Chapter 86: A promise Fulfilled
He waited until Saturday morning to bring it up, mostly because Saturdays were the one day his mother didn’t rush out the door before he’d finished his coffee.
"I found us a new place," he said, setting his cup down. "I want you to see it before I decide anything." She looked up from the paper she wasn’t really reading. "A new place. As in, moving?"
"As in, moving somewhere better than this." He kept his voice even. "The cafe’s been doing well. Better than either of us expected, especially with everything that’s happened lately. I’ve been saving for a while."
"Saving." She set the paper down entirely now, giving him the full weight of her attention. "Liam, I’ve seen our accounts. I know what you normally makes. How much are we talking about, exactly?"
"There’s been a bonus. A big one." He’d rehearsed this part the most. "The owner wanted to thank me for everything with Grace’s case. Handling the press, keeping the shop running through all of it."
"A bonus large enough to buy a house." She wasn’t letting it go this time, arms crossed now. "That’s not a bonus, Liam, that’s an inheritance. Is this legal? Are you in debt somewhere I don’t know about? Did you sign something you shouldn’t have?"
"Nothing illegal. No debt." He held her gaze steady, the only way he knew to survive this particular conversation. "The owner made a lot of money off the attention the case brought the business. He decided to share it. That’s the whole truth of it, even if it sounds strange."
She studied him a long moment, unconvinced, arms still crossed. "I still don’t understand it," she admitted finally. "But I believe you when you say you’re not in trouble." A pause, her eyes narrowing slightly despite the concession. "Show me this place, then."
The house sat on a quiet street in a part of the city she’d never had reason to visit, low garden walls, jacaranda trees just starting to drop their purple flowers across the pavement. She stood at the gate a long moment before he even got it open, taking it in the way someone takes in something they’ve stopped letting themselves want.
"Liam." Her voice had gone thin. "This is too much." It’s not too much. He pushed the gate open and stepped back to let her go first. "It’s what you should have had years ago, if things had gone differently for us."
She walked through slowly, hand trailing along the low wall, and didn’t say anything else until they reached the front door, where she stopped and pressed her palm flat against the wood like she needed to confirm it was really there.
"Your father would have hated how much I’m about to cry over a house," she said, laughing wetly, and Liam put an arm around her shoulders, letting her lean into him.
"Then don’t tell him," he said, gently. "Just enjoy it."
Harrison had spent years using money to make people smaller, to keep them owing him something they could never quite repay. Liam found, standing there watching his mother touch a door she still didn’t quite believe was hers, that he preferred using it the other way.
He found Ethan at the cafe that evening, closing up alone, the last row of gaming PCs shutting down one by one, monitors going dark, the low hum of cooling fans the only sound left in the room.
"You’re in a strange mood," Ethan said, glancing up from behind the snack counter. "Good strange or bad strange?"
"Good, I think." Liam pulled out a folder he’d had drawn up that week, sliding it across the counter. "I want you to look at this before you say anything."
Ethan opened it, frowned, read it again more carefully the second time. "Liam. This is an ownership transfer. Forty percent." He looked up. "Of the café."
Effective immediately."No."Liam blinked. "No?"
I’m not signing this." Ethan pushed the folder back across the counter like it had suddenly gotten heavier.
"Forty percent of this place is worth more than everything I own put together. I’m not taking that because you’re feeling sentimental after a rough month." It’s not sentiment.
"Then what is it." You’ve run this place as well as I ever could, most weeks better, and you did it while covering for me through the surveillance, the trial, all of it, without ever once asking what any of it actually meant." Liam pushed the folder back toward him. "That’s worth something real. A stake, not a favor."
"I don’t know the first thing about running a business at this level." You’ve already been running it at this level. You just didn’t have the paperwork to prove it.
Ethan stared at the folder like it might rearrange itself into something smaller if he looked at it long enough. "What if I mess it up. What if I make some call and it costs us both."
"Then we fix it together. I’m not disappearing, Ethan. I’m still here, still an owner, still around if something goes wrong. I just don’t want to be the only name on this anymore, not after everything you’ve carried without complaint."
Ethan went quiet for a long moment, clearly hunting for another objection and coming up empty. "You’re actually serious about this."
"Completely." I don’t know what to say. "You don’t have to say anything." Liam nodded toward the dim rows of terminals, the snack counter, the whole quiet room around them. "Just help me keep it standing. It’s partly yours now, whether you feel ready or not."
Ethan came around the counter and pulled him into a rough, one-armed hug.
"You’re insufferable, you know that," Ethan said, voice a little thick. "Showing up with a stake in the business like it’s nothing."
"Wasn’t nothing. Took me all week to get the paperwork right."
Ethan laughed, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand, unashamed of it. "Forty percent owner. God help this city."
Ethan stood alone in the gaming center after Liam left, the ownership papers still in his hands, reading them over once more while the last monitor flickered and went dark behind him.