The Brother Problem
1252 Words
Lucas moved fast, but he was practiced at looking casual while doing it.
He crossed the ballroom with a champagne glass still in hand, nodding at two people who tried to stop him for conversation, sidestepping a waiter with a tray of canapés, all while keeping his eyes fixed on the far side of the room where his brother was standing with a woman in burgundy like he had absolutely every right to be there.
Which, technically, he always did. That wasn't the point.
The point was the jacket.
Ethan Lu — CEO of Lu Corporation, the most ruthlessly efficient man Lucas had ever met in his twenty-seven years of life, a person who had once made a boardroom of forty executives go completely silent just by walking in — was wearing a plain dark jacket that Lucas was fairly certain came off a rack somewhere.
He came up beside him quietly, the way you approached a large, unpredictable animal.
"Nice jacket," Lucas said.
Ethan didn't turn around. "Lucas."
"Don't 'Lucas' me." He took a measured sip of champagne, eyes forward, keeping his voice low. "What are you doing here? Kevin told me you weren't coming tonight."
"I changed my mind."
"In the last hour."
"Yes."
Lucas let a beat of silence pass. Then he glanced sideways — not at Ethan, but at the woman beside him, who was currently scanning the room with the focused energy of someone running tactical calculations behind a pleasant expression.
"And her?" he asked.
"She needed a ride."
Lucas stared at his brother for a long moment.
"She needed a ride," he repeated slowly.
"That's what I said."
"Ethan. You haven't taken a personal car out in three years. You have Kevin for that. You have an entire fleet for that."
"The fleet was busy."
"The fleet," Lucas said, with great patience, "has fourteen vehicles."
Ethan finally looked at him. Just briefly. The look said: drop it.
Lucas had spent his entire life learning to read that look. He'd also spent his entire life cheerfully ignoring it.
"She's pretty," he observed.
"She talks a lot."
"You say that like it's a complaint."
Ethan said nothing. Which, in Lucas's extensive experience, was its own kind of answer.
Interesting, Lucas thought. Very interesting.
"Does she know who you are?"
"No."
"Are you planning to tell her?"
A pause. Just long enough to be meaningful.
"Not tonight," Ethan said.
Lucas opened his mouth — and then Willow reappeared at Ethan's elbow, slightly breathless, with the expression of someone who had just successfully navigated a minor social obstacle course.
"Okay, Joy wants to introduce me to someone, which means I have to go be charming for approximately five minutes," she announced. Then she noticed Lucas and blinked. "Oh — hi. Sorry, I didn't see you there."
"No need to apologize," Lucas said warmly, extending his hand. "I'm—"
"A friend," Ethan said.
Lucas looked at him. Ethan looked back. The entire conversation happened in about half a second.
"Lucas," he finished smoothly. "Just Lucas. Good to meet you."
"Willow." She shook his hand, then glanced between the two of them with the faint narrowed-eyes expression of someone noticing something without being able to place what. "You two know each other?"
"Old friends," Lucas said.
"Very old," Ethan agreed.
Willow looked at them for one more moment. Then she shook it off. "Okay, I'll be back in five minutes. Don't disappear on me."
She said it to Ethan. Not Lucas.
Lucas watched her walk away. Then he turned to his brother with an expression that could only be described as delighted.
"Don't disappear on me," he repeated, in a low, gleeful murmur.
"Don't," Ethan said flatly.
"I'm just saying—"
"Lucas."
"You like her."
"I don't know her."
"That's not a denial."
Ethan picked up a glass of water from a passing tray and said nothing.
Lucas smiled into his champagne.
Willow found Joy near the east side of the room, talking to a woman in a silver dress whose jewelry probably cost more than Willow's car.
The introduction took four minutes, not five — she was on a schedule — and she was just turning to head back when someone stepped into her path.
"Willow."
She knew the voice before she saw the face.
She made herself finish turning around at normal speed. She made herself smile.
"Forest," she said. "Hi."
Forest Gu looked exactly the same as she remembered, which was deeply unfair. He was smiling — that easy, self-assured smile that had once made her feel like the most interesting person in the room.
"You look great," he said.
"I know," she said pleasantly.
Something flickered in his expression — surprise, maybe, or recalibration. He'd expected something else. Awkwardness, perhaps. Residual hurt.
Sorry, Willow thought. Already processed that one.
"I heard you're at Skybridge now," he said, recovering smoothly. "How's that going?"
"Really well, actually." She kept her smile easy. Unbothered. "Busy. You know how it is."
"I do." He tilted his head slightly. "You came alone tonight?"
And there it was.
Willow opened her mouth —
"She didn't."
Ethan stepped up beside her. Not close enough to be theatrical about it. Just — there. Present. A quiet, solid fact.
He looked at Forest Gu with an expression of complete, courteous neutrality.
Forest looked back.
The two men held each other's gaze for exactly three seconds.
Willow had been in enough meetings to recognize a power assessment when she saw one. This was a power assessment. She just had absolutely no idea what the result was, because both of them had the emotional expressiveness of very expensive paintings.
"Forest Gu," Forest said, extending his hand.
"Ethan," Ethan said, shaking it.
Just the first name. Nothing else.
Willow noticed.
"Enjoying the evening?" Forest asked, with the smoothness of a man who was very good at pretending a conversation was casual.
"We just arrived," Ethan said. "But yes."
We.
Willow felt that word land somewhere in her chest.
Stop it, she told herself immediately. He's your hired plus-one. He said 'we' because that's the job. That's literally what you paid him for.
"Well," Forest said, with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, "enjoy the rest of your night."
"You as well," Ethan said.
Forest moved away. Willow watched him go.
Then she let out a long, slow breath.
"You didn't have to do that," she said quietly.
"You weren't going to answer him."
"I was about to."
"You'd been standing there for two seconds."
"I was formulating."
The corner of Ethan's mouth moved. The same barely-there almost-smile from the car.
"How'd I do?" he asked.
Willow looked up at him.
Annoyingly well, she thought.
"Fine," she said. "You did fine."
He nodded, as if that settled it.
But she noticed he didn't move away.
On the other side of the room, Lucas Lu watched the whole exchange over the rim of his champagne glass.
He watched his brother — who had not attended a social event voluntarily in over a year, who conducted his entire personal life with the efficiency of a military operation, who had once told Lucas that small talk was "an inefficient use of acoustic space" — stand next to a woman he'd met approximately ninety minutes ago and tell a room full of New York's most connected people, with perfect composure:
We.
Lucas finished his champagne.
He was going to need a stronger drink.
- Writer
