Chapter Twenty-Two #2
The suggestion made in our last meeting was to wait for the city to approve our demolition and give a low-ball offer to the residents.
For those who fight back, we’d raise the offer in micro-incriments until they accept out of exasperation or when their lawyer fees outweighed their gains.
At that point we could still buy the property at a considerable discount.
As all the homes are under market value, I assume this strategy will work.
We then demolish the derelict area and start our build, ignoring the docks that Juliet has highlighted as a potential gold mine, because they are not currently in our plans.
I’d go back to New York, take on another money-making endeavor and move on to make more and more money and do … what?
Travel with the guys and their families?
Perhaps travel alone and fuck random women?
Maybe I’ll take a mistress who will satisfy my cock and keep her at arm’s length so at least I’ll get sex on the regular?
I’ll eat fine food alone, or with a woman who we both know is only in it for the sex and perks.
I’ll spend Christmas with my friends and their families watching their loud children run around while I drink too much good Scotch.
I’ll be driven home inebriated, thanking God none of the loudmouthed brats were mine.
I’ll send an obligatory gift to my own loudmouthed brat and see pictures of them growing up online.
Juliet and I will have terse and polite conversations and we’ll live our separate lives.
I unexpectedly rush to the ensuite and barf. I haven’t thrown up after drinking since college. I’m humiliated and disgusted, not so much for the fact that I retched, I actually feel much better for it, but for the disgusting life I’m planning for myself.
Conversely, I can fall in love with Juliet.
Have cold winter strolls and warm hot chocolate.
I can create an entire wing devoted to Gran, Juliet, and the baby in my mansion, God knows I have the room.
I can make love to Juliet and learn every place on her body that makes her scream.
Maybe we can put Gran on the first floor to avoid embarrassment regarding the aforementioned screaming.
I can watch my own loudmouthed little rug rat grow up and maybe he or she won’t be a horror, because Becket and Griffin’s kids aren’t, they are just happy, loved children with big voices.
Loved. I think of that word. I could be loved, and I would be so deeply loved.
Juliet and I could work together creating a better world and Gran would help raise her great grand child.
We’d have cozy Christmases in Rhode Island at Gran’s place and our little one could take over their mother’s old bedroom in the attic where their own dreams could grow.
I stand there thinking do I want a Grinch life or a great one?
I know the answer, it is very clear. I may have been hurt, that may have made me lock my heart away, but Juliet has breathed life into that sad shriveled little thing, giving it a chance to beat again.
I’m determined, blindly so, when I call the car and make my move toward the future.
I barely remember the drive. Just snow and silence, my driver glancing back at me like he wants to ask if I’m sure.
I just sit there with the report in my lap, Juliet’s neat handwriting staring back at me from the margin notes.
Her letter on top haunting me, inspiring my resolve to save what we have.
I shouldn’t be here, I know that; boundaries matter.
But after a night like last night, with her words hammering at me until dawn, there’s no other place I want to be.
Gran opens the door before I can even knock twice, wrapped in a cardigan, a mug of something steaming in her hand.
She eyes me up and down like she knows exactly why I’m here.
“Mr. Dubois.” She says it sharp, but there’s a twinkle behind it. “Didn’t expect the enemy to be on my porch first thing in the morning.”
“I have to be real with you, Gran, I didn’t expect to be here, but I need to see Juliet.”
Gran studies me for a long second, then steps aside. “Kitchen. She’s not awake yet, but I’ll tell you, she’s a fucked-up mess and from the looks of it, so are you.”
“Fucked-up mess is very aptly described,” I say as I follow her into her tiny warm kitchen.
I sip the cider in the mug she pressed into my hand, even though it’s too sweet and too spiced. It’s the kind of thing Juliet and Gran would drink.
“I don’t suppose you have any Scotch?” I give her a sheepish grin.
“I do, but you don’t need Scotch. What you need is a box of condoms and a swift kick in the ass.” She says grabbing a bottle of Scotch and tipping a drop into my cup; a small mercy.
“Noted,” I say, sipping again. “I’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“You two haven’t thought of anything,” she scoffs and she’s right in a way.
“Never been in love, Gran?” I give her a side eye. “Lovers don’t do a lot of thinking.”
“I was, and that’s the only reason why you’re here.
I see the same look in your eyes that my husband used to have for me.
Every single day of our lives he looked at me the way you look at Juliet, until the day he died.
Life can give you a lot of shit to shovel, though.
We lost our son in a motorcycle accident and that nearly broke us.
We struggled to make ends meet, we raised a daughter who isn’t really the kind of woman I wanted her to be, and another we don’t see.
Life is sticky and messy and it rolls you.
Love—love needs to hold on through all of it.
I’ll survive you tearing Eaton down, but Juliet won’t.
Not because a building can’t be replaced, but because a heart really can’t be mended once it’s broken.
You two are not on the same page and that’s the problem.
” Gran pours a healthy dose of Scotch in her own glass despite it being eight in the morning, and eyes me.
“See, that’s where you, in all of your infinite wisdom, are wrong.
I am on the same page. She wrote a report and I plan on making that our game plan.
We will not only save the library, and Eaton, but I’ll build it up, make it better, and bring prosperity to everyone.
It is all Juliet and her brilliant mind that has set this in motion.
I have the power and the money to make it happen.
So, I can be the man she wants me to be.
” I am pleading, I know it but I’m also passionate about this.
“I’m sure you can and you will. I believe you, but that isn’t what I’m talking about.” She sips her drink, then gets up and takes a tray of something out of the oven and the whole room fills with the smell of cinnamon and spice.
She sets the tray down on the table and I see little pumpkin spice muffins begging me to taste their fluffy warm goodness. I take one before being offered and I’m promptly scalded a little; deservedly so.
“They’re hot.” Gran gives me a shrug as if I can’t seem to keep myself out of trouble.
I’m a forty-eight year old toddler and Gran makes me nervous. “What are you talking about if it’s not the project?”
“You are going to be a father. Creating life is the greatest gift you can give the world and you’re treating it like trash, or worse—a line item on your outgoing expenditures.
Juliet is pregnant with your child. This is a time when the two of you need to be celebrating and cherishing each other, but you’ve treated Juliet and the baby like a bill on autopay.
I don’t give a shit if you aren’t forever, that baby is.
So if you’re here to get the girl, you better be ready to take the gremlin too or you can call your car and go. We’ve got this.”
Damn, I’m scared of Gran.
“I’m here for both the girl and the gremlin,” I say quietly.
At that moment, Juliet appears, her hair is tousled from sleep, sweater slipping off one shoulder, puffy red eyes wide with surprise when she sees me sitting at Gran’s table like I belong here. Her steps falter, and I can see the shield she pulls up and the distance she wants to put between us.
“Marcel?” Her voice is soft, uncertain. “What are you doing here?”
I set the report on the table between us. “I read it. Every word. You’ve given me a solution I didn’t think existed. And …” My throat feels tight, but I push through it. “You’ve given me something I can’t ignore. Not anymore.”
She blinks, then lowers herself into the chair opposite mine. She doesn’t touch the report, just studies me, waiting.
Gran hums around us, clattering dishes in the sink, pretending not to listen but soaking up every word.
I lean forward. “Juliet, you won. You’ve shown me more Christmas, more heart, more possibility for success in a few weeks than I’ve seen in my entire life. And I’m not going to bulldoze that down. Not you. Not Eaton. and not our baby.”
Her lips part, eyes wide, breath catching like she doesn’t quite believe me.
And for the first time in years, I realize I don’t care what the numbers say. I care about the look on her face right now.