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“Where is it?” Byron asked. He’d been building houses since he left
Crowne industries and probably had something to say about the
neighborhood.
“Bel-Air,” Dad said.
That explained why Byron was in the room. He’d just finished building
a monstrosity of a house in Bel-Air. Olivia had talked him into making it
smaller, but it was still massive enough to get interest from sheikhs and
movie stars.
“Great,” Byron said, hand up as if his opinion would be a relief to our
father. “The neighborhood council loves me now. I need to see it sooner
rather than later.”
“Jesus,” I said under my breath. Did falling in love make him thick?
He’d just erected a monument to his ego in Bel-Air and Dad, in his infinite
generosity, was going to buy it.
“You built it, son.”
I felt no satisfaction in being right.
“Ah, Dad…” Byron flattened his hands to punctuate the start of a long
explanation on why this was a bad idea.
“It’s perfect.”
“I didn’t have you in mind when I started it.”
“You didn’t when you finished it either. Don’t worry, we’ll pay market
unless we’re outbid. Then we’ll match it.”
What a damn gift that was. A few hundred mill at market, on top of the
free money my brother had gotten to build it as his One Big Thing. The
OBT was the no-questions-asked, once-in-a-lifetime gift each of us was
entitled to, and now Dad was basically tripling it.
“No bidding, Dad,” Byron said. “If Mom wants it, it’s hers.”
Dad shook his head—about to demand Byron take the money he hadn’t
even used on the house—and I just couldn’t sit there.
“Are you serious?” I asked. “His One Big Thing goes to some
environmental fund, and now you’re paying market for the house it was
supposed to build?”
The One Big Thing, the OBT, was the one request we made of our
father that he wouldn’t refuse.
“What’s the difference?” Dad asked.
“We’re not negotiating? Just, ‘Here… take it’? It should go to Crowne
for cost.”