But I’d be damned if I wouldn’t kill myself trying.
Except she’d done her level best to ignore me all day, which made me feel even worse for being an asshole.
It was just…being around her was a lot harder than I expected it to be, and there were moments where I found myself questioning whether or not letting her tag along was truly in either of our best interests.
As soon as we arrived in Rochester and I checked us in, Ella disappeared straight into the bathroom while I brought in our luggage.
The shower turned on and soft humming filtered through the paper thin wall over the sound of rushing water. I glanced at the bags I’d set on Ella’s bed, certain she didn’t magically have a freshchange of clothes hidden somewhere on her person.
The leggings she’d been wearing were too goddamn tight for that.
Trust me, I’d noticed.
With a resigned sigh, I lifted her duffel and walked to the bathroom, lightly tapping on the door and saying, “Ella?”
“What?” she bit out.
“Do you need your bag?”
I swore I felt her softening toward me a little bit as she said, “Yes, please.”
“I’m just going to leave it outside the door.”
“Thank you.”
The bag settled to the floor with a soft thump, and I quickly backed away, putting as much space as I possibly could between myself and the flimsy hollow core door separating me from her naked body.
I’d already fucked up enough in only two short days. Crossing that line and completely destroying that boundary would only make things worse.
We were only an hour away from Minneapolis, after all. With my luck, she’d hop on a plane home before I could figure out a way to apologize.
So instead, I went outside and called my grandfather.
My relationship with my family was…strained, to say the least. In the aftermath of me leaving Portland, I’d essentially cut ties with my dad and brother, much to their chagrin. Especially when they discovered I still spoke to my mom and grandfather almost daily.
My dad hadn’t exactly been absent when Sammy and I weregrowing up. He’d been there—but he’d been emotionally unavailable. Our family owned a real estate development company that my grandfather founded in his twenties and spent years cultivating into the most successful company of its kind in the Pacific Northwest, servicing an area from Vancouver, B.C., to as far south as Sacramento and as far west as Edmonton and Calgary.
I’d grown up in Vancouver. When I started high school, my grandfather ultimately decided to move the business headquarters to Portland to be more centrally located, so I’d also spent a lot of time in the PNW.
The only thing my dad cared about was money and the company. As an only child, he’d taken over as CEO when Gramps retired, and as the oldest son, I should’ve taken up the mantle when it was time for him to step down.
I never wanted any part of it.
So now he had my brother in his back pocket, the spare becoming the heir apparent, and it caused a massive divide in our immediate family. Us versus them. Me and mom versus Sammy and Dad.
Gramps—and Gran when she’d still been alive—had thankfully been on my side, both frequently appalled by the way their son treated his children. I knew for a fact they hadn’t raised him that way, but something had gone wrong with Dad, and there was just no fixing it.
Now, as an adult, I could handle my father, which I did mostly by removing myself entirely from the situation.
The phone rang and rang with the outgoing call to my grandpa, and I was a little crestfallen when it went to voicemail. I lefthim a brief message letting him know where I was and to call when he could.
Then I dropped onto the curb in front of our room and closed my eyes, taking a moment to collect myself before going back inside and facing all the ways I was failing where Ella was concerned.
So lost in my thoughts, I didn’t hear the door creak open behind me until Ella softly called my name.
I whipped around, finding her dressed in a sage green sweatsuit, her wet hair darkening the fabric around her shoulders.
“What’re you doing out here?” she asked, stepping with bare feet onto the concrete. “It’s freezing.”
