The Hero + Vegas = No Regrets

I stand and look up at the monolithic problem in front of me. I knew something wasn’t quite right about Mason Wright. I just didn’t expect him to be a thief.

“Why are we meeting here?” Avril nudges me in the arm like she’s been here all along and hasn’t just arrived.

“You’re not late,” I say.

“Nothing gets past you, does it?” Avril says. “You can even tell time.”

I ignore her and take in the twenties-era, twelve-story building on the corner of Forty-Sixth and Ninth.

“What’s so interesting about this place?” Avril asks.

“I own it, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it.”

“What a terrible dilemma,” she says dryly. “Did you buy it by accident?”

“I invested in it. We should be six months into demolition and reconstruction by now.”

“Demolition?” she says incredulously. “Why on earth would you rip down a building like this? It’s beautiful.”

“You haven’t seen the structural report. It would cost as much to fix as to demo, so we got our permits to do just that. I thought we were moving ahead.”

“But you’re not?” she asks.

“Well, the developer has moved to South America. With my money. At least the property was in my name.”

“God. How much did he take?”

“We’re figuring it out, but I think around half a million.” It’s my own fault. I should have sent someone from my team on every inspection. He’d been paying off the architect to send me false updates, and I’d been too busy to follow up.

“Jeez. I hope you reported everyone involved.”

“I have. And anyway, it’s only a little less than I’m paying for your and Poppy’s education.”

I don’t need to be facing her to see her eyeroll.

“So tell me why you’re here,” I say. “Shouldn’t you be in class, given you’re on academic probation?”

“Not until this afternoon. Are we going inside?”

I’ve fired everyone who was working on the project with Mason and brought in a team of people I trust. Apparently it’s safe to enter, so we go inside.

“What was it before?” Avril says, turning three hundred and sixty degrees. “It’s beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” I scoff. “It’s a literal construction site.”

“But look at the crown moldings,” she says, pointing at the thirty-foot ceilings. “Oh god. And that staircase. It’s like it belongs in a palace.”

“Hardly,” I mumble. “Those stairs should be a bank of elevators by now. No apartment building should be without one.”

“Seriously? You were tearing this down to make apartments? Where’s your soul, Worth?”

“Run off to South America with my half a million dollars,” I reply.

“It would look incredible with a marble floor. And you’d have to do a royal-blue rug. No! Electric blue. You could really go old school and restore it to its glory, but add in a curveball here and there. Let’s see through here.”

I follow Avril as she leads the way through abandoned piles of rubble and random bits of timber.

“This is gorgeous. The bar is still in good shape. Do you have the original plans?” she asks. “Or any photographs of the hotel before it… ended up like this?”

“How did you know it was a hotel?”

Avril laughs. “It wasn’t a family home with these dimensions. And I bet we can find a ballroom somewhere around here. Oh god, Worth, it’s great. You can’t pull it down.”

Of course I’m going to pull it down. That’s been the plan for the last three years. “It’s all settled. I’ve got all the permits and a team of new architects on board.” I don’t really know why I’m here, other than to allay my guilt over being so hands-off before. Mason was my choice and my investment, which means the blame for him fucking off to South America lies at least partially at my feet. I don’t want to make the same mistake again.

“You should restore it. Make it a hotel again. It would be worth a fortune.”

“It’ll be worth a fortune when it’s eighty-three apartments.”

She sighs. “No soul. I thought you were looking for a hotel in New York.”noveldrama

“I bought one in Boston.” Although I can’t remember how long it’s been since my last visit. I need to be more on the ground in all my investments, but I’m spread thin at the moment.

“Sell that one,” she says, like she’s playing Monopoly and not million-dollar real estate.

“I’m not selling it.” I never wanted the Boston hotel in the first place, but Bennett, Byron, Jack, Fisher, Leo, and I had all agreed to buy a hotel after we sold the business we created at school together. Now we hold an annual competition to see which one—or who—is most successful. A little friendly competition to strengthen the glue that holds our friendship together. Only, I couldn’t find a property in New York that made commercial sense and hadn’t been snapped up by one of my friends. So I ended up with a property in Boston and dutifully lose the competition every year.

