I guess it’s natural. He’s worried. It makes sense.
I hurry out the door. A quick detour to the office and we should be good to go.
I barrel into Con’s office without bothering to knock. He throws me a glance over the lid of his laptop.
“Where have you been?”
“Lunch.”
“Aren’t you late back, in that case?” he asks with a quirked brow.
“Yeah, sorry. I was with Kai. He has an emergency.”
Con’s shoulders immediately stiffen at the mention of Kai.
“Of course he does,” he mutters.
I frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Con looks up from the screen for a second. “Of course you’re going to be irresponsible the moment anything has to do with Kai.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. It’s always difficult to get a good read on Con. He’s perfected his stoic façade over the years, so I’m not sure even he knows what he’s feeling most of the time.
“I need to take the rest of the day off,” I say. “And tomorrow, too. I’ll rearrange my schedule.”
“You can’t just take two days off out of the blue,” Con says.
“I realize it’s short notice—”
“To be fair, this here is practically no notice,” Con inserts and does that irritating brow tilt that always makes me feel like I’m a kid.
“Fine,” I say slowly. “My sincerest apologies, but I don’t have any meetings tomorrow. It’s just a bunch of paperwork and whatever else needs my attention, I’ll be able to handle the day after tomorrow.”
“That’s not how this works” is Con’s calm reply. “You’re supposed to notice me in advance. Preferably two weeks in advance.”
“Yes. Because this is how emergencies work,” I say. I have to go. I don’t have time to just stand here and argue. “I usually get an email beforehand, informing me of unsuspected circumstances occurring in a week or two.”
“You know, just because you’re my brother doesn’t mean you get special treatment.”
“When have I ever expected that from you? You made me interview every time I asked for an internship here.”
“That’s how this is supposed to go,” Con says. “In order to find the best possible person for the job, you interview all the candidates.”
“Yeah, fine. That’s not important right now. Right now, your employee with a perfect track record is asking you to give him a day off because of a family emergency.”
“Only it isn’t a family emergency, so my perfect employee is basically lying to my face,” Con says in an irritatingly calm tone.
“Kai is the most important person to me in the whole world,” I snap. “He is my family.”
Connor’s jaw tightens. I’m pretty sure I’ve hurt his feelings, but again, it’s almost impossible to tell. I don’t care right now. I have to go because Kai needs me.
My brother moves closer to his desk and pushes a key on his laptop.
“No,” he says.
“No?” I repeat.
“No, you can’t take tomorrow off. I’m sure whatever it is, Kai can handle it on his own. He’s an adult. I hardly think your presence will make much of a difference.”
I almost laugh.
That’s the furthest thing from the truth because I know that for Kai, my presence makes all the difference. Anger sizzles underneath the surface, threatening to break through the surface. Never has Con’s unflappable calmness pissed me off quite as much as it does now. Is a little empathy really too much to ask?
And suddenly it hits me. Why am I here? Why am I stubbornly holding on to a job I hate when I could actually do something I’d love? I have no clue what it is yet. Zero alternatives to being a lawyer. But if I stay now, I’ll never find out what they are.
I will never know what it’s like to wake up in the morning and actually look forward to the day ahead. I will never know what it’s like to be proud of what I do. I will never know if I could be great at something. Not just adequate because I work my ass off but actually great.
I’ve been walking through life, figuring my happiness was some sort of a vanity project. Something to deal with once I had too much time in my hands, and that’s clearly never going to happen, so why even think about it?
When did that kind of reasoning become the norm for me?
I take an absent glance at Connor. I guess I didn’t have the best role model, did I? Or maybe this here is the definition of happiness to Con, and I just… adopted it in some kind of