Chapter Twenty-Three

Tate

I used to love standing at my window in the morning, looking out at the street from behind my tinted glass, enjoying the orderly quiet of the spacious penthouse as I start my day. The quiet now feels eerie, the spaciousness feels like emptiness, and the order feels like sterility. Everywhere I look below me, I see people the size of ants. I can't make out details from this high above them, but it doesn't stop my imagination from running away from me. Every pair of shapes is a couple holding hands. Every cluster is a family, or a group of coworkers or friends, clutching their coffees and croissants as they head off to their day jobs. Regardless of who they actually are, they're together, and I'm up here by myself.

I thought I was building myself a sanctuary, where I'd sit on my wealth like some medieval dragon, doing Scrooge McDuck dives into piles of gold coins and bathing in Dom Perignon. When I compare it to the genuine internal warmth I felt sitting at the firepit at Sunset Lake, burning my marshmallows and watching Piper magically whack beer bottles open with her bare hands, it feels like a prison.

One week of fake dating has done something to me. It's made me soft. Maudlin, even. Where is the old Tate Story? The one who never believed in love at all, and never thought about much more in the morning than the Dow Jones and which small batch beans I was going to grind? That guy needs to make a reappearance and save me from myself.

I shoot a glance at my watch, noting that it's already five minutes to nine, and I haven't heard a peep from Piper. The thought distresses me, and I instinctively make my way to the sofa, perching on the edge of a cushion so I can watch the elevator. When nine o'clock passes and no elevator arrives, I consider sending out a search party. My thumb hovers over my lock screen, ready to dial her number, when I hear a knock at the door.

Immediately jumping to the worst possible conclusion, I find my heart in my throat as I trudge over to it, not wanting to see what waits for me on the other side. My hand trembles as I reach for the knob, pulling it open to find…

Piper.

Her hair is pulled back in a severe bun, and she isn't wearing much makeup behind her glasses. It's as if she's tried to make herself look as neutral and unappealing as possible.

"What are you doing?"

She opens her mouth to respond, but the answer comes to me before she gets the chance to speak.

"Boundaries. I get it."

We both hover around the door, neither of us quite sure what to do with ourselves.

"First of all, I'd like the private elevator disconnected. It's no longer needed. Secondly, what do you want me to work on this morning?" Piper holds her bag against her chest, blocking herself off from me. She runs her tongue along her teeth, holding her head high and looking off into the apartment behind me, keeping her eyes anywhere but my face.

"Is this how it's going to be?" The words escape me in a whisper, half-choked, as I grapple with the icy barrier she's erected between us, every cell of my body permeated with fear. I can handle her anger. This is something else entirely.

The air feels thinner, and a cold dread settles in my stomach. Piper's posture, the deliberate distancing—it's like a door slamming shut, echoing through the hollow space where warmth used to live. I shuffle awkwardly, my feet rooted to the spot, my heart sinking with the realization of her withdrawal. The sudden starkness of her professional facade, the absence of her usual warmth, cuts deeper than I expected. It feels like I'm watching the last embers of her affection cool into indifference. My heart squeezes as I realize she's missing the spark that used to light up her eyes whenever she saw me.

Suddenly, I'm the odd man out in my own life story, and Piper's distant look tells me I'm not getting back in anytime soon. How did we drop from sneaky, shared smiles to this icy standoff? It's a slap in the face, a wake-up call I can't ignore. Yeah, I screwed up—big time. It was all me. Every time she looks away, it's like she's shutting a door, and part of me is desperate to knock, to shout through the cracks with an apology, anything to fix this. But the Piper in front of me feels like a mirage now, and here I am, tasting the sharp sting of a world where I'm more ghost than guest.

"This is how it has to be," she replies, squaring her shoulders. "How it always should have been." This is even worse than if she hadn't shown up at all. Even though she's in the room with me, she's never felt further away. Every second I spend with her makes me regret last week even more. I can't do this. More than that, neither can she.

"Okay then…" I sigh, leaning against the arm of the sofa. I don't want to let her go, but I'd rather have no Piper at all than a Piper who dreads every minute she spends with me. "I need a couple of weeks to go through the data and process everything."

She stares at me, and I watch as she struggles to work through what I've just said. "What am I supposed to do in the meantime?"

