“I love you, Grandma.”
I hang up, guilt filling me as I stare at Mia.
“You’ve got to go,” she says softly. “Is everything okay?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “There seems like there’s some sort of family crisis, and maybe the family’s about to lose the business.”
Her eyes widen. “What? What’s going on?”
“I guess Rex has not been doing as good of a job as he’s been letting on.”
“Of course not.” She rolls her eyes. “He fucking sucks.”
“Well, Grandma said that they owe over half a million dollars, and they might be about to lose the business. I don’t really understand what’s going on. I haven’t been involved in such a long time, but she wants me to help.”
“Then you should go.”
“I don’t want to go, Mia. I don’t want you to think that I’m choosing business over you.”
“It’s your family. It’s okay.”
“You are my family, Mia. You’re the most important person to me in my life, and I don’t want to leave when you’ve just expressed to me that you think business comes first in my eyes—and it doesn’t.”
“You’re helping family, Luke, and I would never resent you for that. I don’t even resent the fact that you care so much about business. I just have always wanted to be number one in someone’s life. I’ve alwayswanted to feel seen and noticed, and maybe that’s selfish of me. Maybe it’s unrealistic, but that’s what I want, and that’s what I need. And I love you, and I want you to be happy.”
“I’m only going to be happy if I’m with you, Mia. I love you. This is not just a summer romance for me. This is forever.”
“I love you, too, but I’d rather not go any further with us than risk losing myself in you and losing myself in this relationship and then getting heartbroken and losing everything. I love you enough to let go,” she says softly.
“What do you mean, you love me enough to let go?”
“I’m scared, Luke. What if we don’t make it? What if we fuck things up? We’ve never been in a situation like this before, and I just don’t know.”
“Trust me, Mia. Trust me that I will always put you first, that I will always be there for you. I don’t have to go to my grandma’s right now. I will talk through anything you want to talk through. I will do anything you want to do. I will?—”
“I’ll come with you,” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll come with you to your grandparents’ house, okay? I want to be a support for you, and I want you to know I’m okay with you helping them. This situation is not about that. It’s just about me being worried and nervous, and this is really new for me and for you. And what if we don’t make it?”
“But what if we do, Mia? What if it’s everything we could have ever dreamed of?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m just scared that it could be everything I’ve ever dreamed of—and then I’ll lose it.”
chapter twenty-six
Mia
The room is tense. Rex is sitting on the couch, looking like a scolded child. Andi sits next to him, looking like she’s lost. Luke’s parents are sitting at the table. His mother is crying, and his father looks like he’s had the wind taken out of his sails. Only Bitsy looks solid, staunch, resolute. Her husband is at the golf course and I wonder what he’ll think when he gets back.
I look over at Luke on the couch. He’s just listened as he’d learned about everything that’s been going on. Rex has pretty much run the company into the ground, which I think is ironic. I kind of want to laugh if the situation wasn’t so serious, but I can tell that that would be the absolute worst move to make because the entire family is in crisis control. I respect the fact that Luke hasn’t laughed in Rex’s face and called him a loser. If it had been me, I would have let Rex have it, but Luke is better than me. He’s dignified in his takedown of Rex. Though I suppose he can’t jump up and down and tell his parents off for shutting him out like they had.
I didn’t know one person could fuck something up that badly, but it doesn’t surprise me that Rex has.
Luke speaks calmly as he addresses his family. “This is a shit show,” he says, looking up from some of the folders.
He’s in business mode right now, and it’s interesting to see him as a businessman. It’s interesting to listen to him talk about numbers and plans. This is a Luke I’m not familiar with. I’m not in his business world. I’m not that business-savvy myself, and yet I can see that heexcels, that he loves it, that this is his drive. And I also realize this side of his life really doesn’t have any impact on me and his love for me and our relationship, and I feel slightly guilty and immature that I’ve been holding his job against him because of my own selfish need to want to come first in every situation.
