Page 18 of The Holidays with Mr. Mitchell
“What?” I chuckled but tried to understand what that comment meant.
“Are you meeting the guys for drinks tonight?” he questioned with some kind of knowing smirk.
“I’m reconsidering after that Scrooge comment, and of course, the expression on your face.”
He shook it off with his usual charming grin. “Ah, you know we all love giving you a hard time, big guy,” he finished with a wink, and then sauntered off like he knew I was about to walk into a lion’s den.
Now that I thought about it, the holidays were already in full swing, which meant I could only imagine the pranks and bullshit waiting for me this year from my brother and his doctor buddies. I couldn’t even remember when it all started, but somewhere along the way, the holidays had turned into open season for childish pranks between the CEOs and the doctors.
And after what I’d pulled off last year, which ended with Jake and Collin shitting their brains out in a tropical forest framed as a lover’s retreat, we executives had started something that would probably never end now.
Fucking hell. I had no time for pranks and all-around nonsense right now. Christmas would probably be here and gone again before I even knew it. Everything was just moving too goddamn fast these days.
The hospital’s marble floors echoed under my steps as I crossed the lobby to where my driver waited at the curb. Just as I was about to step into the Bentley, my phone buzzed. The screen lit up with the name of the founder ofMedisync Technologies, the small health tech firm we’d closed on last week. I gave my driver a nod, slid into the backseat, and answered. “Mitchell here,” I said, placing my leather briefcase on the seat beside me.
“Mr. Mitchell, sir, thanks for taking my call,” Morston said, and I could hear some anxiety in his tone.
“Not a problem. What can I help you with?” I asked. I didn’t have time for bullshit these days, but new acquisitions sometimes forced this.
Company founders always seemed to get anxious when they lost control of their company after I acquired it. However, it was common to reassure them that they were in good hands.
“We’re—well, the team wanted further clarity on where you see Medisync fitting in with Saint John’s. There’s still some uncertainty, and most likely because it’s around the holidays.”
“Understandable,” I said, seeing the hospital fade into a blur as we drove off. “You built something important, and my goal is the same now as it was when the acquisition was signed. We will scale Medisync to the point where it helps patients and keeps clinicians confident.”
“We appreciate that, sir, but?—”
“I understand the apprehension of a company under new ownership,” I interrupted, knowing I’d be on this phone for an hour coddling the man if I wasn’t more direct with him. “We have no intention of changing the mission. We’re only interested in helping it grow and expand. Please keep the teams focused on product and outcomes, and I’ll make sure my teams do the heavy lifting.”
“Of course,” he said as my driver eased onto the freeway. “That was all I needed to hear. I’ll pass along your assurances to the team. I hope you have a great evening.”
“Anytime,” I responded with relief that he was easily appeased.
As I ended the phone call, I was regretting having made plans for drinks with the guys tonight, not because of Brandt’s odd exchange, but because it would have been nice to just go home and be with my wife and the girls.
Unfortunately, on the nights when the guys made plans, the women had made plans too. So, if I went home, I’d be greeted by an empty house.
Exhaustion lived in my shoulders these days, familiar and steady, but not enough to bitch about openly. The holiday season was always stacked with shit—year-end reports, donor requests, and a dozen acquisitions that needed a certain amount of reassurance and validation—and try as I might, I couldn’t outrun it all.
I wasthe last one to arrive at our usual table at Darcy’s, the restaurant we always went to on these meet-up nights. It was quiet, exclusive, and provided us with the privacy we wanted. Even so, privacy or not, my empty house was sounding more and more enticing than ordering a bourbon from a waitress and forcing conversation tonight.
I was just fucking tired. Everyone hits a wall now and then, right?
“Jesus, Jim,” Spencer said, sitting across from me. “Did the board give you hell today?”
I sipped the amber liquid and let the heat slowly travel down my throat in a soothing manner.
I licked my lips and shook my head. “I’ve just been going nonstop since fall hit,” I said. “Maybe I’m just getting old.”
I glanced at Collin, Jake, Jace, and John—the four doctors who never missed a chance to give me shit—and realized they hadn’t even looked up from their conversation to notice I’d joined them tonight. That was not like them at all, but hell, I wasn’t in the mood to be poked at by senseless jokes anyway.
“Numbers look great at Brooks and Stone this quarter,” I said to Alex, my former VP and current CEO of the architecture firm my company owned.
“Why wouldn’t they?” he smirked.
“Seems like shit is looking great everywhere when it comes to the fuckingempireJimmy’s running,” Jake said in a smartass tone.
My gaze darted between the executives I was sitting with and over to where the doctors seemed to have separated themselves from us.
