Rachel stared at the envelope. Deciding whether to accept it felt like haggling over her soul. But her curiosity won. She snatched it from his hand and pried it open. The amount made her gasp. “Oh my god.”
She looked up at him, and he stared back, inscrutable. “You’ll stay through the congressional primary next year and we’ll negotiate an additional agreement after. You and me. Matt will have nothing to do with this.”
She wanted to fling it back into his face. She wanted to have never seen the trust agreement, with all the zeros under Faith’s name. But her fingers tightened around the envelope, like they had a will of their own. “I need to think about it.”
Herman stood and straightened his jacket. “I would expect nothing less. Like I said, Rachel. You were always the smart one.”
Nathan had expected Joe to leave for the office as soon as they reached the laundromat. Even on a Sunday. Instead, he stood in the middle of Nathan’s apartment, scowling at the air. His brother was never this quiet. It went on for so long that Nathan finally lost patience. “Is this silent treatment some kind of punishment?”
“She’s a distraction,” Joe said. Nathan started to protest, but Joe lifted a hand to stop him. “It’s what you do. Escape somewhere…” He glanced at Nathan’s sketchbook. “Into something, so you don’t have to feel anything.”
“You’re wrong.” Joe had it backward. He felt too much, all the emotions, firing on every cell at once. “I’m in love with her.”
Joe looked pained, like it was the worst thing Nathan could have said. “It doesn’t matter.”
That’s when Nathan realized that a part of his brother, the romantic, was slowly being poisoned by his two broken hearts.
“This family needs to heal,” Joe continued. “You don’t get to flit around infatuated, while the rest of us are putting in the work. Not this time.”
Nathan thought about his last fight with Beto. How he’d frozen when confronted with his father’s suffering. The next day he was in New York with Rachel, pretending it never happened. “The trip was last minute,” Nathan said. “I wasn’t trying to run away. I just needed a break to get my head on straight.”
Joe laughed, and it was so sad and bitter that Nathan’s throat tightened. “A break? I’ve lost my wife. I might lose my kid. The livelihood of our entire family—no, half this goddamn city—is about to be on me!” He flung a hand at Nathan’s chest. “And now I’ve got you, trying to make a terrible situation immensely fucking worse, by going down in flames where the whole world can see.”
Nathan could feel himself retreating, his body instinctually trying to escape his brother’s wrath. Joe was right. He’d been hiding from this. Cowering on the other side of town, behind a wall of fucking dryers. “I’m sorry,” he said, even though the words felt thin and inadequate. “You’re right, it was selfish. I’ve just always been—” Nathan stopped, because he’d nearly said alone. But it wasn’t true. Because Joe had been there. As always. “It won’t happen again. I promise.”
The next day, Nathan was forced to follow through on that promise when he received a text from Beto asking him to stop by the house. After the argument with Joe, he’d decided to focus on what he could control. If Beto insulted him, Nathan didn’t have to argue. He could ignore it and engage with his father as an equal instead of a wounded son. He could keep the peace for both their sakes. And for Joe.
An hour later, he pulled into his parents’ driveway behind a car he didn’t recognize. A housekeeper let him in, explaining that Sofia was visiting with guests. Nathan started to seek out his mother but froze at the sight of Rachel in the foyer. She’d straightened her hair. The pearls were back, tucked inside the high collar of a stiff white shirt that made it look like she was wearing a uniform. When she finally looked up from her phone and saw him, he couldn’t think of anything to say except “Rachel?” It was a question, accusation, and plea all at once.
He started to reach for her. She shook her head and stepped back as Matt walked out of the living room. Rachel stiffened when Matt touched her lower back, and shuffled sideways, out of his reach.
“Nathaniel!” His mother walked out of the sitting room with a freckly redhead holding a camera trailing behind her. “What a surprise!” Sofia gave him air-kisses to preserve her lipstick.
“I came to see Beto,” Nathan said.