Page 5 of Emmett

“Is everyone in agreement, then?” Dad asks.

“I can live with it,” Davis replies.

Nash shrugs. “Sure.”

“Yeah,” I chime in, “that sounds good to me.”

I have absolutely no idea what the hell I just agreed to, but whatever it is, it kept blood from being spilled, so I guess I’ll count it as a win.

As everyone begins to file out of the room, I tuck my notes under my arm and match pace with my uncle.

“Don’t sweat it,” he assures me, “guy was born sorry, but when he wants to, he can be intimidatin’ if you don’t know him. Just pay attention next time.”

“Sure,” I nod. “Thanks, Davis.”

That was…weird.

I still haven’t decorated my office, so I don’t like to be in here all that much unless I have to be. I would have been fine with the same simple table setup that I had before, but I guess when you become an owner, it looks weird if you don’t have your own office with your own fancy engraved nameplate stuck to the door. If you asked me, I’d tell you that an empty office with no personal touch to it looks a whole hell of a lot weirder.

Uncle Davis keeps his office closed and locked at almost all times, while my dad goes for more of a literal open door policy, so I decided to go for something in between; leave the door cracked enough for people to know that they can come in, but closed enough that they know to knock first. Not that I do anything in here that requires the warning of a knock, but it kind of makes me feel important.

I plop myself into the chair behind my desk and pull up an email – the same one that I’ve been drafting over and over again for the past two weeks.

Anna,

I ‘m sorry if this is intrusive or if I’ve got the wrong person, but I don’t think I do.

My name is Emmett Fowler, my father is Colt Fowler. If you would be willing, I would very much appreciate the opportunity to meet with you and buy you a cup of coffee.

If you don’t want that or you’re not the person that I’m looking for, please disregard this message.

If you would like to meet, please let me know. I’m available at lunchtime on weekdays and my weekends can be open.

Emmett

It’s not the best email I’ve ever written. I’ve written grocery lists that read better than that, actually, but after seven different drafts, it’s all I’ve been able to come up with. I don’t want her to think that I’m a stalker or something – which I guess I kind of am. Spending months secretly tracking someone down so that you can have a way to contact them kind of fits the definition - and I really don’t want her to contact my dad and tell him that I found her. But I want to meet her.

I need to know why.

Seconds after I pressSEND, I click out of the browser, taking the smallUNDObutton right along with it. There’s no backing out now.

Despite the nerves rushing through me, I grab my coffee cup and take a long drink from it before opening the browser for my work-related email and diving in to respond to them.

I expected there to be more excitement as an owner, but it’s a whole lot of emailing, paperwork and phone calls. I go to the new nightclub build every week or so to check on theprogress and make sure the reality matches the design that we’re paying for, but that’s about all the excitement that we get lately outside of Nash Montgomery’s ego-trip visits.

It’s almost…boring.

•

“Nuggets or pizza?” Rowan shouts from the kitchen.

“Yes!” I holler back to her.

A couple of minutes later, she comes back to the living room, setting a plate down on the coffee table in front of me with a slice of pizza and a pile of chicken nuggets, and she sits down with her own plate, holding just a single, sad little piece of pepperoni pizza.

Normally, this would be our weekly family dinner-and-games night, but Dad and Davis are stuck at work and Macie’s at a friend’s house, so it’s just me, Ro and Sarah, who is sleeping hard in her room. We could have canceled, but I like coming over here and seeing any part of the family that I can.

We sit for two hours, eating and playing some card game in which we’re given five seconds to do the ridiculous task on the card that the other picks up, trying to keep our laughter to a reasonable level so we don’t wake Sarah.