38. Summer
38
SUMMER
I am a stubborn girl.
I know this about myself.
But when I walk into my apartment and find not just my roommate but my mother, my niece, and my twin brother, I let all the tears rain down.
I head for the couch, nosedive into it, and cry in my mother’s lap. Amelia crawls up next to me, crouching by my side. “Don’t cry, Aunt Summer. Everything’s going to be fine. I swear.”
And that makes me cry a little harder—her sweet six-year-old faith in the world.
“Tell me why you’re so sad, honey,” Mags says.
“Yes, tell us. What can we do?”
Amelia snuggles on my lap. “I’m all ears. That’s what my daddy says to me when I want to talk to him. He says, What can I do? ”
Logan ruffles his daughter’s hair, then plops down on the couch next to all of us—four women and a guy.
“I’m in love with Oliver Harris.” I choke out the words past the prickly, complicated emotions that clog my throat.
Logan snorts.
I shoot him a sharp stare. “What was that for?”
“Tell me something I don’t know. I came here to see if you were okay, and this is what you confess? Something we’ve all known for years?”
“Thanks a lot,” I mutter.
My grandmother smiles, petting my hair. “Ignore him, honey.”
“Yes. We all do,” my mother says.
“I like Oliver,” Amelia chirps.
“Me too. But it’s a mess, and he said the whole thing was a mistake, and it is a massive mistake. Just look at what happened. I lost the prize money. I lost the chance to write the feature piece. I lost Oliver.”
My mother tuts. “Did you lose Oliver though?”
I make a show of looking around. “He’s not here, and he said it was all a mistake.”
“It’s hard to believe it’s a mistake when you seem like such a great couple,” she says diplomatically.
“But we’re not. This isn’t some cheesy romance where everything works out perfectly. It’s real life.” I swipe my hand across my face, swallowing these dumb tears. I draw a deep, fueling breath, one that I hope masks all this pain in my heart, this wild ache for Oliver. An ache that won’t be soothed. “It’s fine. I don’t want a relationship. I’m not interested in one. It doesn’t remotely make sense in my life.” I hold my chin up high even as my lower lip quivers.
“Relationships never entirely make sense, dear,” my mom says softly. “Did you think it made sense to me when I met your father?”
I furrow my brow. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”
She tucks a finger under my chin, tilting my head so she can look me in the eyes. “I just loved him. It wasn’t always convenient.”
I straighten my shoulders. “Well, I don’t have time for a relationship. I’m trying to grow my business, and it’s going to be even harder now. I’ll have to start over.”
“You can do both.”
I stare at her and point out a truth of my whole life. “But you didn’t do both.”
Her brow knits. “What do you mean?”
“When you quit working to help with Dad’s business. You always made comments about how you left your job at the bookstore. You didn’t really want to leave it, did you?”
“Sweetheart. I did want to. I chose to,” she says, rubbing my shoulder.
“Why did you always say that, then? To me? To us?” I gesture to my brother and then to me.
Logan simply smiles, his grin telling me he knows why she did it.
“Because I was proud of my decision,” my mother says. “I brought it up because it was what I’d wanted to do. I was glad I made that choice. I stood by it then; I stand by it now. And whatever you decide, I hope you have no regrets. There are too many other things to regret in life, and I don’t want your career to be one of them.” She squeezes my arm then lets go to tap my chest. “But I don’t think the way you feel now, this hurt in your heart, has anything to do with your career.”
Mags squeezes my other arm. “It doesn’t at all.”
And Amelia shoots me a sad smile. “Just be happy and tell Ollie you love him. Sheesh.”
Logan scoops up his daughter. “You are full of brilliant advice.” He meets my gaze. “And as Oliver’s good friend, let me tell you something, Summer. You might need to spell it out for him—how you feel—because he doesn’t always believe when good things happen.”
My heart crawls up my throat. “You think he wants this?”
Before I can say anything more, my phone buzzes. It’s Oliver. I answer it the second it rings, but he speaks first.
“It’s Ollie, and I’ve come to fix something stupid I said earlier.”
“Yes.”
Logan walks down the hall and holds the door open for me.
Rather than wait, I rush out, down the steps, and into Oliver’s arms, where he waits on the stairwell.