She hesitates, then steps back. “Yeah. Sure.”
The house is quiet except for the sound of the washing machine running somewhere in the back. I follow her through the living room toward the kitchen.
“Jake and Tommy at the hardware store?” I ask.
“Yeah. They’ll be gone for a while. Jake’s buying half the store for his Alaska trip.” She stops at the doorway to the laundry room. “I was just doing laundry. Exciting Saturday.”
The laundry room is small—washer and dryer stacked in one corner, folding table covered with Tommy’s clothes. Rachel moves to the table and starts folding a tiny shirt with mechanical precision.
I lean against the doorframe. “How are you really doing?”
“I said I’m fine.”
“And I don’t believe you.”
She folds another shirt and doesn’t spare me a glance. “What do you want me to say, Theo? That I’m having a great time being unemployed? That Derek threatening to take Tommy is super fun? That I love applying for jobs that never call back?”
“I want you to be honest.”
“Fine. Honest?” She drops the shirt. “I’m a mess. I can’t find work. I can’t pay my own bills. I’m living in my brother’s house like I’m still a kid who can’t figure out her life. And everyone was right—I’m not stable. I’m not good enough. Derek was right to leave, and he’s probably right that Tommy deserves better.”
“That’s garbage.”
“Is it?” She finally looks at me, and her eyes are red like she’s been crying. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks pretty accurate.”
“You’re not a failure, Rachel.”
“I lost my job. I can’t find another one. My ex is threatening custody because I can’t get it together.” She picks up another shirt, grips it too tightly. “That sounds like failure to me.”
I push off the doorframe and move closer. “You know what failure looks like? Losing everything because you trusted the wrong people. Having your business partner steal a hundred thousand dollars while you were too stupid to notice. Spending two years paying off debt from a restaurant that doesn’t exist anymore.” I stop in front of her. “That’s failure. And I lived through it.”
She sets the shirt down. “What?”
“My restaurant in Portland. The one I told you about.” I lean against the folding table. “I had two business partners, childhood friends. We pooled everything we had to open that place. My name was on the sign, my recipes on the menu. And I trusted them completely—trusted they'd have my back the way I had theirs.”
“Theo—”
“They started skimming six months in. Small amounts at first. By the time I caught on, they’d drained over a hundred thousand dollars and disappeared.” I cross my arms. “The loans were in my name. The lease was in my name. Everything fell on me when they vanished.”
Rachel’s quiet, watching me with those green eyes that see too much.
“I spent two years drowning,” I continue. “Working three jobs, selling everything I owned, barely sleeping. My credit tanked. My family stopped calling because they were tired of hearing about it. I felt worthless. Like the biggest idiot who ever lived.”
“That’s awful.”
“It was. But you know what I learned?” I meet her eyes. “Rock bottom doesn’t mean you stay there. It means you have nowhere to go but up. And the people who doubt you? They don’t matter. The only person who matters is you, and whether you believe you can rebuild.”
“I don’t know if I believe that.”
“You should because you’re doing it right now. You left a bad situation. You’re protecting your son. You’re applying for jobs even when it’s hard. You’re not giving up.” I reach out and tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “That’s not failure. That’s strength.”
Her breath catches. “Why are you here, Theo?”
“Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Because your texts sounded wrong. Because I needed to make sure you were okay.” I let my hand drop. “And because I’m falling for you, and that terrifies me, but I can’t seem to stop.”
“You shouldn’t fall for me. I’m a mess.”
“I like messes.”
