he remained silent.
“I’m working at one of the most prestigious firms on the East Coast. If they wanted to blackball me, they could. It’s not just about not getting a good reference from them. They could actively ruin my career before it’s even started. And from what I’ve seen of them, they’re exactly the kind of people who’d do it.”
Drew stood and moved closer to me, though he didn’t reach for me. “These are a lot of coulds, Sophia. What are the odds of any of that happening?”
“I really don’t know. I’m probably just being paranoid. But Jake already sold me out once, and he knows what I was working on. I have no idea if he’ll come sniffing around and turn me in to the rest of them. I definitely can’t discount that he would.”
Drew shook his head slowly. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this? Why wait until two hours before the grand opening?”
I shrugged. “Because what does it change?”
“It changes everything,” he replied, his tone exasperated.
“Does it? What would you have done differently? Would you not have opened? Would you have told Sean his deck couldn’t be everything you said it would?”
When he didn’t answer, I stepped closer to him. “What would have changed?” I was barely restraining myself from yelling, not because I was angry at him but because I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I’d thought through all of this over and over all week, and I was sick of thinking about it.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “But we could’ve figured it out. If you’d said something before today, we could’ve thought of another way.”
“There is no other way. I want you to have success, Drew. I want you and Brody to show what you can do with this opportunity so that it grows into new, better opportunities in the future. I just wish your success didn’t have to hurt my career. But that’s not your fault or your problem.”
“Not my problem? Your problems are my problems,” he said as he gestured between us. “That’s how this has always worked.”
I put a hand on his cheek and caressed his jaw. “Not this time. You need to do what’s best for you. And I’ll…figure things out on my end.”
He groaned and pushed his hands through his hair. “I just… How am I supposed to go to the opening with this hanging over us? I don’t understand why you couldn’t have told me what was wrong before now.”
When he looked at me, I gave him a small smile. “Because this is the first time you’ve asked.”
He dropped his hands to his sides. “So this is my fault?”
“No, it’s definitely mine. But it was easy to not talk about it when you weren’t asking. Now, I…I dunno. I couldn’t hold it in. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry for being honest with me. I’m not mad at you for that.”
“But you’re mad at me for something.” It wasn’t a question. Of course he was mad. He’d have been crazy not to be.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. My emotions are all…jumbled.”
“I get that.”
“So,” he began, “what do we do now?”
“You go to your opening, and you knock it out of the park.”
When my words registered, his face hardened. I’d rarely seen him like that, and he’d never aimed it at me. Even when he’d broken up with me months ago, he’d been more blank than angry.
“You’re not even coming to the opening now?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He scoffed. “Of course. Because only you make decisions now.”
“Drew, that’s not—”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll just do what’s best for me, like you said.” He moved to the door and wrenched it open, but he paused before he walked through it. “You know, I thought all of this—everything we’ve been working for—was moving us toward our future. I thought we were in this together. That’s the most disappointing thing about this whole mess. We haven’t been growing together. We’re heading in two completely different directions.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but he was gone before I could.
He’d left me behind again—but this time, I’d pushed him away. And as I plopped down on my bed and let the tears flow freely, I had no idea how to get him back.
Chapter Twenty-One
D R E W
Despite my inner turmoil, I couldn’t have been more pleased with how the evening was turning out.
The Yard had managed to generate a lot of buzz, and people had come out in droves to see the space. All