Page 5 of I Almost Do

Hurricane

James

MarcusHarcourtisupto something. Which is nothing new. He always is. Usually, however, it involves other people. Not me.

I’m sitting in one of his leather armchairs in his study, an ankle resting on the knee of the opposite leg, bourbon on ice held loosely in my hand. I haven’t had a single drop. When Marcus Harcourt is up to something, it’s best to keep your wits about you until his cards are all on the table.

He’s standing near his fireplace mantle, a look on his craggy face that tells me he’s struggling to determine the best way to start our conversation.

He looks… tired. I’ve never noticed that before. It’s a mildly cool night in September, but he has the fireplace blazing and a cardigan thrown on over his button-down. Like it’s February in Maine, and he’s ready for an L.L. Bean photoshoot.

I’ve been to his brownstone more times than I can count. Often it’s just the two of us having a drink and shooting the shit. Or it’s a quiet dinner with Marcus and his daughter, Clare.

He’s been a widower since she was four. He could have remarried at any point since then. Women still throw themselves at him.

I asked once why he’d never remarried, and he just shook his head and said, “If you ever loved a woman like my Ellie, you wouldn’t ask that. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone else. They’d always be in second place.”

Marcus plays favorites. Always has. Always will.

It’s just my dumb good luck that I caught his attention as a green and hungry intern seven years ago. At twenty-nine years old, with no family connections, I should still be hustling to fight my way up the ladder, not CFO of a multibillion-dollar company.

I don’t belong here. I’m smart, sure. Driven? Definitely. Ambitious? Obviously.

But I’m not some guy who grew up listening to talk of tax shelters over his organic fresh-squeezed orange juice and chef-prepared English muffin.

Marcus saw something in me, regardless, and he said he didn’t “waste opportunities” when God dropped them in his hands. He’s been more of a father to me than my own old man ever was.

It’s also obvious he’s grooming me to take the helm at Harcourt when he retires. “Clare doesn’t want it. She says she isn’t mean enough,” he’d said with a grin on his face.

There’s no grin tonight. Just a cold, tired man staring into the flames and nursing a tumbler of the good stuff.

It’s been a week since the first time Marcus made up an excuse to put me in direct contact with Clare. Since then, he’s found some reason to leave us alone in a room together four times. One of which was in his own damn office at Harcourt.

Obviously, given that she had a bit of a puppy love situation for me, I avoided Clare when she was younger.

She’d tried out her fledgling flirting skills, and I’d shut her down as gently as I knew how to do—which was admittedly probably not all that gentle in hindsight. We both tended to avoid each other after that.

Apparently, Marcus has decided it’s time for us to move past that history and act like the adults we all are. I suspect he’s trying to ease the awkwardness between his daughter and me by sheer force of proximity.

But if his intention is to make me more comfortable with Clare, he’s failing miserably. It seems I’ve recently developed an inconvenientinfatuationwith my best friend’s daughter.Comfortableis not a word I’d use to describe our interactions.

Eventually, Marcus throws back his bourbon and moves to sit in the other chair, lowering himself like a creaky old man. When did that happen? Marcus is fit, energetic, a live wire. He’s only fifty-one years old.

Some people think our friendship is strange, given he’s more than twenty years my senior. But Marcus and I, we’re alike in ways no one will ever understand. He gets me.

“I need to ask you for a favor,” he says.

I don’t need to think about it. “Of course. Anything you need.”

He grimaces. “Not so fast. It’s a big favor. I don’t need an answer tonight. Take the weekend if you need it….” He trails off with a frown and a shake of his head.

I lower both feet to the floor and lean toward him. “Marcus, just ask.”

“The thing is… I’m dying. Inoperable. I had that scare about eight years ago. Colon cancer. It’s back. They warned me it might happen. Now it’s metastasized. Doc figures I have maybe three months.”

That makes no sense. The man takes care of himself. He’s a complete health nut. “Did you get a second opinion? Maybe there are experimental treatments.”

“Second opinion. Third. I know it’s a shock, son.”

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