9. Chapter 9
Chapter 9
Milo
Six Months Later
I’m in my office at Tate International, trying and failing to concentrate on the task at hand.
It doesn’t help that my brothers Oliver and Alec are in the room right next to me, shooting pool and loudly discussing, i.e. arguing, which brand of toilet paper is the best. First, they were on paper towels. Now they’ve moved onto toilet paper. Fascinating.
I leave my cramped, closet-like office and enter the game room. It’s where we like to gather. It’s where we bond over watching football games on the big screen in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball the rest of the time.
“Why do you care what the other one uses to wipe their behinds with?” I growl, lifting a hand to massage the back of my neck. “Some of us have deadlines around here.”
My brothers only stare at me for a moment before continuing on, talking about the virtues of three-ply like I’m not even there.
“Did you know that the Four Seasons has black toilet paper?” Oliver asks, to which Alec whistles.
I sigh and slump down in the leather sofa. I only have about ten minutes left until my lunch break anyway. I might as well quit trying to fight it.
“You coming water skiing on the lake with us tomorrow night?” Alec asks me. “The wives can’t. Something about a big group meditation session with Sophie.”
Sophie, Oliver’s wife, is pregnant and isn’t feeling well, so she invited my mom and sisters-in-law to a big spa day.
“I can’t,” I say. “Someone’s gotta work around here.”“I said ‘evening.’ You’ll be done by then,” Alec insists.
“I’m behind. I have to catch up.”
I’m not behind on tracking reimbursement activity for the employees for all twenty-two Tate International resorts. But I am behind on my writing. I’m writing a serial story for an online platform called Turnip. People submit stories in sections. The stories are read and upvoted by millions of readers worldwide. It’s what I do in my free time.
And I have more free time than I used to. After starting a trial run at both my father’s finance company and my brother Sebastian’s resort empire six months ago, I made the decision to work for Sebastian, managing his employee reimbursements and rewards program. At least for the time being. No one knows that’s not the endgame, though. There are expectations when you’re a Tate . . . a mold to fit into. Fantasy novel writer doesn’t quite cut it. No one in my family has any idea I even write at all, let alone that I want to become a successful novelist.
So for now, I’m biding my time, writing on the side. I got accepted into the Professional Master of Fine Arts Program with a genre fiction emphasis at Greenleaf, a small liberal arts college in Denver—something I can do in the evenings and on weekends. It’s designed for working adults, so there’s flexibility there. I’m querying literary agents—only the best of the best—and have gotten some good feedback. No one has wanted to sign me yet, though.
I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen with my writing. I just know I have to do it.
I can’t not write. I tried that when I first started college. I tried to shed that part of my identity, thinking I had a reputation to live up to as the latest in a long line of Tate men at Columbia. I couldn’t spend my free time making up stories because I had things to prove and big shoes to fill.
That only lasted through the first semester. It didn’t take me long to realize writing is a part of what makes me . . . me.
This past week, I traveled to a Tate International resort in North Carolina for a work thing, as a favor to Sebastian. He assumed I stayed an extra couple of days to sightsee, but I didn’t. Not really. Unless you call going to a two-day writer’s conference on a college campus “sightseeing.”
The reimbursement spreadsheet work I’m doing is tedious, but it allows me to be with my brothers, which is great most of the time. Except when they’re arguing about toilet paper.
I’m not ungrateful for the job. I realize it’s a privilege. It’s good money. And technically, I’m an independent contractor doing this very niche financial work. So I’m in the inner circle, but not fully. I have this secret thing going on the side that I love.
No one knows about the vise gripping my throat every time I think about my future.
“Hello. Earth to Milo.” Oliver’s in front of me, snapping his fingers.
“Sorry. I zoned out from the inane toilet paper discussion.”
They both give me a look like No you did not .
“He’s thinking of his mystery woman, Gloria,” Alec says.
They’re referring to six months ago, when everything changed on that Friday night. When I came for a family hangout the next day in a daze. A sloppy grinned, messy daze. First of all, it was certainly about sleep deprivation. I hadn’t had a wink all night. That was the biggest thing, no doubt. And the fact that I’d taken an ambulance ride for the humiliating incident on the baby swing in a park.
I’d gotten to spend time with Rose. Not “Gloria.” But when I wouldn’t spill the mystery woman’s name or anything about her, my brothers ended up having to improvise. They started calling her Gloria because they said it looked like I was singing Handel’s Messiah in my head all the time after that. You know? Something about the glory of the Lord.
Anyway. Sometimes I wonder if I’d been imagining the whole thing because she was too good to be true. To say she’s taken up too much space in my head these past six months is an understatement.
I’m not proud of this, but I broke my promise to her once. I went back to Casa del Cibo. I had a whole speech planned. I was going to ask her to let me remedy the horrible ending to our Night ‘O Fun by taking her out for real. A real, proper date. I risked her ire by going back on the promise I’d made to not pay her a visit because I figured I’d always regret it if I didn’t.
But she wasn’t there. I asked Jordo the busboy if she still worked there and he told me she’d quit a few weeks before.
I had no idea where to find her or what to do, cursing that I had let her talk me into her plan of making this a one-time thing. All that talk about “we both know what this is.”
No, I hadn’t known. I certainly didn’t want to never see her again. That wasn’t where I was at all. But Rose wasn’t interested. I couldn’t change her mind without losing all my dignity—the tiny bit that was left after the baby swing debacle.
Thus, the pining for her for the last six months. Seeing her in a crowd and starting to approach her, only to realize it’s not actually her. Catching the scent of crisp cucumber and thinking of her. Reliving our kiss in my mind.
