But the man puts the dick in dickwad when he decides he’s gotten his maximum use out of you.
And he got maximum use out of me.
The press coverage of my family last year was insane. Griff got called up to Atlanta from the minors, and everyone wantedto hear the story of the baseball player whose sister made sure he could still play ball after their parents died in a tragic fire.
Jake was by my side for all of the interviews.
By the end of the season, we were talking to reporters about how we were going to open a restaurant in honor of my parents together. I put together marketing materials. Started socials for updates on our progress. Planned the menu.
And then, mere weeks after signing the papers to finally buy the building and make our dreams come true, Jake dumped me.
Saidit just didn’t feel rightanymore.
That I wastoo high maintenancefor a guy who was about to open a new business.
He already has a new girlfriend who’s telling anyone who will listen that I’m cold and uncaring and that Jake was the victim in our breakup.
Such utter bullshit.
He used me.
He used me, he used Griff’s fame, he stole my dad’s dream, and he knows I can’t do a fucking thing about it because I used most of my parents’ insurance money to make sure my brothers could do whatever they wanted after high school to live the lives they want.
I’m scrappy. I’m frugal. I can go back to college more or less for free anytime I want at the school here in town that my mom used to work for. I still have the world in front of me as my oyster, and I would’ve worried more about my brothers if I hadn’t done what I knew my parents wanted to do for them.
There’s just enough left for a small emergency fund for me, and after not having any kind of emergency fund immediately accessible when my parents died, I’m terrified to touch it.
So while I’m not broke, I’m also not feeling solid.
And everything I planned for my future with Jake?
I’ll benefit from none of us.
My name wasn’t on the purchase paperwork for the restaurant.
He had all of the passwords for the social accounts, so he changed them and locked me out.
He’s still using the marketing materials I made for him and doing interviews where he still uses my name and Griff’s name to get more attention for the restaurant that was meant to honor our family, not his.
So making Jake look bad?
Yeah.
Yeah, count me in.
And Simon Luckwood can always tell me no.
That’s what I always told my brothers.
Ask. The worst they can say is no, but the best they can say is yes. Don’t say no for them. Give them the chance to tell you yes.
I swing myself up the stairwell and back into the bus. “Luckwood,” I call from across the whole vehicle.
His face lights up, which again,so weird. Especially after all of the hours Jake made me watch that show, where he was always scowling and plotting ways to help three brothers murder each other in a fight over inheriting a weed farm in rural Maryland, and after the way all of us have continually ragged on him all afternoon.
“Yes, Ms. Best?”
“We’re not quite even. I want you to take me to dinner next Saturday night at a new restaurant that’s opening up on the lake. And then we’ll be done and I’ll forget all of this ever happened.”
