Adrian looked like he wanted to argue with that, so she decided to tell him the entire story. Perhaps she could prove to him that he was as reasonable a recipient of her windfall as she was.
“Nobody ever talks about money, even when all their problems are because of money. It’s not like Ineedtwo million dollars. Nobody does. My family doesn’t think I need it, anyway. But they won’t even work with me on what we all want to do. When they found out how much I was getting, my dad and my uncle had the estate executor make up a disclaimer—something to reject the inheritance from Gam. All of it. It would have gone to them instead, since they are my grandmother’s two kids.”
That was what everyone had agreed was fair. And maybe in a sense it was, since the money had come from the paving business her grandparents had built and her father had purchased—but then she wouldn’t even have had the car she hadneeded. And she hadn’t trusted her parents to give her that much, not when they’d never given her a say in her life before.
Caroline clenched her jaw. “They asked me to sign everything away, right then. So I said I needed to go to thebathroom, and then I climbed out the window and drove off. I never went home again. I haven’t given them any of the money yet.”
Adrian made a small, startled noise. “That’s not selfish.”
She didn’t believe him. What else did you call it when you kept something for yourself instead of sharing it?
“I would have done the same thing. Well, no, probably not, because I’m not as brave as you are. But I would have wished I’d done what you did.”
She shook her head at him, taking a first, small sip of the coffee. He would have refused the money and figured out some other way to get what he wanted.
“You weren’t wrong,” he pressed. “It wasn’t their money. It was your grandmother’s. And she wanted to give you more choices. You’re not wrong for wanting to make them yourself.”
The coffee was awful: bitter andgritty. She stared at the rainbow film of oil on top of the brew. There were a couple of grounds floating in it.
“Ugh,” she exclaimed. “Is it supposed to taste like this?”
Adrian took a sip from his own mug. “I’m not an expert, but I think so?”
Caroline heavily set the mug down on the table. “It’s not at all how I thought it would be. I feel like I’m doing it all wrong. Everything I want turns out to be the wrong thing or offends someone or just sucks, actually, like this coffee.”
She pursed her lips, looking at him defiantly. What had she done with all that money and all those choices that had been good even just for her?
“Not all of it was wrong though, was it?” he asked, dusty-blue eyes focusing on her as though the question was very important.
Not absolutely everything, that was true. She likedAnastasia. And fish too, it turned out. And her bird painting. She even liked her classes, if she didn’t worry about what she was going to do with them. Those were all just details around the edges though, not the subject of the work.
“I wanted you. That’s not working out either.” That was what she’d wanted themost.
His hand stilled on her shoulder. He ducked his head, as though he found this conversation as terrifying as she did. Caroline’s pulse fizzed in her chest like carbonated water.
“If you still want me, you can have me,” he said after a minute, voice halting. “Me and all my bullshit.”
“Can I?” she asked, skeptical of that proposition. “I thought I wanted the wrong things from you too.”
It had been so freeing to be asked for money at the start of their relationship. She knew she could give him exactly what he needed—no chance of screwing that up! She thought for sure he was going to be better off for having known her. She had no confidence that she could navigate anything more complicated, not when she transgressed everyone’s expectations as easily as breathing.
“I don’t think you wanted the wrong things from me. I think—I hope—you just wanted to be with me, the only way you could imagine it,” he said. He lifted his face in a soft question.
Caroline nodded tightly, heart stuck in her throat.
“I didn’t say that I was going to find some crappy job because I thought it would make me miserable. I thought I’d be happy—because you make me happy. I love being with you. That’s what I thought I’d have. I didn’t care whether it was getting pelted with tennis balls or going to the opening night of the opera. I didn’t think past realizing that.”
“The opera is not great either,” Caroline put in stiffly. “Or rather, it’s not very good if they don’t stage it with costumes and props and things.”
“I agree.” He looked at her with tender amusement now hovering around his lips. “I’m sorry I didn’t see that I was taking your choices away from you with mine. I knew you wanted to go to Europe with me. I should have just said yes. I have the rest of my life to work retail if I really have to.”
“You weren’t taking my choices away from me,” she protested. “I know what that looks like, and you never have.” She’d always been able to say no. They were at this standoff because she had.
“But I didn’t tell you there wasn’t anything wrong with what you wanted either.” He smiled, and it was heartbreaking in its fragile hope. “You wanted good things for me. And Caroline... I want you too. I said I wanted to be with you. I’ll do whatever I have to for that to work.”
She was getting perilously close to violating herdon’t cry, at all costs, no cryingmission statement.
“Yeah?” she asked, voice wobbling.