I flick my wrist. "You get two weeks paid vacation. Effective immediately."

Piper starts to speak, then thinks better of it, turning on her heels and heading right back out the door. As it closes behind her, I can't help but feel that I've made a mistake. I want to be with her, but I've pushed her away. I want her to be happy, and I want her to be with me, but I'm not sure those two concepts go together. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to give her what she wants.

It doesn't matter if I love her, and I do. I'm not good enough for her. I'm not the man who's capable of making her happy. My brain doesn't work the same way a neurotypical person's does. I'm defective. Knowing that, it would be reckless to make a declaration and then not be able to follow through.

Of course, the one person I would ask for advice is the one that I just sent packing. Funny how these things work out. I'm like a thirsty man floating on the ocean. There's water all around me, but drinking it will only make things worse.

I wasn't lying when I said I needed more time with the data. There's a mountain of work ahead of me, none of which can be done until I untangle and sift through the teeming mass of information we collected throughout our beta test. It's going to be a long road, and it isn't a journey I'm ready to embark on while Piper has me so emotionally off-kilter. If I can't turn to Piper, I can turn to the next best thing.

I never in a million years would've thought I'd be making the trip twice in a decade, let alone a month, but I need to go home, a place I'm surprised isn't in this penthouse but is instead in the town I've been running from my whole life. To cross the finish line, you need to go back to the starting gate. Not knowing how long I'll be gone or what my intentions are beyond simply not wanting to be here, I pack a haphazard bag, shoving in fistfuls of clothes, my laptop, and my notebook. Before I can think twice, I'm back out on the road, headed right back where I came from.

When I arrived at the lodge last week, I was able to walk in with my head held high, feeling like I owned the place. On the one hand, I literally owned the place, and on the other, I had the most wonderful, intelligent, beautiful woman on my arm, backing my every move. Now, I'm pulling up with my tail between my legs, shuffling up the front steps and through the door to the main lodge with my duffle bag slung over my shoulder, looking and feeling for all the world like I'd just been kicked out of my house.

"Back so soon?" Ledger calls to me from the front desk, that stupid bird echoing his words. "Guess the place grew on you. Also, you can take the five to eleven shift?"

"Tate takes a shit. Take takes a shit," Captain Obvious squawks, hopping around on his perch. "Taking a shit from five to eleven, five to eleven! IBS, IBS, IBS!"

A little boy grabbing a Capri Sun from the snack bar stares at me. "Gross, dude!"

I swallow my annoyance, not wanting to explode on my brother who hasn't done anything wrong other than exist too cheerfully for my tastes today.

"Where's Fallon?" I grumble. Ledger nods behind me with his chin, and I hear her voice coming from the other side of the lobby, where there's a handful of guests gathered around the fireplace in front of her. I stride over toward her, nearly knocking over a small child carrying a hot chocolate as he crosses the lobby in front of me.

"Fallon." I saddle up next to her, lowering my voice so the other guests can't hear me. "I feel wretched. I need you."

"I'm running a game right now," she hisses through a broad smile plastered on her face. "We can talk after."

"It has to be now." Realizing that the dozen or so guests sitting in front of us are starting to stare, I join my sister in sticking a taught grin on my face. I even offer a polite wave to our audience. My name may not be on the door, but their bottom line is directly tied to my net worth.

My sister puts her pointer finger up. "Listen, bossy bro, you heard me. After."

She isn't going to budge. If anyone in this family approaches my level of bullheadedness, it's my sister. Being the only girl in a house full of boys will do that to you. I give the assembled group a once over, surveying the two teams. Seated on the left is a group of three older couples, the sort who seem to either own an RV or go on a lot of cruises. To their right is a tired looking mom, with four boys ranging in age from ‘rolling around on the floor with a toy truck in his mouth' to ‘old enough to not want to be here, probably texting his girlfriend back home in Iowa.' After a moment's consideration, I slide to the right, taking a seat on the sofa next to the boys' mother, who barely registers my presence, too invested in her massive cup of coffee.

