Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
DECLAN
Just two days ago, I was asking my girlfriend to move in with me, and now I’m moving to a different state with no girlfriend.
It doesn’t even feel like my life right now.
I plan to return to Lovers, but at this point, I don’t know if it’s for good or to sell my house.
I hope it’s the former, but I have to find a way to fix my company first, and right now, I just don’t know how I can do that without putting in the time back in Chicago.
Miles, Luca, and Hudson put together a little going away lunch shindig for me at Miles’s house. It’s weird to have everyone together here instead of at Ruby’s. It’s even weirder that they all know I’m the reason Ruby isn’t here and not a single one of them has tried to punch me.
“Do you leave right after this?” Shay asks, and I nod, my gaze outside the kitchen window where the kids are sitting on Miles’s tire swing. It’s not moving, and there isn’t a smile in sight.
“How’s Susie doing?”
I sigh and then turn, leaning onto the counter. “She’s not talking to me. I know she can hear me, because she does the things I ask of her, but she is mad. Rightfully so. Max, too.”
Shay rubs my arm.
“It’s going to work out eventually.”
She forces a smile.
“I know that’s the last thing you want to hear, but it’s true. I can’t tell you when it will happen, but if you two are truly meant to be together, which I think you are, you’ll find a way back to each other.”
I don’t reply, because what am I supposed to say? I know I could change all this by not leaving and giving up my company.
I just don’t know if I can do it.
We eat, and the mood is down. The kids don’t even play. They just sit at the table with the rest of us.
My gaze drifts to the empty spot next to Max, whom Luca picked up on his way here.
Ruby isn’t here.
Still, once the dishes are done and everyone is preparing to say their goodbyes, I turn to her brothers and say the obvious. “She’s not coming, is she?”
They exchange a few looks, and then Miles shakes his head.
“I’m sorry, Dec, she’s not.”
I nod slowly and then look out over the yard.
This is her life. Her friends. Her family.
And I'm the reason she isn’t here.
I’m not going to say it might be for the best that I’m leaving, because nothing is best if it doesn’t include Ruby, but I …
I’m doing this to myself. The simple answer is to just say fuck it. Fuck the company I built and the people who work there and lose it all so I can be with Ruby.
But it’s not that simple.
“She’s …” Hudson starts but never finishes.
“Hurt, but it’s weird,” Miles says, clearly having no problem with his words. “She thinks you’re doing the right thing. And I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I,” Luca says. “The right thing is you staying in Lovers with her and figuring this shit out with your company while you’re here.”
“If that were an option for me, I would take it.”
“You own the company, make it an option,” Luca suggests, as if it were that simple.
I look at him and sigh. His shoulders drop.
“I know. I know.”
Paul comes over and hugs me goodbye and then wraps Susie in a bear hug, swaying her back and forth. Then the rest of the Ashers take their turn, followed by Quinn, Sadie, and Shay.
“See you at the wedding,” I tell Hudson and Sadie, and then I hug Shay. “Congratulations, Shay, you’re going to be a wonderful mom.”
“Thank you.”
I clear my throat because I’m dreading the next part, yet there’s no way to avoid it.
“Come on, Susie, we need to get on the road to catch our flight.”
That’s when the tears hit and my heart breaks.
“I don’t want to go,” she says quietly.
“I know, hunny. Neither do I.” I squat down to her level.
Max is standing next to her, and although he isn’t crying, the look on his face is about to break me even more.
“I don’t want you to leave either,” he admits and then wraps his arms around my neck. “And I know my mom doesn’t either, even if she’s not here.”
I pat his back, refusing to let them see me cry.
“I love you, you know that, right? And I will always love your mom.”
He nods. But when he and Susie hug, I have to look away.
Shay’s and Sadie’s tears make me feel even more like shit.
Susie puts her hand in mine and waves one more goodbye as we walk out the door.
“I wish it wasn’t on you alone to save your company, Dad. I wish you had someone who could do it for you so that we can stay.”
I pick her up and hold her close the rest of the way to my truck.
As soon as I pull away, I glance at my daughter in the rearview mirror. She’s staring at a picture in her hand.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“A picture of me and Max.”
“Can I see it?”
I reach back as she hands it to me.
But my eyes don’t go to the kids in the center—they go to the man in the back who is clearly photobombing the kids.
Colter fucking Davenport.
The way he does business is wild to me.
Colter’s words from that night on the patio ring through my mind. If he doesn’t like the way his dad does business, maybe he’d like to work with me instead.
There’s only one way to find out.