“No.” Avery’s mother’s reaction to the idea of buying the Riley place was firm. “Avery, it’s a bad idea.”

  Avery narrowly managed to avoid a fiery response that would have made his defiant teenage self from a decade ago proud. He stabbed a piece of pancake with his fork, chewed, and swallowed a bite to allow himself a second to compose a more thoughtful answer than, ‘You never agree to anything I want, fuck you!’

  Casey was dead quiet, beside him. Across the table, Simon kept glancing at Casey’s expression with confusion. Casey looked as angry as Avery felt, but Avery’s mother was completely ignoring their matching dark expressions.

  She was so . He could have mouthed the words with her when she said exactly the thing that Avery didn’t want to hear, because she’d said them so many times in the past. “Avery, I know you love the business with Casey, but you have much potential. I want you to go back to college.”

  “For theater,” he said flatly.

  “Or, you could relocate to LA. With the family name and some connections I can leverage, we can get you into some key events and parties... you’ll meet people. Then all you have to do is turn on the charm; I know you know how to do that! You have so much talent, and you’re wasting—”

  Casey said in a firm voice, “Annette. He doesn’t want to.”

  Avery stopped grinding his teeth long enough to say, “Mom, I’m happy here. You’re willing to pay for me to move to LA or buy me a spot in a fancy acting program that I didn’t , but you won’t let me have $250K from a nine-figure trust fund to buy a house on multiple acres that a good deal. At that price, I could scrape the lot clean with a bulldozer, sell the land, and make a $50K profit in a month.”

  “You’ve got the talent, looks, and the charm to make it big, and you know it,” Annette said, ignoring his irritation. “It’s just your record with what happened with that silly college play—”

  “There are lots of people out there with the ‘whole package’ without my record.” Avery wished she’d just leave and go back home. His voice hit the sort of infuriated tones only his mother could provoke when he continued, “The last time I went to college? I ended up in an for a because I I won’t put myself in that position again, Mom! It’s not healthy!”

  “You’ve got better coping skills now, though. You’ve worked so hard to get where you’re at, and now it’s time you benefit.” She pointed her fork at him. “You just need more confidence in yourself. We won’t have you be the lead next time. Just get a bit part to start. Work into it.”

  “They heard me sing, saw me act, and you gave them a shit ton of money, and then they didn’t give me a choice about the role,” Avery muttered.

  Of course, his mother the play he’d been cast into, a musical about a trans woman rock star. She’d wanted him to play that role for years. But, for his part, he’d struggled to identify with the character and had been irritated by some plot points. It wasn’t that the character was trans — that was fine, he’d mulled over changing his own pronouns often enough — but rather, that he’d been mystified why the woman let a man use and abuse her in the name of love. The part just hadn’t resonated with him.

  Plus, even as good as his voice was, he doubted they’d have cast an eighteen-year-old freshman in the role without the gift of a very large endowment for the college.

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  “I have faith in you. I know you can do this. We can arrange for counseling every day if you need it. Meds. Pot. Whatever you want. You’re so talented. You’re —”

  “. You know I don’t like weed. That’s thing.” Avery gritted his teeth together.

  “It would help with your anxiety a lot more than those poisons you take!”

  Casey said, “Annette. He takes medication prescribed by his doctor, and it works well for him. He said no. You’re not hearing him.”

  “If it worked for him, he wouldn’t be refusing to go back to college or work on a career!”

  “Annette!” Casey repeated her name, putting a bit more warning into his voice. Avery really hoped they weren’t going to end up in an actual argument. The last time, while he was still an inpatient, had resulted in his mother and brother not speaking to one another for months.

  “I don’t understand. He sings in bars here.” She shot Casey a dangerously annoyed look.

  Avery growled, “Yeah. Karaoke, or sometimes I jam with Katie’s band for the love of music. In a little neighborhood bar in a small town,if I break a guitar string or trip going up the stairs or something else stupid happens in front of an audience of thirty drunk locals and the bartender’s cattle dog. The audience laughs; it’s all in good fun. Mom, I don't want to be famous. I be. What I do is run a successful business here, with friends and family I love, and my cats, and my house.”

  It was his mother’s turn to stab her breakfast with her cutlery.

  He added, “I music. I don’t have to be famous to it.”

  “You’re wasting your talent.”

  He shook his head. He disagreed, but he was tired of arguing with her about it, so he changed the subject. “And you’re right that shop isn’t making a huge amount of money, but it’s solvent and paying everyone’s wages. To grow, I need capital from that’ll be mine in six months anyway. That house is a good deal. If we can fix it up, it’d make a fantastic B&B. If it can’t be fixed, we scrape the lot clean, sell it for about $300K, and walk away with a profit. Win-fucking-win.”

  She stared down her nose at Avery for a long moment before saying, “If you want to get into buying and selling properties, we can get you an internship in my company, and you can learn from my execs.”

  He didn’t want to deal in giant real estate deals that spanned multiple countries and involved billions with colleagues who were the pompous scions of wealthy families. Avery started to slump down in his seat, but his ribs protested the motion. “I’m not working for you, Mom. I’d strangle Davis within the week. He doesn’t even like me.”

  Davis had once lamented in Avery’s earshot that it was unfortunate Avery wasn’t a girl because pretty girls from good families could be married off to rich men if they were otherwise useless. Useless men, he claimed, had no redeeming value. When he’d complained about that comment to his mother, she’d said the man was ‘just joking.’

  Avery knew he didn't always read people correctly, but he was pretty sure that Davis believed the joke. Davis was his mother’s assistant, so if he worked for her, he’d have to deal with him daily.

  Instead of denying Davis’s opinion of him, his mother said, “That’s why I think you should go back to school. You need to make better options for yourself than the Junk Shop, kiddo.”

  It was Simon who interrupted her this time. “Annette, you truly love your son, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.” She turned an angry scowl on Simon.

  Simon said, “I can see he loves you back. Perhaps this discussion can be postponed until another day. You may wish to decide where you will be willing to compromise on your vision for your son’s life. Sometimes, we all need to pick our priorities, and perhaps your love for him should be a greater priority than your dreams for a future he doesn’t desire.”

  She blinked at Simon. Simon stared back, one eyebrow lifting.

  Casey coughed and hid his mouth behind his hand.

  Simon met Annette’s furious glare with green eyes that didn’t bear even the slightest hint of guile. Finally, and very much to Avery’s surprise, she took a deep breath and apologized. “Sorry, Aves. I just — I want to see you succeed. You have talent you’re wasting. You could have died last week.”

  Avery sighed. “Yeah, Mom, I know. Casey — let’s go for a drive after breakfast and totally look at the disaster of a house you think we should buy.”

  His mother started to say something, then bit her lip and focused on cutting her pancakes into tiny pieces.

  Simon met Avery’s gaze across the table and briefly inclined his head in acknowledgment before returning his attention to his plate.