I'm already disturbingly good at trivia and other feats of mental strength. When I was a kid, the entire family stopped watching Jeopardy after dinner because I was just too insufferable. I sucked the fun right out of it according to my dad. I already expected to be able to blow through the rest of Fallon's questions, but to my pleasant surprise, all of them are about Sunset Lake. Every single bit of information was something I've absorbed over the years, either from a fourth grade history class or a flier in the lobby of the lodge. The answers come out of my mouth as quickly as Fallon can pose the questions, and while my team is happy that the whole thing is coming to a close, I can feel the eyes of the other team starting to bore into the back of my skull.

In fear of getting jumped later and slung into the back of a Winnebago with a bag over my head, I decide to clam up, whispering the answers to the sullen teenager sitting next to me, letting him take the glory and get his mom off his back for the afternoon.

The score isn't even close, and by the time Fallon is out of cards, she looks like she's going to throw me headfirst into the fireplace. I think the only thing stopping her is the audience of guests, and the bad PR that fratricide would bring to the resort.

"I don't even want to help you right now," she bites out venomously, shoving her trivia cards into her bag and tucking her hair behind her ear. "What even was that?"

The corners of my mouth curl. "Even if it means helping me get back together with Piper?"

Something in my voice catches her attention, and she pauses to take a good look at me. Her shoulders slump, and she lets out her breath with a trill of her lips. "I see it as a service to Piper. And let's be crystal clear, you don't deserve her. You're a special kind of jerk."

Her words are less sharp now. The way she calls me a jerk feels less genuine, and more like how she would chastise me for finishing the milk before she got to her morning bowl of Apple Jacks.

"I don't mean to be." I'm starting to realize that the ultra-cavalier, billionaire playboy with a quick mouth and a lack of humanity persona that I've been toting around isn't exactly doing me any favors. "And I know I don't deserve her. That's why I'm here. I still want to try to win her back. How can I prove myself?"

Fallon thinks for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip. "Nothing comes to mind."

"Why were you inside running trivia?" Ever since she could walk, Fallon spent every waking second outdoors. The idea that she would willingly consign herself to an indoor activity while the sun is shining is more than a bit odd.

"We don't have a lot of things to do for all ages," she shrugs, wrapping her arms across her chest. "Not that you're around enough to notice."

An idea pops into my head. One far better than a party barge. "I'll buy the resort a mini-golf course."

Fallon's eyes light up, her brows raising, until they furrow in the middle, a crease forming between them. "How can you afford that?"

This would've been a great time for Piper to elbow me in the ribs. "After the app launches. We can break ground in the spring."

"I help you win the heart of the woman you love but don't deserve," she drags out, working through my offer out loud. "You buy the resort a mini-golf course?"

"Yes." I try to sound reluctant, in a way consistent with the financial status everyone thinks I have. In reality, I would buy the resort an entire PGA-level course if it meant even half a chance of winning Piper back. I would pay Tiger Woods to stay here for a week and sign the towels in every room in the building.

"Deal. Ledger, you're my witness. You heard that, right?" she shouts, turning toward the front desk.

"I'm on it." Ledger barely looks up at her from the computer screen, shooting her a nonchalant thumbs up. Clearly he is not as invested in the mini-golf situation as my sister is. Brain buzzing with ideas, she leads me out of the main lodge and down a gravel path toward a largely empty patch of grass. There are a few bases on the ground from where a kickball diamond was once set up but is now long out of use, evidenced by the weeds growing around the rubber plates.

"You don't listen," she announces suddenly, standing at the now defunct home base with her hands on her hips. I run through the last few minutes, trying to figure out what I may have missed, but come up with nothing.

"About kickball? Or mini-golf?"

"No. You don't listen to Piper," she sighs. "Or anyone, for that matter. You hear people, sure. But you don't really listen ."

"I do listen," I insist. She levels an unmoving stare at me, and I crumble immediately. "I try to listen."

"Piper gave up on her dreams to help you with yours." Shaking her head, she starts to walk along the grass, making a note of the distance of the plot. Occasionally she bends at the waist, miming a putt with her arms. "Whatever that was. Or is."

My head tilts to one side. "How do you know this?"

"Bonfire. You were there, too, big brother. Quit making my point." She pauses, glancing around at the rest of the plot, then holds her hand above her head, trying to measure the wind against her fingers. "You think the windmill would work here?"

