Page 36 of There's Pumpkin About You
I lean back in my seat, putting my phone on speaker and placing it on my desk.
When he realizes that I’m not budging, he clears his throat and speaks up. “I wanted to know how the farm is getting on.”
“You mean if it’s still running ever since you stole all of our money?”
“August, if you’re going to be difficult about this.”
Does this asshole seriously have the audacity to be annoyed at me?
“I’m angry. Rightfully angry. If you have a problem with that then you should never have dialed my number.”
“It’s still my farm, too.”
“Then you shouldn’t have left it.”
“August.” He sounds desperate, eager for me to see his side without explaining himself.
A headache starts to hit my temples and I angrily slam my glasses against the table. Ripping them off of my face and throwing them doesn’t make me feel any better, though. I want to do a lot more than flick away a pair of silver-rimmed glasses. I want to scream as I punch him in his face that unfortunately looks so much like mine, hurt him physically so it reflects the way he hurt my family mentally.
It doesn’t bug me. Not in the slightest. But it bugs my brothers and my grandfather, and that means that he’ll never be forgiven. Not by me.
“Why are you calling me?” I ask, wanting to just get straight to the point.
He pauses, and I can hear some kind of movement happening around him.
“I want you boys to sell the farm and come live here with us.”
I want to vomit. I want to bend over and throw up all over this scratchy rug under my feet until there’s nothing left. My dad has to be out of his goddamn mind if he thinks I would ever let my brothers move from one side of the US to the other. When my brothers made it clear that they didn’t want to take over when Dad decided to retire, I made a promise to my mother that I would always look out for them and make decisions that are in their best interest. Any and all decisions I make about the farm are for them, so that they can be supported. If I lost the farm completely, they wouldn’t have anything to fall back on. Bash, who works here with me, would have to quit.
“No,” I snap, anger seeping into my tone. “Was that everything? Are we done?”
“No, it’s not. I want all of my family here together.”
“You turned your back on your family. You don’t get to want us with you when you so easily left.”
“August, it makes sense.” He pushes. “You all move here and we can use the money for more important stuff.”
There it is. It’s subtle, but it’s there. I learned my dad’s tell long ago. When he wants to say something, but knows it won’t go down well, he goes quiet, speaks the words he knows will cause a fuss in a way that he hopes no one will hear. This time, he doesn’t want me to hear the desperation, but his mistake is that it’s been there since the beginning of this useless phone call.
“Money. That’s what this is all about,” I tell him, refusing to give him a chance to lie and say it isn’t.
He’s silent for a while.
“It’s not just about the money.”
“Un-fucking-believable,” I murmur. Hell, even my shoulder seems to hurt the more I listen to this idiot.
“I genuinely want you boys to come. Especially now.”
“What’s happened now that didn’t happen last year?”
He hesitates and this time my chest does tighten. “Melina and I are expecting and I lost everything gambling.”
If the phone was in my hand, I would have dropped it. I can feel the overstimulation—the tingling under my skin and the constricting walls that make up my office. I can hear him calling my name again, but it’s nothing but a noise in the distance, like a fly buzzing around the room.
I hang up on him mid-sentence and ignore the tear of frustration that streaks down my face.
I will never understand it.
