and then started on payroll. We had ninety-three employees now, but the foremen logged their men’s hours in, so it didn’t take terribly long to look through the logs and then let the software do the work. The payroll checks were printing when Gil walked in with barbecue, fries, buns, and lemonade.
I lifted my brows at him. We’d agreed not to force ‘having lunch’ on each other at work.
“Yeah. I know, but we need to talk, and we may as well do it while we eat. No one else is in the office. It’s the perfect time.”
Our shop is a huge old warehouse with a large bay door, so we can park our fleet of trucks inside when they aren’t on a site, and so we have tons of indoor storage space for our tools and equipment. We built five offices and a breakroom/conference room in one corner of the warehouse. I followed him to the breakroom.
“I didn’t appreciate Frost buying them expensive gifts.”
“He didn’t outdo either of us monetarily. I wouldn’t have let him do that. You still bought them better gifts.”
“It’s possible his gift was better than yours. They’ll certainly use the gaming consoles more than the rifles.”
I shrugged. “I’m okay with that.”
“Nora has a little crush on him.”
“Which is going to get more and more intense because you’re making him forbidden.” I put meat on a bun and poured barbecue sauce on the meat before I turned it into a sandwich.
“I don’t feel like you’re supporting my parenting decisions.”
“And I feel like your parenting decisions are being made from...” I sighed. “Fuck, Gil. Tell me you aren’t making decisions based on your own childish feelings? You don’t want Frost in my life, but you can’t control me anymore, so you’re trying your damnedest to control my life through the kids!”
“Wow. That’s what you think of me?”
“Not usually, but you don’t want me dating, and you seem to have lost your ability to adult. I’m really hoping it’s temporary.”
“You threatened to cut me out of the business.”
“Yeah, I did, and I don’t regret it for an instant. If you completely cut me out of the kids’ lives, I’ll have no reason to continue trying to get along with you.”
He put his food down and stared at me. “That’s the only reason you’re still...”
“No, not the only reason. The business is our baby. We started it. We grew it. We have two joint ventures, Gil — running the business and parenting the kids. We either do both, or none.”
That sounded harsher than I intended. I blew out a breath, and an unintentional growl escaped. I tried again. “Look. If I got pissed at you, and instead of working with you to resolve it, I took your name off everything that allowed you the control you have now, and then fired you, so you no longer worked here at all, would you still pretend nothing had happened when it came to the kids?”
He stared at me a good fifteen seconds before he shook his head. “So, I have the legal leverage with the kids, and you have the legal leverage when it comes to the business. Neither of us can actually use our leverage without losing at least as much as we gain.”
“Pretty much.”
He sighed. “I’ll contact Frost and see if we can have lunch in the next day or two. Depending on how that goes, we’ll figure out when and where to introduce him to the kids.”
“Nora will be proud of you for being an adult.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “No one told me a teenage girl would be such a damned pain in the ass.”
“You’re an awesome dad, Gil. I’ve always respected that about you. The two of you are so much alike, it’s no wonder you butt heads so much.”
He sighed. “She’s going to start having sex soon. Probably not with this guy, but the next one, or the next. You’re on all the forms so you can get health care for her. You have my permission to take her for birth control when it’s time, and you have permission to tell me it’s because she has painful cramps, instead of telling me why. I think I’d prefer not to know when she becomes sexually active.” He gave me a sad smile. “I can only afford to put my head in the sand about it because I trust you to handle it.”