Chapter 20 #2
Sighing, I poke at the wound that hasn’t yet stopped bleeding.
“Audrey Nouel is one of the most stubborn people I know. She’s beautiful and hardworking—but too much so.
” I cross the arm not holding my phone across my chest, sulking.
“She’s a perfectionist who doesn’t have an off switch.
It’s like she wants to be chained to her kitchen. ”
An airplane moves across the tarmac for the first time since I arrived. I barely notice it, my thoughts on a woman who leaves scarce times for laughter but who gives her heart freely to a community she isn’t even sure has accepted her as their own.
Unbidden, my lips tug upward. “But she’s also the first to help others without any expectation of a return.” Both my grin and my wound pull wide. “And when she lights up, it feels like you’re the only one she’s shining on.”
Sofia’s eyes soften. “She sounds like you.”
That pulls me up short.
Remembering Audrey’s words about not wanting a lawyer in her life, I clear my throat and force the wistfulness away. “I don’t meet her dream-man qualifications.”
One eyebrow arches as imperious as her tone. “And just what qualifications are those?”
“Simple.” I lay it out like the closing argument. “She wants a family man.” I swallow past the hurt. “And I don’t know how to be that.”
“Are you kidding me?” Felix reappears and doesn’t even try to sit on his reaction. “You are the best family man I know.”
I smile at his vehemence on my behalf. “Hate to break it to you, bro”—Felix smiles at the word—“but I’m not the Casanova you think I am. No secret kids running around I’m paying tuition for.”
With a laugh, Felix rolls his eyes. “That is not what makes a family man.”
“Sim.” Sofia nods once in hard agreement. “Being a family man is being responsible. Thinking of others before yourself.”
“Showing up for the big things and most of the dumb little ones, too.” Felix leans back, expression uncharacteristically earnest. “You switched law focuses because of me. And don’t think I don’t know that every time you start to wonder about moving on and I get a new job offer or Amanda gets a salacious article written about her, you park your plans to make ours easier.
” He tips his head toward the screen. “Just like you’re doing now. ”
Sofia pats his cheek. “You’re not so stupid after all, meu amor.”
Felix smiles toward her, surprised and pleased. “Thanks, m?e.”
They lapse into soft bickering, which buys me a minute to absorb the indictment disguised as a love letter.
Elizabeth slides into frame behind them like a stage whisper, holding Mike Hunt under the armpits.
He looks like attempted homicide in an elf costume.
“Question,” she says, letting it be known that she’s been eavesdropping on our conversation this whole time.
“Amanda said you took on a new client. If you were thinking about leaving the business, why do that?”
I rub my hand down my face and try to line up the thought I had before everything went sideways.
“Pre-breakup me had the idea that instead of poaching Scott Evans from his agent, I’d bring both him and his agent over.
Mentor the agent so I could build out some infrastructure.
Enough so that I could step back from the agent side and focus on law. ”
Felix nods, not even pretending to be surprised. “You were always telling me you needed an assistant.”
The moments he means line up in my head, sharp and clear. “Exactly. I could introduce Evan’s agent to the right people, give her a bigger foothold, and we’d all win.” I meet his eyes through the glass of the phone. “But I’d never finalize anything without talking to you and Amanda first.”
Felix’s expression flattens. “Seeing as Amanda’s exact early-morning words to me were, ‘Stop our asshat lawyer friend from doing what he thinks is noble but is actually self-sabotage, or I’m leaking Elizabeth’s nude sketches of you—’”
Elizabeth coughs. “They were studies.” She juggles the hairless cat closer to her chest, his jingle-bell hat jingling. “And nobody is passing anything around.”
“Point is”—Felix pinches the bridge of his nose, needing a minute.
Whether that minute is due to potential nude art of him being passed around to the paparazzi or the fact that he has to deal with the woman he loves dangling a Christmas-costumed cat, I’m not sure—“we both think you stepping back is a great idea. We fully support it.”
“Me too,” Sofia adds.
“Us three and four.” Elizabeth raises Mike’s hand.
He hisses.
Ignoring the cat in favor of my doubts, I close my eyes and replay the last conversation Audrey and I had in the bakery. “Yeah, but Audrey doesn’t think I’m—”
“Then show her,” Sofia cuts in, throwing her hands up with theatrical despair. “Be a man, meu filho. All this talking of feelings is exhausting.”
Felix bites his lip to keep from laughing. Elizabeth turns herself—and Mike Hunt’s murderous stare—away from the camera, shoulders shaking.
“Because if she doesn’t think you are the right man, then she is also stupid,” Sofia declares with finality.
Felix snorts.
“Therefore, you two are perfect for each other.” She flicks her fingers like she’s shooing a fly. “Go, meu filho. Bring me a new daughter.”
Everything I’ve been trying not to feel rises like a tide, but heaven forbid I exhaust the woman who helped raise me any more than I already have. “Sim, m?e.”
Her face softens. “Boa sorte.”
We say our goodbyes, and as the screen goes dark, another power-suited clone nearby lifts his phone to a small face on his screen. “I’ll be home soon, buddy. Very soon.” His voice is steady in the way a trustworthy man needs to be, lighting up the child’s smile.
I look out the window at the plane readying to take off.
At the gate information a board where the flights that will eventually go west are listed.
At the coat in my lap that smells like pine and horny reindeer and the Italian loafers on my feet that look as impractical as they are expensive.
Closing my eyes from all distractions I think of everything Sofia, Felix, Elizabeth, and Amanda—my family—just said.
Turns out I don’t need flannel and thermals to become the man Audrey needs. I’ve been him the whole time.
Standing, I grab my roller bag.
Time to prove it.