“Maybe more,” Brandon said, grinning. “Some guys from college are in town. A few clients. People who matter.”
People who matter.
I looked at my son, the child I put through business school, the adult whose failed restaurant I bailed out twice, the man whose mortgage I helped with when his graphic design company nearly folded.
People who matter, he said, in my home, on my dime, while I slept upstairs like hired help.
“All right,” I said.
Brandon brightened, mistaking my calm for surrender.
He had no idea my real preparations were already in motion.
That afternoon, while they scrambled to “host,” I lounged on the deck with a book. Not because I wasn’t angry, but because anger is sharper when it’s rested. I watched strangers wander through my garden and open my cooler and claim my chairs. I watched Brandon hand out spare keys to people he’d never introduced to me.
By six o’clock, the driveway looked like a luxury dealership. Mercedes, BMWs, Range Rovers. Brandon’s important people arrived with the confident energy of guests who assume someone else is paying.