income, anyway.”
The light fades from the space between us, echoing the vanishing mood. “I don’t blame you.”
Dad lifts his gaze to mine, dark eyes holding mine with an unsettling intensity. “You should. It was my job as the caregiver to ensure none of you go without.”
“We aren’t, though.” I stretch my legs out, shifting my position so that I lean my weight on the palms of my hands. “We’ll have a roof over our head, enough to eat. I’m sure we’ll adapt to the rest.”
“Adapt to what?” Colt asks from the door.
Both Dad and I snap our heads around, seemingly as unaware as each other he was there.
“The change,” I fill in. “Having fewer things at our disposal.”
My brother’s icy gaze cuts right to Dad before he settles it on me, softening. “You deserve everything you already have, Lacey.”
With a swift turn of his shoulders, he leaves.
“He’ll get over it,” I say with forced jest.
Dad still stares at the empty door; dark eyes void of anything remotely comforting. “I’m not so sure he will.”
G: Come downstairs.
The bright glare of my phone burns my retinas. I gave up on my boring arse Friday night hours ago and fell asleep before Netflix asked me if I was still watching. Judging by my black television screen, it gave up waiting for an answer and turned itself off.
L: What’s going on?
The response is immediate.
G: I’m kidnapping you.
Mum will legit lose her marbles if I go out for the night. But I need this. I need to blow off some steam.
L: Give me ten.
G: Make it five before I run out of gas.
I chuckle under my breath, loving how spontaneous and unprepared Greer can be. I’ll miss that when I’m in Arcadia, her random plans that seem to sprout out of
