Chapter Thirty-Four
Okay Fine, I Have Feelings
Scarlett
Back in Dallas a couple of days later, the brunch spot Lucy picked is loud and hip. I’m not sure if I’m underdressed or overdressed, and I honestly don’t care—I’m just trying not to cry into my mimosa.
Lucy ordered pancakes the size of a pizza and slid half the stack onto my plate without asking. “You’ll feel better after carbs,” she said, like it’s a universal law.
She’s not wrong.
“I can’t believe you didn’t come to the game,” she says now, twisting a straw wrapper between her fingers. “Bennett said Chase was off all night. Like, epically bad.”
I stab a piece of pancake. “Yeah, well.”
She watches me. “You talk to him?”
“No.” I shove the bite in my mouth and immediately regret it—it’s too sweet and I have a lump in my throat the size of Texas, and now I have to swallow this.
Lucy doesn’t say anything. She just refills my mimosa and pulls her phone out to scroll, giving me space without disappearing. It’s the exact right move, which somehow makes me want to cry more.
I glance at my phone for the first time all day.
1 unread message from Chase Remington.
I freeze. I haven’t read through all his messages—haven’t wanted to.
My heart does that awful stutter-jump thing it always does around his name. Like it hasn’t figured out he broke it yet.
I stare at the screen for a long time before opening it.
Chase: I don’t have a good excuse.
I should’ve told you about the bet the second the stupid words were out of Ty’s mouth. Before you ever became real to me.
And you are. You’re the most real thing in my life right now.
You were never a game. Not for one second.
I’m sorry I made you feel that way.
You don’t have to forgive me.
But I needed you to know the truth.
All of it.
My throat tightens.
I blink down at the screen, trying to breathe through the ache in my chest.
Lucy leans over to peek. “Is that…?”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
She reads it quietly, then sits back, giving me a soft look. “Okay, I know I said I was team ‘throw him off a cliff,’ but… that’s a pretty damn good apology.”
I press the phone to my chest and stare out the window, lips trembling.
“I don’t know if it changes anything,” I say finally.
“No,” she agrees. “But it’s a start.”
And the worst part is… it feels like a start.
And that might be even scarier than if it didn’t.
When I get home, I immediately call Harper.
She answers on the second ring, chipper and oblivious. “Heyyy, what’s up, book slut?”
I exhale a laugh, my first real one all day. “I missed you.”
“You sound emotionally wrecked. Should I be flattered or concerned?”
“Both.”
I shift onto my side, one leg tangled in the sheets. “Something happened.”
“Talk to me.”
So I do. I tell her everything—how I overheard the guys at dinner talking about the bet, how I left, how Chase chased me down (no pun intended), how I’ve been ignoring him for a full two days like I’m starring in my own personal soap opera.
I tell her about the message he sent. How it gutted me in a way I didn’t expect. How I can’t stop thinking about the look on his face when I slammed that cab door.
When I finish, there’s a long pause.
And then Harper says, “Soooo... do you want me to say ‘I told you so,’ or remind you of our bet?”
Our bet?
I start remembering bits and pieces of a conversation we had after getting pedicures last month. And my stomach drops.
“If you did fall for him, I’d never let you live it down.” Harper had chuckled at my obvious discomfort.
I’d narrow my eyes. “Is that a bet?”
“More like a prophecy. But sure. Let’s call it a bet. I say by the end of this book club fiasco, you’re going to catch real feelings for Chase Remington.”
Alarm bells ring in my brain.
“Oh my gosh,” I gasp.
“Ding ding ding,” she says sweetly. “Full circle, babe.”
I cover my face with one hand. “I’m the worst.”
“You’re a human. With feelings. Who maybe, possibly, might’ve caught some for the hot hockey player she swore she hated.”
“I placed a bet on falling in love. And then got mad that he—” I groan into the pillow. “I’m the world’s biggest hypocrite.”
“Yeah,” she says gently, “but at least you’re a cute one.”
I smile weakly. “You’re not mad at me?”
“Mad? Babe, I’m delighted. This is peak romance novel irony. I might throw a parade.”
I roll onto my back, the weight of it all still there—but lighter now. Like letting someone else hold part of it made it bearable.
“Why don’t you admit what this really is?”
I stare at the wall. “And what’s that?”
“You fell for him, and that scared you.”
The weight of her words slams into me.
There’s a small chance she’s right. Tiny. Minuscule.
Crap.
