“Ehh, grovel. Show up at her door and don’t leave until she listens to you.”
“Lucas, that’ll just piss her off. She doesn’t want to see me.”
He laughed. “Are you going to let her get away? Are you going to spend the rest of your life wondering what would have happened if you’d just been brave enough to fight for her?”
“No.”
“Then what’s stopping you?”
“The board. If I go all in on this and I choose her over everything else, I could lose the company.”
Lucas leaned back. “Is that something you’re willing to do?”
I opened my mouth to say no. I couldn’t just throw it away for a relationship that might not even work out.
“Yes.” My eyes widened as I heard myself say the word.
Lucas smiled. “There it is.”
“What?”
“The moment you realized that losing Ina would be worse than losing everything else.” He raised his beer. “Took you long enough.”
I laughed for the first time in days. “I’m an idiot.”
“Yep. But you’re my idiot, and I’m going to help you fix this.” He set down his beer. “Here’s what you’re going to do. First, you’re going to put Keith in his place. He’s been a problem for too long, and you’ve let it slide because you were old friends.”
“I already told him off. Isn’t that why I’m sitting here drinking shitty beer with you?”
“I’m not talking about telling him off. I’m talking about actually dealing with him. Fire him. Force him out. Whatever it takes. He’s toxic and he’s never going to stop causing problems.”
I nodded slowly. Keith had been my friend—or at least, I’d thought he was my friend. But Lucas was right. Keith was a problem I’d ignored for too long.
“And then?” I asked.
“Then you go get the girl. Grand gesture. Big speech. Whatever it takes to make her believe you.” Lucas stood. “Come on. You need to go.”
“Where?”
“To Ina’s apartment. Where else?”
Twenty minutes later, I was standing outside her building. On the way over, I’d been psyching myself up, but now that I was at her stoop, I was absolutely terrified.
I climbed the steps, my heart pounding, trying to figure out what the hell I was going to say. Five floors should have been more than enough to time to sketch a rough outline, ready some bullet points, but nothing was coming to me.
I just knew I was doing the right thing. Every step closer to her made the hollow ache in my chest feel less fatal.
I knocked on the door and waited.
The door opened, and Abby stood there looking at me like I was something she’d found on the bottom of her shoe. “Well, well, well. If it isn’tLameKavanagh fromStupid’sArrow.”
Rude as Abby was, part of me appreciated Ina had such a good friend to look out for her. “Look, I totally deserve that, but I’m trying to make things right.”
“You’ve got some nerve showing up here,” she said.
“I know. But I need to talk to Ina.” I gave her my best puppy dog eyes. “Please?”
“She’s not home.”
