The door creaked as she pushed it open, and he heard her stomping snow off her boots and baby talking to Tybalt.
“Hey, sexy man,” she called from the front hallway as she dropped her purse and shrugged out of her coat. “It’s freezing out there! I cannot wait to be on a beach with you. Less than twenty-four hours now!”
She walked into the kitchen and joined him in front of the island, wrapping her arms around him for a quick hug. “Wow, do I have some things to fill you in on.” She pulled away to move toward the refrigerator.
But Jake finally unfroze and grabbed her wrist, pulling her back against him. When he spoke, his voice was low and desperate. “I love you.”
She looked up at him, a slow smile melting across her face, and she tightened her arms where they rested around his waist. “And I’m wildly, stupidly in love with you too.” She leaned her head against his chest and continued her bright monologue. “This may be the best day of my life because not only are we disgustingly in love, but guess who’s back on mornings? Brandon admitted he was wrong and put it all back.”
“Seriously? He didn’t tell me he was going to do that.” He pressed a kiss into her hair and held her close. Her joy was a tiny bright spot in the middle of the darkness. “I’m so happy for you, baby.”
“Right? Once we’re home from Jamaica, I’m back to mornings, so you and I will have to find some new time to go to the gym together unless you want to start getting up at, like, three thirty, which I definitely don’t. Is that okay with you?”
She pulled away from him and grabbed a bottle of Prosecco from the fridge, then selected two glasses from the cabinet. But Jake couldn’t take her heartbreaking cheerfulness anymore.
“Mabel, I can’t go to Jamaica with you.” His throat constricted as he watched confusion move across her face.
“But you’ve got the time off work. We leave tomorrow.”
He shook his head. “Not anymore. And…” He forced himself to spit it out. “Sweetheart, they want me back in Chicago as a partner. Full time. Immediately.”
Now Mabel was the one who froze. “So soon?” she whispered. “I thought we had more time.”
“Me too,” he said miserably. “I thought…”
He’d thought it would all work out somehow. His friendship with Mabel had crept up on him, and then their relationship had intensified from see-how-it-goes to… this.
They had aggressively never talked about what would happen once he was back in Chicago, probably because neither of them wanted to believe this period of blissful happiness would come to an end. He’d thought he’d have a few more months with her at least. More months to come up with a solution that didn’t end up with the two of them living in different cities. More months to get a better handle on what this relationship actually was. But fucking Greg McDonald couldn’t fucking handle the fucking Kriegsman account, and it was Jake’s life that got blown to fucking smithereens because of it.
She set her wineglass down on the island with a clink and stared into the liquid as if she might find answers in the swirling bubbles. Her shoulders rose and fell as she drew in a breath, and he watched her struggle to conjure a smile.
“A partnership. That’s… that’s great! Congratulations. I know how hard you’ve worked for this.” She blinked rapidly, and he hated that this was hurting her. But when he took a step toward her, she shied back. So he kept his distance and tried to explain.
“Things blew up with the BPS guy who was handling one of my biggest clients, and they’ve threatened to pull their business if I don’t come back to manage their accounts full time. That’s what today’s call was, my boss telling me I’m needed back in my office as soon as possible, and Brandon okayed it.”
Mabel nodded once, sharply. “Yeah, that sounds about right. I was just starting to get smug about how great my life was, so this was inevitable.” Her laugh was bitter.
“I did try. I told them I couldn’t just walk away from the Lowell accounts. But they refused to budge, said if I wanted the partnership… Mabel, you know how hard I’ve worked for it. What it means for me. What it means to be able to support my family if it comes to that.”
She swallowed hard. “I do. I know. I’m proud of you.”
Her voice broke on the wordproud, and they both fell silent.
It had been so easy to let himself forget about his old goals, his lifelong goals, while living out this dream life with her. Then the real world had come calling. The forever he’d spent his adult life chasing was here, and it was fucking up the forever he’d just started building with Mabel.
“So when do you need to leave?”
“I’ll pack up my apartment and leave in the morning.”
They stared at each other from opposite sides of the island. He wanted to reach across that vast expanse of countertop and take her hand, but she’d retreated into herself.
“And you won’t have much reason to come back to Beaucoeur after that.” Mabel’s voice was as flat as her eyes.
He rocked back on his heels at her words. “I haveeveryreason. I’ll come on the weekends, or you can visit me.” What was she saying? Did she not want to keep seeing him once he was gone? “It’s only three hours away, and we can Skype during the week.”
The corners of her mouth tightened. “And your work hours in Chicago, they’re nine to five and no weekends, right?”
He squeezed the back of his neck, not wanting to answer. When he was in Chicago, he worked into the night and weekends too. Beaucoeur had kept him busy, but it hadn’t come close to the grind that Chicago was.
