THE BOSS AT THE KIDS’ TABLE

—Well, at least no one pretends here.
That landed like the truth.
I sat down. Handed out juice boxes. Opened ketchup packets. Drew a dragon for the boy with the bow tie, Parker, who then asked for another one with bigger wings and green fire. From that corner, I could see everything.
Jeffrey’s “power table.” The executives. The partners. My mother’s fake smile as she paraded the wedding like a coronation. My father puffing his chest because his son was “finally among the important people.” They had spent years looking down on me.
“Are you still writing on the internet?” Jeffrey would ask at every family gathering.
“Your brother knows how to move up,” my mother would say. “You’re smart, but you hide too much.”
They understood nothing. Jeffrey talked a lot. I listened better.
That’s why I wrote like no one else.
By twenty-five, I already had contracts with politicians, business leaders, foundations, and executives. All under confidentiality clauses. All more than happy to pay well for someone who could put into words what they couldn’t say themselves.
I made more money than my family could imagine, but I never showed it. And they, comfortable in their contempt, never asked.
I was finishing the green fire on Parker’s dragon when I felt the air in the room shift.
Conversations stopped.
Heads turned toward the entrance.
Xavier Thorne had just arrived.
And in that moment, I knew something was about to explode.