Page 83 of The Matchmaker
“We are not a television pub. We are a talking pub. And we don’t need pool, we have darts.”
I say the last bit without thinking, and immediately regret it when his eyes latch onto his brother’s face tacked to the boards.
“Sorry,” I say, and he gives me a small smile.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not. It kind of feels incredibly violent when I look at it now.” I put the article down, avoiding his gaze. “How is he? Jack”
“I don’t know,” he says simply. “I haven’t talked to him.”
“You haven’t?” I frown. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“You don’t have to feel anything. It’s not on you. This is between us.”
“I don’t want you to not talk to him,” I say carefully. It’s not as if I like the guy, but he’s still Callum’s brother.
“We’ll talk eventually,” he says. “He just needs to get over himself first.”
“You guys had a fight, huh?”
“I told him I didn’t agree with what he was doing here,” Callum says. “With the barn, with the roads, with any of it. And I told him the truth. That with the way he was going we’d be over budget within a month. That we’d need to push delivery back by three or four at least. That he’s working the guys too hard, and we’ll lose them if we’re not careful. That you were picking up steam and people were starting to pay attention.” He gives me a humorless smile. “He didn’t like that.”
“I can imagine.”
“The whole thing has just gotten out of control,” he says. “We didn’t think we’d get as much land off the church as we did, but they wanted the money, and we had plenty of it. Then it was like the floodgates opened, and they started adding in all this extra stuff. It’s not even about the hotel anymore. And Jack wants to impress his boss, and his boss wants to be impressed, so here we are.”
“He could just stop,” I point out.
“He could,” he says. “But he won’t. It’s not in his nature. Never has been.”
“A real go-getter,” I mutter.
“We didn’t have a lot of money growing up,” he says, and I still. “Mam was a shop assistant, Dad worked in construction. Jack wanted more. Even as a kid. You know he started a black market at school? He used to steal the multipacks of mini chocolate bars our parents bought us and sell them off at twice the price during Lent. Every year he did it until Dad found out and made him give all the money to charity. I think he was actually pretty impressed with it all, but he couldn’t tell Jack that. He always wanted more. And he wanted it for me too.”
“That’s why you work together?” I guess, and he nods.
“We both started in construction. Dad took us along on jobs when we were still teenagers. And I loved it, I did, but it wasn’t enough for Jack. He went on to college, got his degrees, talked his way into internships and moved his way up from there. He wants to run the company someday. Or start his own. He used to always talk about the two of us starting new somewhere in a few years. Building our own thing from the ground up.”
“But that’s not what you want.”
“No.” He looks close to laughing. “No, I want… I don’t know. Money would be nice, sure. The security that comes with that. But I’m happiest working on my own projects. Smaller ones. That’s my plan. Get a couple of guys together, keep it small. My own hours, my own time.” He smiles then, like it makes him happy just thinking about it. “I think the last few weeks was the push I needed to make me see that.”
“Well,” I say, crossing my arms against the bar. “I think that deserves a toast. Or at the very least, a shot.”
“A shot?”
“Why not? It’s a Saturday night.”
“It’s Wednesday.”
“Is it?” I ask innocently, and he laughs.
“Alright then.” He says it like he’s humoring me. “What you got?”
I gesture grandly to the series of bottles on the shelf behind me. He points to the vodka.
“Excellent choice.”
