When We're Thirty Casey Dembowski (the chimp paradox .TXT) 📖

transition of power had been peaceful at the beginning of the year, the clout Will’s father still had over the company and the board was undeniable. It was his own father who had tried to have Will fired, and he’d almost succeeded. And even though his father worked remotely from the Hamptons most of the time, letting Jon handle much of the day-to-day work, Will felt his presence more now than when they’d shared an office. Some days, he swore his father was having him followed.

Will’s phone vibrated, alerting him to a text from Daniel. Perfect timing. Meet me at Goodtimes.

Goodtimes was the diner near the hospital. It reminded Will of Doc Magoo’s with its constant flow of doctors and nurses. Daniel hadn’t appreciated the comparison, but that didn’t deter Will from making it every time he stepped into the place. He cut down Twenty-Sixth Street to avoid the madness of Madison and Park and jogged the few blocks up Third to the diner. Daniel stood outside chatting with a man Will recognized as one of his brother’s attendings. He waited for their conversation to end before crossing the street.

“Excuse me, Dr. Carter, is it?” he said, pulling his brother into a hug.

“Dick,” Daniel said with a grin. “What drove you out of the office this time?” he asked as they sat down at a back booth. Daniel reclined as much as he could in the confined space.

“It’s not a what.”

Daniel laughed, but he didn’t open his eyes. Exhaustion etched the lines of his face, heavy bags under his eyes. His scrubs were wrinkled but thankfully clean of any questionable stains. Will wondered how long his shift had been—his brother usually put on a better showing than this.

“You have to give him points for tenacity.” Daniel straightened up at the sound of the waitress’s sneakers against the linoleum. How often did he eat here to recognize the cadence of her steps? “Adele, my love, I need so much coffee.”

Adele appeared to be in her late fifties. She wore the chunky plastic frames of a hipster and a bowling shirt.

“Can’t run only on coffee, doc,” she said amiably.

The smile Daniel gave her was affectionate—he definitely spent too much time at this diner. “I can try, Adele. I can try.”

“All right, dearie—coffee and the usual?”

Daniel nodded.

Will skimmed the menu, already missing his salad from Susanna’s. Maybe he’d stop in on his way back to the office. “Just a coffee for me.”

“Long day?” Will asked after Adele turned to the next table.

“I’ve been on for, like, eighteen hours or something. They asked me to pick up a half shift as I was walking out the door.” He smiled. “It was worth it, though. I got to assist on this really cool surgery.”

As he went into the literally gory details, a storm of affection and envy wrecked Will’s mood. Daniel was exhausted but exhilarated as he went on about human anatomy. That excitement was something Will hadn’t felt in all his time at Wellington Thorne. Will didn’t see that changing anytime soon. Every day under the ever-present gaze of his father’s spies, the proverbial noose tightened. Fresh air became harder to come by. But Daniel had gotten out of the family business and of being a perpetual letdown. Will and Jon had each taken the deal—MBA, JD, or MD in exchange for time in the family business. Daniel had refused and had funded his own way through medical school. Even though he was on the path to becoming a great doctor, Daniel was the black sheep when he should’ve been the golden child. But that was Jonathan Thorne for you, in love first and foremost with his company. Anyone who turned their back on the company turned their back on him.

During his four years of medical school, Daniel hadn’t come home once—he’d wanted to, but he hadn’t been welcome. It was only upon his return to New York, with Jon and Will threatening to walk away from the company, that their father had granted him reprieve. The price for their betrayal had been the mandatory family weekends. If they so wanted to be a family, then dammit, they would act like one.

In the almost eleven years since his mother’s passing, his father hadn’t softened. There’d been that first month, where they’d traveled to several hotel openings as a family, but if anything, without their mother to temper him, Jonathan had become colder and less forgiving. Will had been nineteen when his mother died, in the middle of his freshman year of college at Columbia. Her death had sent him spiraling out of New York. His father had at least given Will his pick of far-off schools where he could find his head and not make too much of a spectacle of himself—or at least far enough away that no one would notice or care. U of I had been perfect for that. And his father had been right—outside of New York, no one cared.

He didn’t remember ever talking about his father with Hannah, at least not in a specific way. He had whined about the weight of expectation. She had countered with stories of suburbia and parents who were involved but not orchestrating. But he couldn’t tell her what her parents did for a living or even their first names. He should probably find that out if they were going to be his in-laws, though he suspected Hannah’s parents weren’t quite as googleable as Jonathan Thorne.

“Uh-oh.”

Daniel’s voice pulled Will’s focus back to the conversation. He only hoped the goriest of details had passed. But Daniel’s story was long over, and his gaze was fixed on Will.

“What?” Will asked, grabbing a fry out of the to-go container Daniel had his food delivered in. It was easier for a quick exit, he’d said.

“You have that ‘I’m going to do something incredibly stupid, and yes, it definitely involves a woman’ look.”

Will trained his expression back to neutral. “Whether it is incredibly stupid is yet to be