"No. Too close to the lake." Fallon nods in agreement. Ignoring the protests from my knees and the cost of my jeans, I take a seat in the grass, tearing at the blades the same way I did when my parents made me play tee ball, and I'd spend the whole game sitting in the outfield. "So, make her dream possible. Fine. I can do that. If I knew what that was."

Fallon rolls her eyes. "The chocolate. You should know this."

As soon as the words leave her mouth, everything clicks into place. Of course. It's always been about the chocolate. The serene look on her face every time she gets to work. The genuine joy in her eyes when she watches someone take that first bite. The warmth in her voice when she talks about her time in Paris. She had found something she really truly loved, and put it all on the shelf just for me.

The realization hits me like a bolt of lightning. "You're a genius. Also, I'm going to need more help."

"Shocking." She shakes her head with a laugh, turning and walking away, muttering something about water hazards and animatronic alligators. All I can think about is chocolate. An idea starts to form in my mind. I can't wait to bring it to life.?

Fallon and I settle down around the lodge's stone fireplace, the crackling of the logs a soft undertone to our conversation. Ledger joins us, dropping onto the hearth with a heavy sigh, his attention finally away from the computer screen.

"Okay, spill," Fallon urges, her tone half-joking, half-serious. "What's this big secret you've been keeping? Ledger mentioned something about needing a serious family meeting?"

I take a deep breath, the weight of my confession pressing down on me. "It's about the resort," I start, avoiding their gazes as I poke at the fire with a stick. "And about me."

Ledger leans forward, eyebrows raised. "What about it?"

I pause, the words heavy on my tongue. "I'm... well, I've become a lot more successful than you guys know. The dating app I developed took off beyond my wildest dreams."

Fallon's eyes widen, her mouth forming a silent ‘oh.'

"It generated more than just buzz. When I sold it, it made me... a billionaire." I rush out the words, bracing for their reactions.

Silence envelops us for a moment, broken only by the crackling of the fire. Fallon is the first to speak. "A billionaire? Tate, that's—"

"Incredible," Ledger finishes, shaking his head in disbelief. "That only makes me even more proud of you, little brother. Why keep it a secret?"

"It's what mom and dad wanted," I explain. "They were clear about not wanting it to become public knowledge. I'm a silent partner here, financially supporting the resort. I trust you guys, Daisy, and Hank to keep things on track. I'd prefer to remain hands-off."

"You've been funding all the improvements?" Fallon's voice is a mixture of admiration and annoyance. "No wonder you've been a little crabby about working the front desk."

"Yes. And I'll continue to fund everything you need. But I want you both to keep this between us for now." I look at them earnestly. "It's important."

Fallon reaches out, squeezing my hand. "Of course, Tate. But you know, you should have told us sooner."

"I know." I let out a laugh, more out of relief than amusement. "I guess I was afraid it'd change things. Make things awkward. Maybe even breed some resentment."

"It doesn't change how we see you," Ledger says firmly. "You're still our brother."

"Thanks." I feel a warmth spread through me, more comforting than the fire before us. "I've been thinking a lot lately, about family, and what I've been missing."

"And Piper?" Fallon asks gently.

I nod, a smile tugging at my lips. "She's made me see a lot of things differently. Made me want to be better, for her, for us. She gave up her dreams for mine. It's time I support hers."

"About time," Ledger mutters, but there's a smile on his face.

I stand, looking down at them both, feeling a sense of home I hadn't realized I'd been missing. "Let's just say, I've got plans. Big plans. And they include all of us, and yes, a lot of chocolate."

Fallon laughs, standing to join me. "As long as it includes chocolate, Piper's happiness, and the best mini-golf course my ‘not so secret billionaire brother's' money can buy, count me in."

We stick together, a trio bound by more than just blood—by dreams, chocolate, and a secret that we'll carry together us Story kids. It's a new chapter for us, and I feel ready, perhaps for the first time, to really be a part of it.

As we share a warm laugh and the glow of newfound understanding, there's a flutter from above. Captain Obvious, the ever-eavesdropping little shithead, perches above the fireplace, eyeing us with a keen gaze. Suddenly, he squawks loudly, his voice echoing in the high rafters of the lodge:

"Keep the secrets, keep the cash!"

We all burst into laughter as Captain Obvious fluffs his feathers, looking pleased with himself for his timely, if not entirely subtle, input.