Chapter 17 #3
Through the gap near the patio curtains, I could see them outside at the table. Isa in leggings and a sweater, hair loose, hands wrapped around a coffee mug. Her mother in a silk robe, pouring more coffee from a silver carafe like this conversation wasn’t about to cut my chest open.
“I thought you embarrassed yourself with Tristan Vale,” Mrs. Calloway said.
My body went still.
Isa looked down at her mug.
Her mother kept going.
“All that pining. All that waiting around for some basketball boy who clearly had his eyes elsewhere. I hated seeing you look like second place.”
Isa’s mouth tightened.
Say something.
Not for me.
For yourself.
But she didn’t.
Her mother leaned in and patted her hand.
“Then you bring home Drew Travers.”
A pause.
“Or Montgomery, depending on who’s asking.”
My jaw locked.
Isa’s fingers tightened around the mug.
Her mother smiled.
“And I thought, well, there she is. There’s my girl. You didn’t fall apart. You traded up.”
The words hit like a fist.
I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe right.
“He’s not—” Isa started.
My heart kicked.
Her mother talked over her.
“Don’t be modest. You bagged yourself an NFL baller with real money behind him. Not old money, maybe. New money. But honestly?” She laughed, bright and ugly. “New money is better than old money. New money spends. Old money lectures.”
Isa’s face went pale.
I waited.
I waited for her to stand.
To laugh.
To say no.
To say that wasn’t what I was.
That wasn’t what we were.
That I wasn’t a better catch because my father sat on business-news panels and moved billions around before breakfast.
That I was Drew.
Just Drew.
Her mother reached over and cupped Isa’s cheek.
“Forget Tristan Vale,” she said softly, like she was giving motherly comfort instead of carving me open. “You snagged a much bigger prize.”
Then she kissed Isa’s temple.
“I’m proud of you.”
Isa closed her eyes.
For one second, pain crossed her face so clearly I almost stepped outside.
Almost.
But she still didn’t say anything.
Nothing.
Not one word.
And there it was.
Every ugly fear I had tried to outrun since the day she finally looked at me.
Maybe she wanted me.
Maybe she even thought she loved me in the quiet parts, when my hands were on her and campus wasn’t watching and her mother wasn’t doing math with my last name.
But here?
In the world she was raised to survive?
I was a win.
A prize.
A better acquisition than Tristan Vale.
And she had let her mother say it.
Maybe because she was tired.
Maybe because she was trained.
Maybe because some part of her agreed.
That thought was the one that got me moving. I didn’t want their approval to be the thing. that pushed her over the edge into being with me for real.
I stepped back before they saw me.
One step.
Then another.
The hall blurred around the edges.
I made it upstairs without making a sound. Closed her bedroom door quietly behind me. Stood in the middle of the room where her suitcase lay open and my duffel sat near the chair, and stared at nothing.
My chest hurt.
Like my body hadn’t gotten the message that this was a fake arrangement with an expiration date I had agreed to from the beginning.
She had warned me.
She had told me exactly what this was.
I was the idiot who heard her laugh in my kitchen and rewrote the contract in my head.
I was the idiot who let her wear my jersey and thought it meant something.
I was the idiot who brought her to Miami, watched her cook Thanksgiving with me, and thought—mine.
I was the idiot who whispered I wasn’t letting her go and believed I could love her hard enough for both of us until she caught up.
My hands moved before my head did.
Shirt folded. Jeans. Hoodie. Toiletries. Charger. Everything neat. Everything controlled. If I packed carefully enough, maybe I wouldn’t break something.
Maybe I wouldn’t go downstairs and say things I couldn’t take back.
Maybe I wouldn’t ask Isa to choose me while her mother sat across from her with coffee and a predator’s smile.
I booked the flight with fingers that didn’t feel like mine.
Dallas to Denver.
Jace’s family place near Vail.
He’d offered weeks ago when he heard I was doing Christmas with Isa’s family and laughed like he knew disaster was inevitable.
Come out if it gets weird, bro. My mom feeds strays.
I guess I was a stray now.
My thumb hovered over the confirmation.
Then pressed.
Done.
My bag sat open on the bed.
Almost packed.
Then I remembered the gift.
I pulled it from the inside pocket of my duffel.
Small box. Silver paper. White ribbon. Her name on the tag.
I sat on the edge of the mattress with it in both hands.
For a few seconds, I just held it.
Couldn’t pack it.
Couldn’t throw it away.
Couldn’t leave with it either.
It wasn’t expensive enough to impress her mother. Wasn’t flashy enough to prove anything. It wouldn’t make a gossip account blink or get Mrs. Calloway’s eyes sparkling with plans.
The bedroom door opened.
I didn’t look up.
I couldn’t.
Because if I looked at her, I might stay.
And staying suddenly felt like volunteering to be broken by a girl who still couldn’t say whether I was real to her when it counted.