Page 76 of The Dom

Ashlee

Tonight hadn’t gone as well as I’d hoped, or as badly as I’d feared, which I supposed meant that it’d more or less been a success.

We’d managed to salvage the rest of the evening thanks to another bottle of wine and a strawberry-rhubarb pie Mom had made for our dessert. Before too long, we’d been talking and laughing as if the interruption had never occurred at all, but it had hovered in the back of my mind, and it wouldn’t have surprised me to discover that it’d done the same with the others.

Still, none of us brought it up, even as we parted ways. I wondered if Finley was like Mom in that, once something unpleasant was over, she tried not to talk or think about it again.

“Can I ask you a question? About you and Finley.” I broke the silence that had ridden with us since we’d left the house. “And feel free to say no. It’s been a crazy night.”

“If you want to know if we’ve had people assume we’re a couple, then the answer’s yes.” Nate winked at me, in a surprisingly pleasant mood considering everything that’d happened in the last few hours.

“I’ll probably ask for stories about that at some point,” I said, “but that’s not what I was thinking.”

“Go ahead.”

“When Finley said he was going to take care of things, you said that he always did.” I glanced at him, but his face gave nothing away. “It sounded like there was something specific you were thinking about.”

Nate nodded slowly. “Did he ever tell you how he and I met?”

“No. I don’t think I’ve read anything about it either.”

“You wouldn’t have,” he said. “Neither of us talk about it even though it shows what a great guy he is. Whenever we’re asked about it, we simply say that I was looking for investors and chance brought us together.”

A snippet of something I’d read when I’d been researching the company floated through my mind. A couple lines in a bio of Nate that said he’d tried to start a label before Manhattan Records, but it’d tanked.

“When I was at NYU, I was obsessed with the idea of becoming one of those overnight millionaire college drop-outs. The ones that have those inspirational stories about how they started a company in their garage or dorm room and grew it into a massive empire.”

I could see him being that way. He had the drive and focus for it, that was undeniable.

“My senior year, I decided to start a record label. I brought on a couple wannabe musicians from NYU’s music program and got to work. I’d considered dropping out, but I wasn’t quite that reckless. I graduated – barely – but I was more focused on the insane amount of money I’d be making soon.” He glanced over at me, a wry expression on his face. “Only a couple months after graduation, however, I realized there was an important fact that I’d neglected to take into consideration when coming up with my business plan. Current or newly graduated college students don’t always have the work ethic to support their ambitions.”

I completely understood that. I remembered how many of the kids I’d gone to college with had dropped out or ended up getting jobs that had nothing to do with their majors. Sometimes, it’d been financial issues or a change of focus, like the one girl who’d left halfway through her third semester to go with her girlfriend doing humanitarian work all over the world. I suspected many people who intended to go into some form of art or entertainment fizzled out because it was harder than they’d expected.

“I had some investors who helped keep me afloat, but I should’ve read the writing on the wall. I had bands breaking up, people getting engaged and married and pregnant, delicate egos that only wanted to be told how talented they were. None of my research had prepared me for all of those aspects of the job.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “By the time I was twenty-three, everything had fallen apart. I had no artists, no backers, nowhere to live. I couldn’t go back to my parents and admit that I’d failed, so I lived on the streets.”

I frowned, partially because I didn’t like the idea of Nate having been homeless, but also because I felt like he was skipping over something. I let it go. We’d had a hard enough night, and he was already sharing with me. The next time an opportunity presented itself, I’d ask for more details. Right now, I just listened to him finish up what he was willing to talk about.

“I managed to get into shelters sometimes, but far from every night, and there were a lot of times when I didn’t eat. Looking back, I know I could’ve gone to my family, but back then, I felt like I had something to prove. Telling them I’d failed would only fulfill their worst opinions about me.”

He lapsed into silence for a few minutes, coming back to himself only when I put a hand on his arm.

“I’d been out there five or six weeks, long enough for me to start thinking about some realistic options of what came next. One rainy, miserable night, all the shelters were full, and I wandered into a diner, one of those twenty-four-hour things. The man at the counter told me I had to order something or leave. I didn’t have any money, and he knew it. By the way he was eyeing me, I was convinced he was going to suggest an…alternate method of payment.”

I squeezed his arm, unable to put into words how much I hated the thought of him being forced into making that sort of decision, how much it hurt me.

“Before he could, someone in one of the booths spoke up. This guy who was older than me, but not as old as my parents, waved me over and told me to order whatever I wanted.” He laughed softly. “I never did ask Finley how much that meal cost him, but it had to be more than a hundred dollars. Anyway, he introduced himself, and we started talking, me trying to remember not to talk with my mouth full but too hungry to follow through with etiquette. Before the night was over, he’d offered me a guest room in his place and said he had an idea he wanted to run by me in the morning.”

I couldn’t imagine how hard it would’ve been for someone as untrusting as Nate to put his faith in this stranger.

“I still half-thought that he was going to ask me to have sex with him to pay for the food or the bed, but I was so tired of being dirty and hungry and scared that I went anyway. But Finley isn’t like that. He’s a good man who happened to be in the right place and time to save my life, and he’s never once held it over me.”

I wasn’t deluded into thinking that Finley was perfect, but I knew he was good, and that was more than enough. But I hadn’t realized just how good he was. Not only feeding and talking to a stranger off the streets, but taking him home…

It was no wonder Nate practically worshipped the man.

I’d already been in Finley’s fan club, but now I was struck by the fact that I wasn’t just some random employee who was admiring her boss’s benevolence. This man was my father. I’d never dreamed that I’d not only find my dad but that I’d find a man like Finley Kordell.

I was truly blessed.

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