He still didn’t say anything. All he did was just keep on staring at me as he contemplated whatever it was that was going through his head. And it made me want to squirm.
He stared at me, and I stared at him.
For a minute.
For two.
Finally, out of fucking nowhere, he beamed at me.
And that scared the fuck out of me.
As I sat there, worried and alarmed by the fact him smiling made him look like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, he reached forward—scaring the shit out of me again—and cupped my cheeks in his hands.
Yeah, that kicked it up to me being basically terrified.
Grandpa Gus squeezed my cheeks together, kissed me on the forehead as I stiffened because what the fuck was happening, and then said it.
He said it.
He said, “Lenny, you’re fired.”
His hands were still on my cheeks and his lips were still on my forehead as I fucking froze again.
“What?”
He pulled back and smiled at me. “You’re fired.”
I blinked. “What?”
He squeezed my cheeks together with every word. “You. Are. Fired.”
I blinked again and then squinted. “From?”
My cheeks were squeezed together, definitely making me look like a million bucks as he answered almost cheerfully, “From Maio House, genius. What else?”
He… he… was firing me?
“Why?” I murmured, looking at him like I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Because I heard his words. I understood what each one meant separately, but together….
What?
“You’re fired,” he repeated himself. “Either effective immediately, or I’m giving you a two weeks notice. It’s up to you.”
I leaned back, out of his reach, and kept on squinting at him. “Grandpa, what are you talking about? I’m fired? Why?”
He grinned. “Yeah.”
He… was firing me? From Maio House? I looked up at the ceiling, then back down at him and felt tears well up in my eyes, telling myself not to feel betrayed. This was Grandpa Gus, the last person in the world to ever not treat me right. “But why?”
His throat bobbed, and my cheeks were squeezed together again. “Because I love you.” This savage literally pinched my cheek. “And because I don’t want you to work there anymore.”
He was really trying to fire me. My own fucking grandfather was trying to fire me. From his business. From the business that was supposed to be mine. And I didn’t understand.
“You can’t... you can’t fire me, Grandpa,” I stuttered.
He ticked his head to the side. “Pretty sure I just did, Len.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Nope.”
Panic, it was panic that swelled up inside of me as I sputtered, “But… but... why? Because of Jonah? I thought you liked him. Why are you—”
“I do like him,” he confirmed, still smiling that creepy smile. “But I’m firing you because… you stole pens from the gym. I saw them in your purse.”
I drew back and stared at him. This wasn’t about fucking pens. Of course it wasn’t about pens. Grandpa had bought all of my school supplies as business expenses my entire life.
Why the hell was he doing this to me? “But why? I thought”—I had to reach up to wipe at my eye as more panic spilled into my chest at the idea that he was doing this to me for no fucking reason—“Maio House was going to be mine one day. You told me. You told me that when you died it was going to be mine, and that’s why I’ve been working there since for fucking ever. And I’ve been managing it because it’s ours. Because it’s our family’s, and I’m your family. I’m your… I’m your….”
I was panting.
I was fucking crying. Holy shit. I reached up to touch my face, and there were real tears there.
“Why are you taking this away from me?” I croaked, feeling… feeling so fucking confused. “I’ve been doing a good job. Most of the time. Half the time.”
My grandpa just blinked at me. Then he used his reasonable voice on me. “I’m not taking anything away from you.”
“Yeah, you are.” I wiped at my face with the back of my hand, feeling… feeling… holy shit. This had been the plan. My entire life, this had been the plan. “You said… you said it was going to be mine.”
“Is that what I said?” he asked.
I wiped again, trying my hardest not to get upset but failing miserably. “Yeah.”
“When, Len?”
What? “I… I don’t know. A bunch of times. You know you did.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, I did. When you were ten. When you were three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten.”
What the hell was he talking about?
He aimed those gray eyes at me steadily. “I haven’t told you that this was going to be yours since you were ten years old.”
He hadn’t?
“It’s been twenty years since I did that, Len, and part of me regrets so much that I put that responsibility on you when you were a kid. Do you know why I stopped?”
I didn’t even answer him. I couldn’t.
Luckily he wasn’t really waiting for a response. “Do you remember that was the year I made you enroll in gymnastics?” I didn’t nod. Of course I remembered. I had really liked it, and I’d been pretty good at it. “Your coach told me how good you were. How much talent and athleticism you had, and he said he regretted that you were going to be so tall because you would never make it to the elite level.”
I jumped in. “What does that have to do with you firing me?”
“Give me a second,” he requested. “I came home and told Peter how much of a badass you were, and he agreed. He said she’s good at everything. Lenny’s going to be able to do anything she wants when she grows up. And that was when I realized what I’d been doing.”
I blinked.
“Before you were born, Len… I had been a wreck because of losing your dad. My heart was broken. It was… dust. I had thought… I had thought for a while there that I didn’t want to live in a world that would take my son away from me,” Grandpa said quietly, more quietly than I’d ever heard, I knew for a fact. “I missed him so much, and I was so angry. And then your mom came to me. I told you this story a long time ago.”
He had. But he retold it.
“She told me she was pregnant with my grandchild. She said she was five months along, and that it was too late to have an abortion.” I knew all of this. “And she wanted to tell me that she was going to put the baby up for adoption because she wasn’t in a place to raise her, but she wanted me to know.
“And I knew without a doubt, in that instant, that there was no way I would ever let her put my boy’s child up for someone else to raise. Not when this, you, were the last piece of him I had left. I didn’t know how I was supposed to live without him in this world, and then you were born, and it took one look at you being all ugly and wrinkly—”
I laughed and wiped at my face, not realizing until then that I was full-on crying.
“—and I knew that I was going to have to break the world record for being the oldest man alive because there was no way I would ever let anything happen to you. You gave me life back. You gave me a damn purpose, Lenny. You have been the greatest gift I have ever been given. The greatest joy I will ever have. You were my best friend from the moment those cloudy demon eyes looked at me, like you needed me more than anything or anyone.