"Then you choose wrong." His voice went softer. "But Liam—you've been choosing wrong every day you've been lying to yourself. At least this way you're being honest."
He reached over and squeezed my shoulder once. Then let go.
"I'm here no matter what you decide," he said. "You know that, right?"
I nodded.
He stood, and went back to his desk.
I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. My face still tight from crying. Eyes stinging.
Forty-eight hours.
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine choosing Emily. Really choosing her. All in. The mixer Saturday, her hand in mine, smiling at donors. Moving forward. Committing.
My chest ached. A deep, resistant ache—like trying to force a door closed against something that wouldn't stop pushing from the other side.
Then I tried to imagine choosing Alex. Everything it meant. Coming out. The team. My mom. His father. Every door it opened and every door it slammed shut.
Terror.
And underneath it—underneath all of it—
Relief.
Like the first real breath after drowning. Like surfacing after being held under for so long I'd forgotten what air tasted like.
I didn't know what I was going to do.
But I knew I couldn't keep doing this.
Something had to give.
And forty-eight hours wasn't very long.
Chapter 16: Alex
He chose a restaurant called The Laurelwood.
Of course he did. Private booths, low lighting, the kind of place where the menu had no prices and the waitstaff called you by name if you'd been there before. My father had been there before. He was always going places where people knew his name.
I got there first, which he'd planned—his assistant had texted me the reservation time thirty seconds after texting him, so I'd know to arrive early. That was how he operated. Every variable managed before he walked through the door.
I ordered a water and sat with my hands flat on the table.
The dining room was half full. Murmured conversations, silverware on china, a waiters dress like it was a funeral. Nobody raised their voice in here. The room didn't allow it—the dark wood paneling and heavy curtains absorbed sound the way money absorbed consequence.
My father arrived at exactly twelve-thirty. Coat check, brief exchange with the maître d', then the smooth, unhurried walk across the dining room—the walk of someone who was never in a hurry because the world waited for him.
"Alexander."
He settled into the chair across from me and unfolded his napkin with one practiced motion.
"You look tired."
"Training's heavy right now."
"I know. I've been watching the numbers." He opened the menu without looking at it. "Your erg splits were off Tuesday."
