Never.
That’s the last time.
My future is in Costa Rica with Naomi, where we’ll launch a farm-and-breakfast experience as soon as we can afford it, which will hopefully be soon.
I’ve finally come to grips with the fact that we need an investor, and things are in motion—bigger things,betterthings—with a list of potential investors that I’ve curated based on knowing if they need an environmental win, if they get bored, if they need to impress or annoy someone, and if I can stand working with them.
Avoiding Dylan has been almost easy, for the record, because if I haven’t been cleaning the school, I’ve been spending every last minute developing a solid pitch, a proposed marketing campaign, and a long-term business plan, which Naomi’s failed meeting last week made glaringly obvious that we need.
I don’t know if I’ll get my trust fund back or if I even want it, but I know that it’s my backup plan for keeping the farm running. So I can’t leave here until I know the farm is safe and that I have solid footing for running the chocolate business like an actual business.
Although I’m seriously contemplating doing something I swore I wouldn’t do again, given how dangerously close I came to getting caught and losing it all last time, but if this works, my days in Tickled Pink will be forever in my rearview mirror.
As will any need to hang on to hope that Gigi will give me access to family money just a little while longer.
I won’t have to take any more photos of me carrying the bags my mom designs. I won’t even tell my mom where I’m going.
There’ll be no more exhausting myself by flying all over the world taking pictures of other companies’ products whether I actually like them or not just so that I can score a big payday. I hate the job so much I’ve spent the past four years donating my salary anonymously to help build schools, medical clinics, and pet shelters around the world.
The donations never made me feel better. Not the way the farm does.
And once I’m on the farm, for good, when it’s self-sustaining, when we know there’s no longer a risk that we’ll miss a mortgage payment and have to sell out to a mining company, when we’re solid enough tobuy the farm next door to save it, too, if it goes up for sale like Naomi thinks it will, there’ll be no more adding extra miles to my morning run and extra weights to my lifting routine when a tabloid says I’ve gained seven-tenths of a pound.
No more cozying up to the other residents in Tickled Pink to see who’d be good on camera instead of just because they’re interesting people, or having Ridhi and Anya serve me terrible coffee one day and good the next depending on their mood or when I last accidentally insulted or hurt a Tickled Pink native, or getting laughed at by Willie Wayne until he nearly has an asthma attack when I attempt to call in that favor to have him launch an Instagram account about the hidden gems in Tickled Pink.
No more mooning over Dylan Wright.
No more blackmail from Gigi.
Freedom is so close I can taste it.
And it has me letting my guard down, which is how I end up running straight into Dylan a week after the incident at Hannah’s parents’ house.
I’m hustling in the door at Café Nirvana, hoping they can hook a girl up with a decent vegan caramel macchiato since, to the best of my knowledge, I haven’t hurt or offended anyone in a few days, and Dylan’s on his way out, and we collide with anoofthat makes Pebbles yip and shriek and dance in my purse, throwing me even more off kilter.
Dylan grabs me by the arms. Those warm brown eyes sweep over me, and his dimples pop out when he smiles. “Hey, Tavi. You okay?”
“Oh yes! Perfect. Perfectly perfect. I’m a steel door. Can’t hurt me.”Shut up, Tavi. Shut. Up.
His smile gets dimplier, and he glances at my waist. “And how about you, Pebbles? All okay?”
Pebbles barks once and grins her doggy grin at him.
“Good,” he says.
“How’s your head?” There. That’s a reasonable question.
“All better. Even cleared for snowshoe baseball this week.” His phone beeps on his belt. “And that means I’m late. Good to see you. Don’t feel like you have to duck and hide next time we pass in the Pick-n-Shop, yeah?”
“Oh, I wasn’t ducking and hiding. I was looking for something on the bottom row. That I dropped. Under the shelf. And I didn’t see you.” And again,Shut up, Tavi.
“You want to ride along today? Had a thought on that TikTok thing you were talking about.”
“Oh, no, I can’t risk giving you another concussion. And really, being famous on all the socials is terrible. You don’t want that.”
“I’m not going to get famous.”
“You are seriously underestimating yourself. And me. Don’t talk to Lola.”