Harper lowers her voice. “So… what are you gonna do?”
I stare at my phone a second longer.
Then I open a new message. My fingers don’t even hesitate.
I’d spent so long building walls that I forgot to leave a door. Chase didn’t knock—he just moved in through the window. And now he was rearranging all my carefully organized defenses, making himself at home in places I’d sworn no one would ever reach again.
Me: I think I’m ready to talk.
I hit send.
He replies immediately.
Chase: Yeah? Let’s do it.
Me: But first I need to go to Chicago.
My heart stutters.
And for the first time in two days, I let myself hope.
Chase: Okay. I’ll be here when you get back.
I’ve had this idea in my head for months, well, years if I’m being honest, but I always talked myself out of it. Now, it feels like a bad idea. Like colossally bad.
The kind of bad idea you only follow through on after a dramatic therapy session or a staged intervention. Except this time, I’ve got neither. Just a slowly healing heart, a half-finished manuscript, and the urge to stop letting the past drive the car.
So I’ve flown to Chicago.
And texted my parents separately.
Dinner. Giordano’s. 7 p.m. Be civil or be gone.
Short. Sharp. Me.
Now they’re here.
And I actually have to do the thing.
My mom’s sitting on the left side of the table, hands folded in front of her like she’s trying to appear unbothered. My dad’s on the right, arms folded, glancing occasionally at his phone like he’s hoping someone will emergency-text him out of the restaurant.
Spoiler: no one is.
I’m sitting in front of them, a wine glass in one hand, not drinking it.
“I didn’t invite you here to referee,” I say finally. “I’m not interested in watching you two volley passive-aggressive barbs across the table.”
My mom straightens. “Scarlett, we’re not—”
“You are. You always have.”
My dad sighs but doesn’t argue. That’s how I know he knows I’m right.
“I’m thirty,” I say. “I write about love for a living. I think about it constantly. And I still have no idea what it’s supposed to look like. Because growing up? It looked like slammed doors and stony silence and one of you always walking out.”
They both look at me now. Really look.
“I didn’t get a normal childhood,” I say. “And I’ve spent most of my adult life convincing myself that love is temporary. Transactional. That people only stay if you make it easy. Or if you happen to live inside of a Nicholas Sparks novel.”
My mom’s eyes are glistening. My dad’s jaw is tight. The tension between us is as thick as ever.
“I’m not blaming you,” I add quickly. “Okay, well—I am, a little. But mostly I just… I need something from you.”
They wait.
I take a breath, try to steady myself.
“I need you to tell me what happened. I need you to be honest with me. Because for once, I think I want my own happy ending, and all I hear is you two tearing each other down in the background.”
Silence. Thick. Uncomfortable.
And then—
“We were stupid,” my dad says.
My mom blinks. “Excuse me?”
Here we go…
He turns toward her, voice low but clear. “We were stubborn. We were young. We thought love would fix things, but we didn’t know how to talk. How to fight for each other.”
“We fought plenty,” she mutters.
“Not for the right things.”
I watch them—two people who once built a life together, now looking at each other like strangers who might’ve once shared a dream.
“I didn’t leave because I stopped loving you,” he says. “I left because I didn’t know how to stay.”
“And I didn’t stop you,” my mom admits. “I was so tired of feeling like the only one trying.”
Tears slip down my cheeks before I even feel them coming.
They both look at me.
“I’m sorry,” my mom says. “I didn’t realize how much you were carrying.”
“I thought staying quiet would protect you,” my dad adds. “But it just made you feel like none of it mattered.”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
I just sit there.
Right between them.
It’s quiet again.
Nothing is fixed, and it might not ever be, but something tells me it’s a start.
We eat, share a bottle of wine, and we talk some more. And somehow, by the end of dinner, I feel the tiniest bit better. My parents are just people—flawed humans who made mistakes.
The three of us step out onto the sidewalk. My mom hugs me first—tighter than she has in a long time.
“I’m sorry it took this long,” she murmurs.
“Me too,” I say, and I mean it.
My dad lingers a beat longer, like he’s not sure he’s earned the right to say anything else. But then he reaches for my hand and squeezes it.
“You deserved better,” he says. “And I’m going to try. Even now. If you’ll let me.”
I nod, throat tight. “Trying’s a good place to start.”
They head in opposite directions, but this time, it doesn’t feel like something’s breaking apart.
It feels like turning a page. Starting a new chapter.
And maybe that’s enough for now.