LIZ
Jovi is quiet on the drive home, and while he insisted that everything was well with his family's business, I can't shake the feeling that something went very wrong while he went to meet with those in charge while he's taking the year off to save Serendipity.
"I ran into your mom," I blurt out, a nagging desperation urging me to get him to spill whatever is eating away at him. "In the restroom. Right before we left," I explain when all he does is turn his head briefly from the road to stare at me.
"Did she say something to you?" he asks, brows furrowed as he goes back to keeping his eyes locked on the road. I'm all for safe driving, especially in light of recent tragedies, but I can't shake the notion he's leaning into that focus especially hard to avoid having to face me.
I frown at the question. "You mean other than‘hello’?"
Our interaction was brief but polite, just short of familiar. Despite the many years my life has overlapped with Jovi's, and the integrated part he's been in my family, I've never really gotten to know his.
Outside of that time in the hospital after his skateboarding accident, I don't think I've ever exchanged more than basicpleasantries with his mom. At Trent and Lena's funeral, she was kind but not overly warm or friendly when she sought me out to offer condolences. And I didn't expect her to be any different.
"Does she not like me or something?" It's certainly possible. All the worst shit always seemed to happen to her son when he was supposed to be spending time at our house. And, then the very worst thingdidhappen there when he fell off our roof.
But apparently, I'm way off track in my line of thinking, because Jovi's head whips toward me again. "Of course she likes you. Probably more than she likes me. Why would you even ask that?"
"Because you're being weird," I squeak out, making no effort to hide my exasperation. "What would your mother have to say to me in the ladies’ room other than a passing greeting?"
He lets out a sigh that sounds borderline groan-ish. "My mother gets super protective of the business. Always has been. And I get it, it's the piece of my father that continues to live on. More than that, our whole family depends on it doing well. But sometimes she has such tunnel vision around it she forgets that other people have their own challenges. Things that matter as much to them as this business does to her."
He pauses, fingers wringing the steering wheel before he adds, "Right now she's looking for any reason she can latch onto and pick at to prove my attention can't afford to be divided. That saving the ranch means I'm failing the business somehow."
"Are you?" I ask, a lump forming in my throat. I don't think I truly understood how much was resting on Jovi's shoulders when he stepped in and said yes to a year of this. With me.
He shakes his head. When he meets my gaze, the look is adamant. "The bars are fine without me. Even before this, I wasn't actively involved in managing any of them. The most hands on I getis when we open a new venue, and we got the most recent one up and running months before the accident. I was already pulling back from being so involved and letting the team there take over."
I nod. "What would you have done next if the ranch hadn't needed you?"
He rolls his lip over his bottom teeth, gnawing on it for a moment before he says, "We had our eye on another location in Kentucky. I let it go to do this."
I wince. I don't meant to, but realizing I cost him something, cost his family, causes a painful twist in my chest. "I'm sorry."
"Why the fuck are you sorry?"
"Because," I stammer, trying to formulate the explanation that felt so obvious, the weight of it so heavy it had to be real. Only now I can't find the right words, "If the kids and I didn't need the ranch to keep the house, if I could afford to just pay the mortgage without the business," the words splutter out of me, none of them saying quite what I need them to.
"I shouldn't have needed you." That's what it all comes down to. "I shouldn't have needed you." The words are a strangled whisper the second time around. "I'm sorry."
Jovi glares at me, dumbstruck. Then, he whirls the wheel to the side, pulling over on the side of the road and parking the truck right here in grass beside someone's pasture.
"What are you doing?" I ask, startled by his reaction.
"What am I doing?" he asks, pointing at his chest with both hands. "What the fuck are you doing? You think you get to take responsibility for Lena and Trent dying now? Think it's on you that some asshole drank too much and ran them off the road and into a tree? Think you get to carry the weight of Trent's risky financialchoices? Think it's all on you to show up and pick up the pieces as the whole world turns to shit? It's not."
He shakes his head. "Jesus Christ, Liz. You shouldn't need me? Why not? Maybe I want to be the one you need. Maybe I want you to let me show up with you. Fuck,for you. But this isn't even that. None of this is because you did anything wrong. It's because of Lena and Trent. They needed us. Them. Not you."
His rant catches me so off guard, my defenses rise, my hackles up before I can think. "Excuse me for implying otherwise. I didn't mean to make it sound like you did any of this for me. Obviously, it's for Trent and Lena. I know I'm not the reason you put your life on hold or walked away from your business and your home and your fucking life and your pretty girlfriend," once the word vomit stops, I catch my trembling lip with my teeth, hoping he won't notice.
But it's Jovi. So of course he does.
I note the way his eyes drop to my mouth, before they lift again to meet mine.
He sucks in a breath, then—
"Fuck it."
JOVI
