CEO’s Dirty Vacation

Christian POV The headache had been building for the better part of an hour, slow and insistent, settling in just above my right eye like it had made a reservation. I was standing at my office window with floor-to-ceiling glass, on the forty-second floor. San Jose spread out below me in every direction, pressing two fingers into my temple, when Adam spoke up from the doorway. "You look terrible." I didn't turn around. The city was doing that thing it did on clear afternoons, the skyline catching the light, everything sharp and restless and in motion. I'd always liked watching it from up here. Four walls and a packed calendar could make a man feel disconnected from the world, but the window helped. Reminded me something was still happening out there. "Thanks," I said. "That wasn't a compliment. When did you last sleep more than five hours?" "Define sleep." Adam stepped inside. I could hear him pull the door shut behind him, his version of telling me this was a real conversation, not a fly-by. He'd been my right hand for three years. By now we'd skipped past the part where he pretended not to notice when I was running on fumes. "The Sullivan deal is done," he said. "Signed, sealed, press release drafted. Christian, this is a big one. Arguably the biggest thing this company's done since launch." "I know." "So why are you standing there looking like a man who just got bad news?" I finally turned around. Adam was leaning against the edge of my desk with his arms crossed, studying me the way he always did when he'd already formed an opinion and was waiting for me to catch up. "I'm tired," I said simply. "Then rest. That's what I'm here to tell you. The partnership docs are going to be legal. The PR cycle runs itself. There is genuinely nothing left on your plate that I can't handle for the next few weeks, and I need you to hear that without immediately inventing new things to worry about." I moved away from the window and sat on the edge of the leather couch along the east wall, not at my desk, which would have been a sign that I was gearing up to start working again, but not sprawled out either. Somewhere in between. Thinking. "Two weeks," I said. Adam went still. Then: "I'm sorry?" "Two weeks. I’ll take two weeks." He stared at me for a long moment, like he was waiting for the punchline. When none came, he let out a short laugh and dragged a hand over his face. "Do you know how many times I've suggested that? In three years?" "Probably more than you've suggested I get a houseplant." "Way more. The houseplant suggestion I gave up on after six months." I smiled at that. It was a small thing, but it loosened something in my chest that had been locked up tight for longer than I cared to count. The partnership deal had taken the better part of eight months to close. Before that, there'd been the European expansion, and before that something else, and the pattern was familiar enough by now that I didn't need to trace it all the way back to understand what it had really been about. Keeping busy suited me. Still did, most days. But even I had limits. "You can actually step away," Adam said. "I'm not just saying that. The team is solid. Legal will manage the paperwork. I'll keep the investors calm and the board briefed. Your job right now, if you're willing to accept it, is to be somewhere that has nothing to do with this office." "LA," I said. He blinked. "Not Bali? Not one of those ridiculous private island resorts?" "LA. My family's there." Something shifted in his expression. A little quieter, a little less amused. He knew enough of my history to understand what that meant that home had been something I'd kept at arm's length for four years, visiting in short bursts, never staying long enough to feel the pull of it too keenly. It was easier that way. Grief has a geography, and I'd built mine carefully. "How long since you've actually been back? Not a forty-eight-hour turnaround actually back?" "Longer than I should admit." He nodded once, the way he did when he'd made up his mind about something. "Then go. I've got this." I picked up my phone and found Brier's contact before Adam had even made it to the door. She answered on the fourth ring, slightly out of breath. "Before you say a word," she announced, "I already know the Sullivan deal is closed. I've been waiting." Of course, she had. Brianne had always had an uncanny sense of our family's rhythms. She was my twin, fifteen minutes younger, and she never let me forget either fact, the twin part because it meant she knew me better than anyone, the younger part because she seemed to view it as an ongoing injustice she was entitled to compensate for with sheer stubbornness. "I'm coming home," I told her. Silence. Not the bad kind, the kind that meant she was processing something she hadn't expected. Then: "Define coming home." "Two weeks. No business trips disguised as visits. Just the house, the family, Friday dinners. I want to be there for Milo's soccer practice." Another pause, shorter this time. When she spoke again, her voice had gone warm in a way she usually reserved for the younger kids when they needed it most, a softness she'd never quite admit to having. "Christian Hendrick. Are you telling me you're taking a proper holiday?" "Don't make it strange." "It's already strange. I'm marking this on my calendar. I might frame the calendar. When are you landing?" "Tomorrow afternoon. I'll handle a few things in the morning first." "You'll be here for Friday dinner?" "That's the plan." I heard her exhale relief or excitement, hard to tell with Brier, usually both at once. "Everyone is going to lose their minds. Especially Milo. That boy has been talking about your Saturday calls like they're the highlight of his week. Imagine what he'll do when you're actually standing in front of him." Milo was Lori's son. Six years old and absolutely convinced that his Uncle Christian was some variety of superhero, a belief I'd done nothing to correct and everything to quietly encourage. I talked to him every Saturday without fail, regardless of what time zone I was in or what was on my schedule. It was the one appointment I never moved into. "Make sure he doesn't know ahead of time," I said. "I want to see his face." "Absolutely not telling him. That's my leverage for the whole week." She paused. "And Christian, don't pack your laptop. I'm serious. Don't make me confiscate it at the door like I'm a secondary school teacher." "I'm not making any promises about the laptop." "Then I'm not making any promises about dinner being edible." "That's extortion." "That's family." She laughed, low and warm, the laugh she only had for me. "Just come home. We'll figure the rest out when you get here." After the call ended, I sat there for a moment with the phone still in my hand, the quiet of the office settling around me. The city moved outside the window, indifferent and constant. I'd spent four years building forward, never backward, keeping my eyes fixed on the horizon because looking behind me was something I hadn't been able to afford. But tomorrow I would board a flight to Los Angeles, and for the first time in longer than I wanted to count, going back didn't feel like something to steel myself against. It just felt like going home.