“So tell me about academic probation,” I say as we head into what might have been a dining room. Or maybe a lounge. It’s difficult to say.

She sighs. “I don’t know, my soul isn’t in it.”

“Does your soul need to be in it?” I ask. “Don’t we just need your brain to be in it?”

“Ha ha. I just don’t think economics and I are… meant to be.”

“You’re not dating. You just need a degree. Even if you don’t do anything economics-related, a degree will be useful.”

“I could come and manage this project for you. Help with design and decision-making.”

“The decisions are made. The plans have been approved for well over a year.”

Avril folds her arms. “I don’t like economics,” she says. “I want to do something creative. Coming here just makes it worse, because I see ten jobs I could be doing and really enjoying. Instead, I’m stuck in a classroom, wondering whether I’m destined to become just another empty wannabe banker who would do anything for a dollar.”

You won’t just find Avril’s name next to the entry for exaggeration in the dictionary—you’ll also find a full-color photo.

“You’re telling me you want to drop out in your junior year? With nothing to show for it except your brother’s empty wallet?”

She sighs. “Oh please. You’ve got more money than god. And what’s the point in being rich if you can’t use your wealth to help others? To feed your sister’s soul.”

“You’re ridiculous,” I say. I don’t even know how to respond to her. My mind is too full of other things. I want to see more of Sophia. She’s busy tonight, and I hate the thought of spending the night without her. I’d be happy for her to move in so we could really get to know each other, but I know she’s not ready for me to suggest that.

During the brief moments when I’m not thinking about Sophia, I’m consumed by thoughts of this Ninth Street disaster. I really don’t want to take on a project like this—at least not when I have to be involved at the literal ground floor.

And now there’s Avril.

I’m used to having solutions to everything, but today it’s raining problems and I’m out of umbrellas.

Sophia was surprised that Avril being on academic probation was a problem for me personally. I suppose in a normal family, it would be my parents’ problem, but we’re not a normal family. Will I always play a pseudo-parental role in my sisters’ lives? I’m not sure I know how to relate to them any other way. I should be encouraging both of them to be more independent.

“You need to stay in school⁠—”

Avril groans from the other room.

“Let me finish,” I say. “It doesn’t make any sense for you to quit when you don’t have any idea what you’re going to do. It’s not like you have anything lined up.”

Avril appears in the doorway. “I hate it, Worth.”

“So find something you want to do. Something you’re passionate about. This is your life, Avril. It’s not my responsibility to figure out what you want to do with it.”

“I told you, I can help you with this place.”

I sigh. Is she just looking for an easy out? I can’t tell. I need more data. “Then write me a plan. No whining. No excuses. Write me a plan for this place or whatever it is you want to do if you drop out of Columbia.”

“I don’t need your permission, you know. I could just drop out.”

I fix her with a stare. She knows she needs my okay to leave the Ivy League school I’ve been paying for.

“Okay, what kind of plan?” she relents.

“Tell me what you’re going to do. What experience and qualifications you need. I want a career plan from you. And don’t half-ass it. Do it properly. You need to sell me on this.”

A smile twitches at the edges of her mouth. “You’ll consider it?”

“I’ll consider the plan. But if it’s bullshit, it gets tossed, just like the ten proposals I get per week that I don’t think are worth my time. And you stay in school. But if it’s good, then, like I said—it’s your life.”

She bounces on her toes. “This is going to be the best plan you’ve ever fucking seen.”

That’s all I’ve ever wanted for my sisters—a life plan. I don’t want to see them disappear into nothing like my mother did after my dad died. I want them to have something to get up for every morning. For Mom, we weren’t enough. If Avril and Poppy find something to be passionate about, there will always be a light at the end of every tunnel.

It takes me a little by surprise when Avril slips her arm into mine and rests her head on my shoulder. “Thank you, Worth. You won’t regret this.”

I hope she’s right.