Chapter 3: The Unraveling

The reassuring scent of rosemary and garlic enveloped Davidson as soon as he pushed open the front door. It was a smell that had forever been synonymous with home, safety, and a day's honest work rewarded. Tonight it was like a rebuke. 

"Daddy!"

Six-year-old Jake tackled Davidson's legs, hardly allowing him time to set down his duffel bag. Five-year-old Sarah was right behind, tiny arms around his waist. The simple, unadulterated joy of it was a balm and a torture.

"Hey, my guys," he whispered, tousling their hair, his voice husky with emotion. He swept Jake up onto his hip. "What's for dinner? Smells incredible."

"Mommy's cooking your favorite!" Sarah announced proudly.

Melissa emerged from the kitchen, her hands wrapped in a checkered apron. Her smile was real, but it wavered for a fraction of an inch short of her eyes. She had been worried. "There he is. We worried that the rig finally swallowed you up." Her gaze swept over his coveralls. "Long day? You didn't even take off your clothes."

The two words, 'helicopter' and 'New York' and 'Joe Brian', clung to his tongue, a poisonous, alien weight. He did smile. "The worst. A pressure spike on number three. But she's doing all right now." It was not a lie. It was merely not the whole truth. The half-truth was like a new language he was learning how to do incorrectly.

Dinner was a helter-skelter, affectionate ordeal. The children chatted about school, about a bug they had found, about a cartoon. Davidson listened, smiled in the proper spots, and poked his meatloaf around his plate. Melissa watched him, her perceptive eyes taking in everything.

"Shh you," she said after the kids had been shooed into the living room to catch TV. She began putting away the plates, her fingers moving rapidly. "Was it just literally the pressure spike? You're a million miles away."

This was the moment. The start. I met a billionaire today. He offered me a job. In New York. The words coalesced in his head, simple and impossible to put into words.

Just exhausted, Mel," he evaded, piling the plates. "Long day. My head's still on the rig." He transported the pile to the sink, turning on the faucet to provide a wall of sound between them.

He sensed her hesitation behind him. "You know you can tell me, don't you? Whatever it is.

The gentleness in her tone was a knife jab. He nodded, afraid of saying something, and concentrated on washing a plate that was already spotless.

Later, after bath time and stories and the final, gentle click of the children's bedroom door, the house fell silent at a deep, sheltering level. Melissa was in bed, reading a book beside the light of her lamp. Davidson stood in the doorway, looking at her. The gentle curve of her neck, the relaxed way she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. This was his life. This was the life he had fought to obtain.

He stripped his clothes off and slid into sweatpants and a t-shirt and climbed into bed. The space between them was more extensive than ever before.

"Davidson," she said softly, placing her book aside. "What's wrong?"

He gazed upward, at the tiny crack in the plaster they'd been meaning to fix for years. He could still sense the whirl of that penthouse view, the cold of the air-conditioning, the heaviness of Joe Brian's eye.

"I got an. an offer today," he began, the words sounding unnatural and foreign.

She turned onto her side to regard him, propping her chin on her hand. "An offer? From whom? Another company?" A note of worry crept into her voice. They'd talked about moving for a better job before, but it had never been far-off, theoretical conversation.

"Not exactly." He took a breath. "It was from Joe Brian. Himself."

Melissa sat up a little, the blankets rustling. "Joe Brian? Joe Brian? What would he want with you?"

The question, as logical as it was, stung. It was a reiteration of his own initial doubts. "He liked my work on the Porter Creek well. The valve thing." He kept his recitation concise, mechanical. "He wants me to come to New York. To work with him one-on-one. A. A special projects job."

The room was silent for a very long time. He heard the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen downstairs.

"New York," she repeated, the words flat. "Special projects. What does that even mean? How long?"

"I don't know. It's… open-ended."

"Open-ended," she repeated. She kicked her legs over the side of the bed and walked to the window, looking out into the black street. "So, what? We just up and go? Transplant the kids? Leave our families, our church? For an 'open-ended' project?"

No," he said, the word tumbling out too rapidly. "Not we. Me."

She turned slowly, her face bleached by the moonlight. "You."

"It's a temporary assignment, Mel. A marvelous opportunity. He's… he's going to mentor me. Teach me how things are done." Even to himself, it sounded foolish, the words of a boy repeating a dream.

"Teach you what?" she was yelling now, losing her sweetness. "How to be a billionaire? Davidson, you're insane. You have a family here. A life. You can't just leave."

"It's not forever," he said firmly, standing up. "It's a chance to learn from the best. For us, Mel! This can change our lives. The money alone."

"I don't care about the money!" The outburst was bitter, coming to them both unawares. She spoke quietly, but her voice was choked with anguish. "I care about my husband. I care about my children dining with their father. This isn't you. When do you go after? this?" She gestured round her with a sweep of her hand to include the absurdity of it all.

"Because I realized that there is an entire world out here and we have no clue about it!" he shot back, his own fury piercing through. "A world in which problems are solved using something greater than a wrench and sweat! Do you not want something better for us? For the kids?"

"Everything I need is right here!" she cried, her tears glistening. "You're talking about trading what you have for some. Some shining fantasy. This man, this Brian, he snaps his fingers and you just leap? Who are you at this moment?

Her words were blows because they carried the ring of his own doubt. What was he? The holy husband, the devoted father, the man who made prayers possible at this same dinner table? Or the man who had stood in a penthouse and felt more alive than he'd felt in years?

"It's forty-eight hours, Mel," he said to her, his voice hardening, clinging to the deadline as a lifeline. "I have to return to him with some kind of decision in forty-eight hours."

She stared at him as though she did not recognize him. The space between them was not just large; now it was a chasm.

"Get out," she panted, the voice harsh.

"Melissa—"

"Get out!" she said, more loudly, pointing towards the door. "I can't even stand to look at you right now. I can't believe that we're having this conversation."

He stood up, his chest a furious thrumming against his ribcage. He moved out of their bedroom and went down the stairs, the weight of each one slow. He didn't keep going until he was standing in the deepening yard, the Texas air warm and thick around him.

He dived into his pocket and brought out his phone. His thumb rested on the screen. Call his pastor. Call his dad. Call for guidance, prayer, wisdom.

Rather, his fingers moved on their own, typing in a name in a search engine that he only used to find manuals for components.

Joseph Brian.

His screen was cluttered with images. The man of oil summits, unblemished and impervious. The man who opened the ribbon on a new corporate high-rise. The man was photographed at a distance on the deck of a luxury yacht. Rumors about his business deal-making, his tough-nosed negotiations, his enigmatic lifestyle. Rumor about his private life, always smothered by a powerful PR machine.

Davidson scrolled, captivated. This was the world he was being given a master key to. A world of bright lines, immense power, and utter control. A world devoid of meatloaf dinners and stippled ceilings.

A text message notification appeared at the top of the screen, startling him. It was a number he didn't know.

The forty-eight hours begin now. - J.B.

The simple message was a hook in his chest, pulling at him away from the black yard, away from the house of weeping children and wailing wife. Joe Brian was on the phone. Joe Brian was clocking it out.

Davidson sat down on the back step, the concrete cold on his sweatpants. He looked over at the house, at the soft light from his children's nightlight in the window.

Then he looked down at the phone, at the brusque, commanding a message from a man who saw systems where other men saw cities.

The disintegration had begun. And he was the one pulling on the thread.

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