“You told me I was chained to my desk, that my self-worth came from my billable hours. When I saw that picture, I realized I’d never been happy in that job … and I compared that with how happy the studio makes you. How much fun the two of you have together,” he gestured loosely, but kept his eyes on his sister like it hurt to look at me, “and I envied that.”
With pleading eyes, he said to Victoria, “We’ve been miserable for a decade because we let somebody else dictate our success.”
Her face was implacable, but her hands gripped the chair seat. Her lip quivered and she bit it tightly as her gaze dropped to the table. I felt like I was watching something off-limits. They had a decade of history, and I walked into this … what exactly was this: a negotiation or an olive branch? A job offer or a lifeline?
“Victoria,” he said softly, like he was talking to a scared cat. “If we do this, we become our own bosses, set our own hours and make our own rules. I think …” he took a deep breath. “I think we could have fun.”
She lifted her head slowly to meet his gaze. They stared at each other for about thirty seconds of tense silence. Even though neither was paying attention to me, I held my breath in case an errant cough broke their nonverbal standoff.
Even Mallory stopped fidgeting for once.
Victoria broke the silence in a rapid-fire deliberation. “Six months.”
“Twelve.”
“Nine.”
“End of the year, and I pay for a headhunter if you hate it.”
She nodded once, decisively, and stood with her hand outstretched. He grabbed it and pulled her close into a hug. She let out a surprised squeal and smacked his chest. The gesture made my chest tighten.
When she stepped back, she ran her palm over her silk blouse as he wagged his finger at her. “We max out at sixty hours a week.”
He slid the spiral-bound notebook over to Victoria. She lifted a paper small enough to be a business card, and her mouth curved from a tight line into a mischievous smile.
After another tense pause, the silence got to me. “I’ll send over the studio’s financial details so you can get started.”
Confusion furrowed his brow. “Is that why you think you’re here?”
I kept my eyes on the empty table.
“Shit, Grace, no,” he said sharply, running his hand down his face. “No, I wanted this figured out before I — I need to tell you that —”
He stopped, expression pained. Slowly, his head tilted across the table, where his sister and his ex-girlfriend-slash-business-partner sat wide-eyed. “Can you excuse us?”
Victoria glided elegantly to the small porch, black heels tapping. Mallory followed, winking at me salaciously and closing the door behind her.
Alex’s hands dropped to his sides. He said tenderly, “Grace, I’m sorry I didn’t make it clear, I wasn’t expecting you to — she only had an hour, and before I …”
His eyes were too intense, his voice too deep, his smell too strong. After missing him so much, not knowing if I’d ever see him again, finally reaching out and getting brushed off, feeling like he didn’t want me here now …
I cracked. I had to look away, anywhere but at his worried face.
“Shit,” he muttered. “I wanted to give you my undivided attention. I had — I had two hours to finish this, then I was going to —”
“Stop,” I said, holding up my hand. “I need a minute.”
He exhaled, then dropped into the chair Mallory had just vacated. Instead of her relaxed sprawl, he sat with his elbows on his knees, running his palms along his legs. My fingers rose to my brow, rubbing my forehead as if I could smooth out the myriad questions floating around my head.
After a few moments, I asked the only question my overwhelmed brain could parse: “What are you doing here?”
He blinked twice, like it was obvious from the pitch he just delivered. “I’m moving home. I regretted leaving before I even walked out of your house.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“You told me not to." His hands clenched in fists like it had been as much of an effort for him not to call as it had been for me. “You said not to drag out the inevitable.”
“But I … I didn’t know you were thinking about all this,” I gestured at the screen, displaying & the Blackstone Clarke logo.
“When you called, I was already on a plane back east so I could apologize in person for how badly I fucked up, and see if I still had a chance.”
“You’ve been here since Tuesday?” I’d been waiting for his stupid call, if he’d been hanging out at his parents house while I was —
“No, I flew in this afternoon. I had days of meetings lined up, trying to figure out …” he gestured loosely to the screen. “I knew you’d have questions I couldn’t answer yet, and I didn’t want you to turn me away for being an idiot again, tell me not to bother.”
“I wouldn’t have,” I breathed.
“My plan was to call from your driveway and ask you to look out your window. I have —” he laughed lightly, leaning closer. “I have the Santa jacket in my car. I was going to ask if I could come up even though it isn’t Christmas. Would you have let me in, Grace?”
My hand rose to the lump in my throat. Trying to lighten the mood, I asked in a hoarse voice, “Did you make me a fancy slide deck too?”
“No, darling,” he said, his tone softening. “What I’m doing with them, that’s how I want to make a living.” He gestured to where Victoria and Mallory leaned on the railing talking to somebody on the sidewalk. “But it’s you I want to make a life with, Grace.”
When a sob escaped my mouth, he scrubbed his hand over his face. “I never should have asked you to move, especially without time to think about it. It wasn’t fair. I was …” He lifted a hand to run it through his hair.
“I thought that having you near me would be enough, that I would be ok if you were mine. But I don’t want you to be mine, Grace. I just want to be yours.”
He brought a fingertip to my chin. “I’ve spent the last month figuring out how to fix my mistakes and make it up to you. Hoping I can prove how much I love you. Hoping you can forgive me. Hoping that I’m not too late.”
