Page 24 of Brenna, Brat

“I put in twelve-hour days, regularly. I’m in the office on weekends. I work at night when I’m home, so it’s not like I leave and it stops.”

“Ok,” I said again. “Why do you have to convince me?”

He stared for a moment. “I don’t,” he admitted.

“Great. Are you buying anything here?”

“Not a damn thing,” he snapped, and he’d said that he wasn’t angry but that, for sure, was not what I would have called a pleasant remark or tone. He threw the ball back into the bin and started to walk toward the front of the store.

The deal was that I was supposed to go look at ski clothes with him for his upcoming trip, and then we would go over to his house. I would see it for the first time and I’d been looking forward to that a lot. If it was in the same style as his clothes, then it probably didn’t need my help at all (unlike most of my sisters’ homes, which needed makeovers—even the ones that had recently undergone a makeover). But with him so irritated, I considered that I shouldn’t have pointed out that I thought he was wasteful. I had been surprised because it did seem so silly, but it probably would have sounded silly to him how we all discussed the level of pinkness in our burgers when my dad grilled for us in the summer. We really fought about that, to the point that things got close to physical, and Nicola’s husband had been shocked the first time he’d seen us go at it. This was the same thing, of families doing things differently.

Of course, we wouldn’t be arguing about burgers anymore because my dad wouldn’t be grilling. Sophie had reported that he’d rented an apartment downtown, one without a yard, patio, or even a balcony to cook outdoors.

I watched Campbell walk away, through the racks of clothes, and I felt two competing urges. One was to tell him that I would see him around, because I was leaving since he was behaving like an idiot. On the other hand, I also wanted to chase after him and make things up, although I was still sure that I was right.

I followed. I didn’t have to chase because he had stopped to wait for me, but I still hurried. “I wasn’t trying to start a fight,” I told him. I hadn’t meant to be a brat.

“I know that,” he said. “You want to drive behind me? I parked right next to your car.”

“Do you still want me to come over?” I asked, kind of confused.

“I invited you, didn’t I?” He wasn’t smiling like usual, but he didn’t seem so upset anymore. So I did follow him to his house, which was in another suburban area with a little downtown that was small, but cute and walkable. He didn’t live too far from the restaurants and shops and his house was not what I’d expected. I was thinking of something closer to the castle/mansion that my sister Juliet and Beckett inhabited, but this was probably about the same size as the house where I’d grown up. For one person, like my mom or like Campbell, it was much more than adequate. For nine of us, it had been a squeeze.

“Here it is,” he said as I got out of my car. “Not as ostentatious as you might have expected. I think it’s good for me.”

“I think so too, and I had expected it to be nice. You dress so well,” I explained.

He finally smiled. “I’m glad that all that time I spent shopping wasn’t a waste. At least it made you think better of me.”

“What?”

“Come on in,” he said, and showed me around. No, the house wasn’t huge, but it was bigger than it seemed from the outside. It was also tasteful and lovely.

“This was how my dad started his company,” he told me as we returned to the kitchen. “He bought and sold a few houses and got some ideas about how to do things better. That was what led to him quitting at the bank and going out on his own.”

“So this was one of his homes?”

“Yep, another freebie for me. I owe it all to him.”

I looked over. “I’m not criticizing you,” I stated. “My family house used to belong to my grandparents, and they gave it to my dad when they moved up north permanently. It’s nice when families can help each other.”

“Really? I’ve been thinking that you’re sure I’m a shitty nepo baby.”

“What?” I shook my head. “No. It’s obvious that nepotism was involved to get you to where you are. You said it, too, that you and your sister are young to have your positions, and that your dad expects you both to take over for him. But I don’t think it means that you’re not working hard or doing well. Frankly—”

“Are you ever not frank?”

“I was going to say that your father sounds pretty tough,” I continued. “It sounds like he wouldn’t keep you around unless you were doing things the right way. Isn’t that true?”

“Maybe,” Campbell said. He didn’t sound at all convinced of that idea. “But yeah, he always has been my toughest critic. I remember that after games, and even after practices if he could make them, he’d have a list of things for me to improve on. I’d have to read them out loud in the car on the way home. I was sohappy to get my license because then I could drive myself places and I didn’t have to dissect my failures.”

“That’s mean,” I said, and I remembered saying the same thing about his dad before, too. “That was a mean thing to do.”

“He sees it as helpful. He sees that he gave me so many chances, so many opportunities to do things that he couldn’t have even dreamed about when he was a kid. He never thought I appreciated what I got or worked hard enough to improve. He didn’t want me to go play professional hockey, but he really would have liked it if I’d had the chance. He took it personally that I wasn’t good enough.”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t work for him.”

“It’s another opportunity. It would be idiotic to squander it, and I hope that I’m not an idiot.”

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