Jack thought about the next four years, being dressed and groomed like a prized pony, and maybe the years after that, carrying the weight of his history as an underprivileged child graced with the trappings of unimaginable wealth.

Begging for it.

He was still a kid. It felt like too much.

They did go back to the party, and it was dull, mini crab cakes, bland and unseasoned, and cheese trays which no one ate, and Jack kept seeing Frank at more parties over the years, and he was good to talk to as adults rarely were, and he—

Frank started buying his books. His uniforms. Jack wasn’t supposed to know that—his bills were just magically paid, and only a gossiping secretary let Frank’s name slip. He never fully figured out why he did it, not until Frank pulled him aside, after he was named valedictorian at his graduation, and offered him an internship. Casually mentioning, like it was nothing at all, that Frank had grown up homeless. How he’d never had real family.

How he now had a lot to give.

Here, in his office, Jack looked over the quarterly report—Frank’s name still on every letterhead, despite his death fifteen years ago—and thought about that history, how he was indebted, and the wording of Frank’s will: To the son of my heart, Jack Gardner.

All because of a bow tie.

Thank fuck he’d researched how to tie them.

He dropped the papers, missing Frank deeply, and stood, walking away from his desk.

Something that he could never tell anyone—one more secret for him to bury—was that he never saw Frank as a father. Frank was a dream, a wish...the true ticket out of poverty he imagined but never thought was real. Jack had loved Frank, of course, but he would never be able to separate the money from the man. It made him hate himself—one more bit of evidence that he was broken inside.

Years working here, the internship which turned into a career, skipping past college and careening right into wealth management, running a business that often ran itself, his bank account pretty damned significant—certainly considering where he’d started—and he was so grateful. He put money where it could do good; he paid for more scholarships at Gwynns, far more than they had ever offered before. He donated to various charities, lots of them, and he knew what it was like to go to formal galas and cocktail parties and be friendly to the kids like him who were still dressed up like evidence, like paper dolls. He was glad to be doing so many good things.

And he was also...quietly miserable.