The Secret (Boston's Best 1)

Chapter Thirty-Five

Matt

It's been a week since I asked Maddie out and beside the fact that I can't tell anyone, it's been great.

I really don't understand why we can't tell anyone but it seems serious to her so I'm not going to question it that much.

I told my grandparents a few days ago and my granny was ecstatic when I told her but she's been suspiciously quiet about it all since then. Which is really unlike her because she usually has five hundred and ten questions about everything.

Maddie and I are going on our first date today and I'm pretty nervous but mostly excited.

We're going to the cinema to see the newest Marvel movie and I'm just pacing in my apartment –I spent the night here for the first time in months which I think is a huge improvement, waiting for her to text me and tell me she's ready.

I sit down at the counter and drink a glass of water as my phone rings with a number I don't recognise.

I put the glass down and pick up my phone, "Hello? This is Matthew Brown."

I deep man's voice comes from the other end of the line, "Hello, Matthew. This is Oscar Rooney, your parents' lawyer."

"Oh, Mr Rooney, hey. How are you?"

"Fine, Matthew, thank you. Now I'm sorry that this is very sudden but there is a lot to talk about and I'm afraid it can't wait."

The hell? "Okay...What is it?"

"Your parents Dubai properties."

I hop off the counter and stand up. "What about them?"

I hear him sigh, "I'm afraid that there is too much to say. You'll need to come out here the second you are available."

"I'm sorry, let me see if I have this right. You want me to fly out to Dubai for reasons that are too top secret that you can't just tell me over the phone?"

"Yes." He says.

"Mr Rooney, I'm sorry but I'm still in school. I have a month left, finals are in like two weeks, I'm graduating at the end of the month. I can't just drop everything and fly over to the United Arab Emirates just for fun."

I can practically hear the cogs in his brain moving for a solid minute before he says, "Okay, you finish high school and then you have two weeks to do whatever and then you come out here."

"Okay, Oscar I'm sorry, but I can't do that."

"Bloody hell, Matthew.."

"I can't just drop everything and fly to Dubai without even knowing why."

He sighs again and says, "Fine. I will fly out to Boston in two weeks. So, on the fourteenth of May you will come to my office and I'll try and explain everything there. But after this talk you will want to come to Dubai. I'll have my assistant email you the details"

"Okay, sure, why not. See you then, I guess."

He ends the call before me and I put my phone down feeling confused as fuck.

Genuinely I'm starting to get ticked off about all this talk about these fucking 'Dubai properties'. Like my parents were criminal defense attorneys, it's not like they were in the fucking mob or something.

Dubai has one of their law firm's and a house that was barely ever used. What's so important about all of that?

It could simply be about Brown, LLC. and that I have to make my decision on if I want to stay as the majority shareholder in the firm and continue to make money or just take the money my parents left me from their will –which is a lot, and leave behind their legacy entirely.

It's not like I'll have to run the firm or anything but it's still a huge responsibility for me to make. Especially if everything works out for me with football, like a pro-football player has no business owning a part of a law firm.

Even if football doesn't work out though I'm still getting my degree French and history nothing for business or law.

It's a fucked up situation.

I mean losing both of your parents and becoming an orphan when you've just turned eighteen is already fucked as it is, but to add on top of that insane stress already, you then decide to give that child their parents combined net worth of one point two billion dollars, nineteen properties and estates globally, and a fucking law firm.

Like who thinks that's okay.

In their will it was stated that if they died before I was eighteen everything for the business and that type of thing was to go to my grandad on my dad's side –because he's a retired lawyer, and the money was to not be touched until I turned twenty-five and I'd get everything then.

But if they died after I turned eighteen, every single thing that they owned would get left to me. They literally died three weeks after I turned eighteen. This all would've been so much easier if it was beforehand, or better yet not at all.

But they did leave me options, I suppose:

I keep my majority shares and drop whatever my minor in college is and study business as my minor and continue to be a shareholder in the firm.

Or,

Sell my shares to their list of pre-approved and vetted lawyers and take that money and go on with life.

I haven't got a bloody clue what I'm going to do.

But for right now I'm going to go on a date with my girlfriend.