Here it comes.
“As floor supervisor, I’d think you’d be more on the rigs. Daily. Not just pushing papers from an air-conditioned office.”
“Dad—” I start, but Jordan’s hand brushes my knee under the table, a soft tap. I catch his hand under the table, squeezing briefly. He squeezes back, and I feel the slight tremor in his fingers.
He's nervous. Still, when he speaks, there's no hint of fear.
“That’s a fair question. My title at the Henderson site isn’t actually Floor Supervisor. I’m an Executive Intern,” he explains, calmly. And suddenly, he’s not the boy I make out with in cars, or the man who makes me tremble with a look. He’s the heir to Apex Energy. The future CEO. The one they’ve been grooming since he was old enough to sit in on merger calls.
"Executive intern?" Dad presses, looking unconvinced.
“I’m on a three-year leadership rotation across all forty Apex locations in the country. In my first year, I worked twelve-hour shifts in full gear. Rigs. Refineries. Dispatch yards. Side by side with the crew.”
Dad’s eyebrows twitch.
“I agree with you, Mr. Wells—if I’m going to run a company that asks men to sweat for it, I should be willing to bleed for it too.”
His voice is steady. Quiet. But it lands like a challenge.
“I have. I do. Every day,” he adds softly, like it costs him something to say it.
A long beat passes.
Then Dad nods once. It’s not warm. Not approval. But something shifts in the air—like the ground between them just got a little more level.
“And now?” Dad asks. “You pushing pencils in your final year?”
Jordan’s mouth lifts. “I’m shadowing senior management. Mostly business operations and compliance. Learning where the real messes are made.”
Dad lets out a small grunt. “They don’t teach that in a boardroom.”
“No, sir,” Jordan agrees. “They really don’t.”
And just like that, they're talking. Not like billionaire heir and plant foreman. Not like boss and employee. But like twomen who understand what it means to carry responsibility that doesn't care if you're tired or scared or overwhelmed.
They go deep into industry talk — safety protocols, labor disputes, regulatory chokeholds. Jordan talks about a shutdown in Oklahoma and how they handled the fallout. Dad counters with a story about the union push back in ‘08 and how they barely kept the plant open.
I can barely keep up.
But I don’t need to. I just sit there, quietly stunned, watching this thing happen. This impossible, surreal thing: Jordan Farrington — rich, beautiful, confident Jordan — earning my father’s guarded respect.
Jordan sounds older than anyone his age has any right to sound, and watching him, I realize again at how he never had the luxury of being a kid. He went from kindergarten school to being groomed to run a billion-dollar empire, without any space in between to just... be.
The thought makes my chest ache.
Mom brings out cinnamon apple pie—warm, with vanilla ice cream melting over the top—and the conversation shifts. She asks Jordan about his family, and he tells her about Meredith, his younger sister.
"And your mother?" Mom asks. "Does she work with the company?"
Jordan's expression shifts—subtle, but I catch it. "She's an executive too, although prefers to defer her voting rights to my father."
A decision Jordan obviously hates. I file this information for later.
Mom and Dad exchange a look, but say nothing. By the time the dessert plates are scraped clean, the air in the room has changed completely. It's warm and easy.
Dad stands with a soft grunt, stretching his back. “Jordan, you mind helping with dishes?”
Jordan’s up before I can even blink. “Of course, sir.”
