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Chuckling, I let out a relaxed sigh. “We should go,” I recommend. “Traffic is shit at this hour.”
“Traffic is shit at every hour in Boston,” she replies. She breezes around her desk towards me and plants a soft kiss on my cheek. “I’m driving.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why not?” she demands before she slides her hand into my pocket and pulls out my keys.
“It’s a new car,” I remind her. “Remember what you did to that Toyota Corolla? Like hell are you driving a new Tesla into a ditch.”
“Oh please,” she says, waving her hand like I’m bringing up pesky details. “It’s springtime in Boston, not dead of winter in bumfuck. Speaking of, what a great name for your memoir.”
“Bumfuck?”
“Dead of Winter,” she clarifies as she heads to the front door of our house.
I grab my coat and I follow her out the door and to the car. “I think that’s the worst book title I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“Okay, what about Winter Wonderland?” she calls over her shoulder.
I stop in my tracks. “Julia, you are shockingly bad at this.”
“I am, aren’t I?” she muses while she stands by the car, head tilted thoughtfully. “Fine. You drive, I’ll keep brainstorming.”
Julia tosses me the keys and I catch them before I head to the driver’s side. Minutes later, we’re on our way, with Julia spitballing puns the entire time.
***
“I’ve got it. What about: The Winter of Our Discontent?” she asks while taking off her coat to hand it to me.
“Do you hate me?” I ask, frowning as I grab her coat. “Deep down, you must still hate me because the only person you would make such bad suggestions to is your mortal enemy.”
“What’s wrong with the Winter of Our Discontent?” she demands.
“You’re fucking with me. First, it’s already the title of a book—ah shit. You’re fucking with me. Has this entire conversation—”
“Yes,” she interjects, smiling devilishly. “Although, I really think Winter Wonderland is excellent.”
“Excellent for what?” Davis asks—Davis senior, that is. Julia’s father.
“Dad, Gus is trying to come up with a name for his memoir,” Julia explains. She falls into her father’s arms and hugs him.
The look of surprise on her father’s face tells me he’s still not used to his daughter hugging him. But as a couple, we have a policy: If you love someone, just tell them already. It means Julia has been doing an awful lot of hugging these days.
“Don’t use a pun. Puns are beneath you,” her father states succinctly before he holds out his hand. “Winter.”
“I agree. Ridgeway.” We shake hands. Hard.
Is this situation weird? Yes. It’s insanely weird. I’m in the home of the man whose company took over mine. In exchange, I got eleven billion dollars from my equity stake—and a night with his daughter.
And he knows it.
Even weirder: I’ve run in the same circles as this man for years. We never connected since neither of us is particularly nice or friendly. But ever since I started dating his daughter, the man has put in a considerable effort.
Hence, here I am having yet another family dinner with him and Julia.
Dinner is awkward. We’ve had a dinner a month with him for the last twelve months. All awkward.
And the awkwardness persists after the plates have been cleared and the digestifs have been consumed, when I head into the kitchen and find Davis Ridgeway washing dishes with his sleeves rolled up.
