The Long Road Home

Chapter Twelve

Fin snapped his mouth shut as his brother stared him down. This was an expression he knew all too well. Whenever he did something Gus didn’t approve of, he would receive the glare. It was especially potent when their father enlisted Gus to clean up some mess Fin found himself in.

“Look,” Fin sighed, “I wanted to apologize. I didn’t mean for things to get the way they did. I…”

“So, you never meant for me to find out you were fuckin’ my fiancé,” Gus said without a hint of a question.

“No. No. That’s not—I never meant for it to go that far,” Fin denied. “I just—It was just nice to get the attention. You were always the golden child, dad’s heir. You have no idea what it was like growing up as the disappointment.”

“Oh, for f**k’s sake!” Gus suddenly snapped. “You are not going to sit here in my house saying such bullshit! Poor, pitiful Fin! He doesn’t like math. Responsibilities are too hard!”

Fin fell silent, surprised by his brother’s sudden rant.

“Mom and dad went to every single one of your sporting events, games and meets. Every. Single. One. It didn’t matter if you stuck with it for a year, a month or a week. They never missed a single one. I was in track for four fuckin’ years. Do you know how many meets they came to? One! And that was because you decided to be a track star for a fuckin’ month until you lost your first fifty-yard dash and decided you didn’t want to do it anymore because it was too fuckin’ hard.

“And then what did they do? To make you feel better, they took you out to lunch. All three of you left before I even had a chance to run in my event. Do you know what it is like to watch your classmates receive medals with their families cheering them on knowing there was no one in the stands to do the same for you? All those useless medals and trophies are probably still in that stupid box in the back of my closet at home. I don’t even know why I didn’t just toss them out.”

“I—I didn’t know.”

“f**k you. You knew. You just didn’t bother to remember because it didn’t fit into your little world where you are the poor-neglected son,” Gus sneered. “How about the year you decided to be a baseball star? Remember that one? You remember your big last game of the year? Ever wonder why our parents didn’t drag me along like they usually did?”

Fin frowned, struggling to recall that year. He supposed they had been fourteen or fifteen at the time. It had been strange that Gus hadn’t been in the stands, but their parents did have an excuse that his brother was sick, and Fin was just glad he didn’t have to share their attention that day to ask further.

“They said you had a cold,” Fin finally said.

“Oh, really? Just a cold?” Gus snorted. “I was in bed with a fever of a hundred and three! But mom and dad couldn’t possibly miss your game, so they told the staff to check on me regularly and, if my temperature spiked, to take me to the hospital. And then they left. TThey fuckin’ left and no one—No One—came to check on me all fuckin’ day! I was burning up, chilled to the bone, my head was spinning and no one answered my calls for help! No one came to bring me a meal! The only reason I fuckin’ survived was because I crawled out of bed and made it to the bathroom. I filled the tub with cold water and fuckin’ climbed into it with all my clothes on to bring my fever down.

“And what the f**k did our parents do? They did what they always did. Win or lose, they took you out to dinner, and you didn’t get home until late. Did any of you come to check on me to see how I was doing? No. You went to fuckin’ bed while I was fighting for my life in a bathtub full of tepid water! So, I’m fuckin’ sorry for the one hour a day our father quizzed me about fuckin’ company policies, and you felt left out.”

Fin didn’t dare reply. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to any of that. Vaguely, he did recall coming home with their parents after a fun dinner. It had been a great time basking in the attention of their parents. The butler met them at the door to get their coats. Their mother had asked how Gus was doing. The staff looked confused and maybe a little nervous. Finally, the butler said he was resting quietly. Their parents hadn’t thought anything about it, and they went to bed.

Did they really just go to bed without at least checking on him? He wanted to deny it, but he couldn’t. Though Fin’s memory of the year he played baseball was fuzzy, he did clearly recall the track day. They had been in high school and Fin joined the team mostly because Gus was there, and he wanted a chance to show he was more athletic. Yet, he had no desire to run the mile alongside his brother and went for a sprint instead.

The training had been far more physically demanding than he thought, which wasn’t fair as sports were his thing. Gus was supposed to be just good at math and office stuff, not sports. When Fin lost his race, his parents offered to take him to dinner. Fin didn’t hesitate to agree. The last thing he wanted was for their parents to watch Gus race and potentially win, proving he was better than Fin yet again.

That was the major reason why he quit track and field shortly after and chose something else. He hadn’t realized or cared that their parents never talked about Gus’s track meets. Had he really been that much of an attention hog he had not even been aware his brother was fighting for his life?

Had he really been that oblivious? Surely, their parents wouldn’t have ignored their golden child to the point of neglect. Could he even call Gus a golden child at all?

“Now that we have that straight, how about you tell me why you are here,” Gus said. “And this is your last fuckin’ chance, Fin. One more fuckin’ lie and I swear to god I will beat you into the floor and throw you out into the street to crawl back home.”

Fin hesitated.

“Out with it, Fin!”

“Okay, I—I messed up.”

Gus rolled his eyes, “Of course you fuckin’ did. So, what was it this time? You get someone pregnant?”

“What? No. I…” Fin sighed. “Bianca’s dad got all up in arms after your disappearance. He said if the wedding didn’t take place, he would turn the Board against us and take over the company.”

“You already said that,” Gus snorted. “You should have let him. He has the business acumen of a jellyfish. He’s bankrupted three companies already because he doesn’t know what he’s doing. So, you just rolled over and accepted it?”

“I didn’t want to. After you caught us, I refused to see her. I couldn’t even look at her. Bianca freaked out and got all weird. She said I owed her for seducing her, like she didn’t have any part in it. All of a sudden, she was a victim. Then she started to threaten me, like she had information she could blackmail me with.”

Gus stared at him, unimpressed.

“She’s a nightmare. And our parents threw a fit too. At first, they were just worried about a scandal since I showed up with Bianca naked during one of mom’s garden parties.”

Fin flushed with embarrassment at the mere memory, but Gus’s expression remained impassive. If his brother was looking for sympathy, he had come to the wrong place.

“They were going to give you a couple of days to cool off before talking to you. After you disappeared, and they found out you sold your shares, that’s when dad got serious and said it was my turn to take the seat. I—I didn’t know what to do. I still don’t have a clue what I am doing.”

“Then you should have said no,” Gus said. “You have no business as a CEO if you don’t know what you are doing, or at least hired some advisors.”

“Dad insisted someone with the family name had to be in charge.”

“Oh, for f**k’s sake. It’s a publicly traded company. Anyone can run it as long as they don’t have their heads up their asses. So, then what? You still haven’t gotten to your f**k-up.”

“Well, I’m not sure what happened. There were so many decisions to make and there were a bunch of proposals that needed an answer, so I signed off on them.”

“You signed off on them? As in, you approved them? Why?”

“Well, it seemed like a good idea.”