My family is right: there was an incident with a woman that made me lose my ever-loving mind. And as much as they tease me about it—seriously, it comes up far too often—I’m not going to say a word.
“Yep, Gloria,” I say, rolling my eyes. “You ever stop to think that the reason I zone out has less to do with some woman and more to do with your stupid conversations?”
“Alright then. What do you want to talk about? I’m up for anything.” Oliver sits down on the sofa and crosses one leg over the other. “Except maybe leave out the talk about babies for a hot second? I’m pumped to be a dad, but Sophie and I talked about car seats for three hours last night. Three hours.” He stares at each one of us in turn, like we have to understand how hard that was for him.
“Any talk about kids would be better than talk about toilet paper,” I retort.
“Let’s talk about Milo’s social life,” Alec says.
“I’d rather talk about toilet paper,” I say.
“You know, there are a lot more single women in Denver than there are here in Longdale.” Oliver says.
Longdale is a small town near Rocky Mountain National Park, about an hour northwest of Denver. Growing up, we lived most of the year in a suburb of Denver, but our summers were spent on Longdale Lake with our Aunt Stella.
“You could go stay with Mom and Dad on the weekends and try to find someone up there,” Alec says.
A flash of an image of Rose hits my brain again. “No need. I do just fine.”
I’ve been on a few dates in the past several months. All great women. Nice women.
None of them are Rose.
Blessedly, my brothers opt to stop bothering me about women. They change the subject to the great equalizer: sports. It’s NBA Playoffs time, one of my personal favorites.
I leave a couple of minutes early for lunch, and Alec and Oliver follow me down to the corner eatery on the main floor.
This is one of my favorite parts of the job. On any given day, I get to have lunch with one or more of my brothers.
Except for Sebastian. He has a personal nutritionist who gets his food. The rest of us do just fine eating at the resort or at one of the few restaurants in town for our business lunches. And sometimes my brothers bring their lunch from home.
I don’t exactly have a home. I’m living at the resort. It’s not ideal, but I’m grateful to Sebastian for letting me crash in his penthouse suite, and I pay him a little money for the suite out of my wages.
Oliver, Alec, and I settle into a booth at the eatery. We’re lucky we got one because the place is busy. All of Longdale is busier than when Sebastian first broke ground on the resort a few years ago.
There were some Longdalers who weren’t too happy with the thought of a major resort coming to their sleepy town. But most were glad it wasn’t Sophie’s grandparents’ plan that won out, the plan involving putting in a large wind farm all around the lake. The resort is perfect for the area and is helping the economy, not to mention the aesthetic.
We’ve just gotten our meatball sandwiches and salads when, over the din of the eatery, I hear a voice.
It’s a low murmuring, but it draws me in all the same because it sounds like Rose .
I discreetly turn to the booths behind me, trying to continue paying attention to what Alec is talking about. Thankfully it has nothing to do with toilet paper, but about his wife Oakley’s physical therapy internship in Boulder and how much he misses her. It’s no wonder he’s been so clingy to all of us lately. If it weren’t for their Airedale Terrier, Jerry, he’d be even more lonely.
“We offer paid time-off starting at ninety days into your employment at Tate—” I hear a woman say. It has to be Rose. It has to be. Or maybe I’ve been thinking so much about her, I’m just imagining it.
All I know is that I can’t seem to find who is speaking. I can see the back of someone’s head, and that’s definitely not her. But maybe the person she’s across the table from is the person who sounds like Rose?
Two women’s heads are blocking the woman who sounds like Rose, and a flare of frustration comes up again as I tilt my head to try to see who she is. It’s not good that Alec is baring his soul a bit—well, as much as he ever does. I’m trying to see who it is but also trying to be there for Alec. It’s pure torture. And to make matters worse, now our brother, Gabriel, the one between Henry and Alec in birth order, is blocking my view.
“Decided to come over and say hey,” he says, standing right between the woman’s table and me. Gabriel, the brother just older than Alec, runs his own consulting company these days, helping guide businesses with their philanthropic needs. He mostly works from home, but a lot of times, he comes to see his wife, River, who is the Public Relations director here at Tate.
“Where’s River?” I don’t mean for my tone to sound annoyed, but it probably does. The group of women are now standing to leave, and I still haven’t gotten a good look to see if it’s Rose.
Gabriel narrows his eyes at me. “She’s doing some employee trainings. I’ll probably see her later. Is it a problem that I’ve come to say hi?”
“No, no.” I wipe my mouth with my napkin and scoot closer to the wall so Gabriel can sit down. I toss another glance behind me and finally get a glimpse of the other woman in the group.
The perfect bone structure. Warm, sun-kissed skin. Voluminous lips. Wearing a light blue button-up with grey slacks. Her hair down in waves past her shoulders like it was when we kissed.
It’s her.
She’s holding a binder under one arm, placing her pen behind her ear so she can have a free hand to shake theirs. She nods and smiles. I could be mishearing, but she might say, “Welcome aboard.”
There’s more indiscriminate talking and she tips her head back and laughs. I’ve missed that laugh. My whole body goes warm.
“Actually, Gabriel. Can you please scoot for a second? I need to get out of the booth.” I scoot next to him. “Just a second. Sorry.” My leg nudges his as I half stand.
Gabriel blinks. He sighs and then slides out of the linoleum booth, making a flourish with his hands. “Your majesty.”
I don’t stop to say anything more and don’t worry about him thinking I’m getting all prima dona on him.
Because it’s Rose, and she’s standing ten feet away from me. And her gaze is glued to mine.