“I know, right?” I say. “Look, I get it. I really messed up. Like, bad. But I wouldn’t have done this if Dad hadn’t put so much pressure on me. It was always Columbia this and Columbia that. He sets these standards that are impossible to meet. I mean, you know. That’s why he kicked you out.”

Lion takes two inhales of his tiny remote, tilts his head back, and blows what I suspect is a failed attempt at a circle.

“The reason Jacques kicked me out, Henri, was you. Specifically, your moral virtue. Old Jacquo didn’t want me corrupting his stalwart son, who was actually going places. I’m not making light of your pain here, but the irony is pretty delicious.”

He lets out a wry cough and then leans forward and hawks a spit at the city below.

“His Ivy League–headed son,” I correct, hoping some poor little old lady doesn’t get her evening ruined by an e-cigarette loogie. “Without that, you and I are in the same canvas bag with a big F on it. Failures.”

Lion stares at me with a frown, as if running scenarios in his mind.

“Okay, I want you to listen to me now. Really carefully, okay?”

He puts his hand on my shoulder to anchor us both in the moment.

“You, my dear handsome nephew, are a privileged little punk who goes to bed with a full stomach every night because his dad fixes toilets and drags leaky trash bags all day.”

I try to say something, but he quickly preempts me.

“I don’t care if you get pissed at me,” he says. “Someone has to tell you. If someone out there gets to hold you to a higher standard, it’s your dad.”

He’s right. I know he’s right. I can blame my dad as much as I want, but at the end of the day, this was my fault. I wrote that email. I sent it. The fallout is mine to bear.

The door to the roof abruptly swings open and an older building-staff member whose uniform matches Lion’s steps forward, his face flushed from climbing the stairwell. He has the loaded bearing of a supervisor. He throws me a confused look before narrowing down on Lion.

“You’re supposed to be on desk duty right now, Lionel!”

“Taking a break.” Lion shrugs. “Family st—”

“Family stuff, yeah, I know the line. . . . You get one break a day. One! Not one per made-up family emergency, man. C’mon! The twenty-third-floor movers were waiting to sign out, and there was no one downstairs.”

“Then fire me,” Lion says coolly, which causes the man’s eyes to momentarily go wide with rage. Lionel is making the face, that face. The one that used to enrage Dad at the dinner table. Completely blank with just the very faintest hint of a smirk.