What Love Breeds

Chapter 11

The screen blinks from black to his father's face in two alarming seconds. Jason clears his throat. "Hi, Dad."

"This better be good, Jay," his father snarls. His tan, weathered skin is backlit by the bright Greek sun. James Shaw is difficult to hear over the crash of waves and live music that blares from the resort patio, but his familiar glare is loud and clear.

"So, um, we had the yearly review a few weeks ago." Jason clears his throat. He adjusts the laptop's angle in a nervous fidget.

"And?" James snaps.

"And, you remember Dressings? Van Dressings? He said - well, mentioned, that the board liked to sample farm products."

James is unmoved. As Jason's pause sits between them, unwanted and untouched, he repeats himself, "And?"

"He fucked one of the cows. Our newest project, actually. He implied that they - that the board would do this frequently when you were - when it was you. I just needed to know if that were true." Jason swallows thickly.

James cocks one bushy grey eyebrow. "That's it? Yeah, they fuck 'em. What, are you asking if you should've charged? They're the board for Christ's sake, Jason. They can fuck them whenever they want."

"Did you?" Jason blurts.

"Did I what?" James demands, an icy edge undercutting the question.

"Did you use them the same way the board does?" Jason asks. He knows better than this. Years of working for his father in bookkeeping, of coming home from college and rounding the business with his dad, of sitting in board meetings preparing for the eventual day he would have the position he does now; they've all trained him to never ask his dad a question he doesn't want the answer to, but more importantly, one his father won't want to answer. But the desperation wrings Jason like a rag and something inside him is imploding. He stares at his father's ever-present scowl, and struggles to remember how to breath.

His father leans in closer to the video camera until his unblinking, unwavering facade takes up its entirety. Jason would snort if he weren't frozen with fear. "Now listen to me, here. I never touched one of our girls. As the owner, as the founder, I couldn't wake up the next day and respect myself. Could you?"

Jason shakes his head so briefly it's almost imperceptible.

"Good." James takes a second before leaning away slightly. "You don't mix business with pleasure. You don't. Even when the business is pleasure. It's a line you don't cross, impossible to come back from. At that point, the business might as well crumble under your feet. You're finished."

"What... What do you mean?"

James rolls his eyes. "You'll understand when you've seen it happen. Randall's Dairy came close once, in the nineties. Too close for comfort if you ask me. You remember what happened with Wayne Randall?"

"No."

James waves his hand and brushes the story aside. "Find someone else to tell you. All that matters is, you've never messed around with the livestock. Right?"

Jason nods. "Yes, sir."

"And you won't. If you do, you'll be out. I'll find some other yuppy to take your position, or, Hell, call your sister up." James laughs bitterly. "Either way, you touch one of them, and I'll bury you in some position so far down the totem pole they won't even recognize your name. But you knew that, because I didn't raise an idiot," he spits.

"Right," Jason says before quickly correcting himself, "Right, sir."

"Good. Get back to work." James fumbles to slap the laptop shut, leaving Jason with his own reflection in the blank screen. His eyebags sag into his cheeks, and there's a weary clench to his jaw. Jason reaches a trembling hand for his thermos and takes a deep sip of Essie, still warm in the cup.