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“I don’t think he’s coming back to Honeybridge. He’ll probably fly back to New York when the event is over. He said something before he left, like, ‘Thatcher has enough to worry about. Tell him I agreed to go, and I’ll see him back in the city… if he wants to.’” McGee pulled into the Wellbridges’ long driveway. “So do you want to?”
“Yeah,” I said without hesitation. “Yeah, I want to. I need to make sure he’s okay, and I…” I cleared my throat. “Thalia thinks I’m in love with him.”
“Oh, does Thalia? Well then.” McGee sounded way too amused. “I’ve known you were in love with him since Colorado—hell, since day one back in New York—but nobody listens to McGee.”
I shot him a glare. “Smart-ass. Let’s get on the road tomorrow. We can be back in New York before he arrives.” I no longer cared about anything other than clearing the air between us, and I couldn’t do that if I was stuck here or still caught on a highway somewhere between here and there. I wanted to pick him up at the airport and take him back to my apartment. I wanted to show him the way the city looked when its glittering lights spread out beneath my penthouse window.
McGee grinned as he shifted the car into park. “Fuck yeah. We ride at dawn.”
I managed a slight laugh as the decision settled my heart a bit, though I still wished I was a person capable of hopping on a plane and simply flying to Madison to tell him how much I… cared.
I still found myself tripping over the other word, even in my own mind. I wasn’t normally this hesitant. I usually knew the way forward and took it. But right now, what I knew and what I needed were at odds. Once Reagan and I had talked, once he was in my arms again, once we’d figured out what the future would look like and I was confident I wouldn’t make the same mistakes I’d made, then I’d be able to say the word that was pulsing in the back of my brain. I’d be able to say it… and mean it.
* * *
When we entered the house, I found Patricia and Layla sitting in the living room, chatting happily over a bottle of wine, as though they hadn’t noticed how the whole damn world had gone colder the minute Reagan left town.
“Thatcher!” Layla twisted in her wingback chair and greeted me with a smile that, since my eyes were now open, I saw was probably too wide and friendly. “I was going to ask Patricia to send out a search party in a little while.”
Patricia patted the sofa beside her. “Come sit. We missed you at the festivities today, though I know you were busy with your Investment Summit and spending time with Brantleigh. Er… Reagan mentioned Brant was a bit under the weather? He’s been napping upstairs for hours.” The knowing look in her eye suggested she’d heard about the altercation outside the Tavern but was trying to be discreet.
“I appreciate you hosting him unexpectedly, Patricia.” I gave Layla a significant look. “I was also sorry to hear that we had to cut Reagan’s family time short so he could fly to Madison.”
Layla’s cheeks flushed, but Patricia waved my words away. “Don’t give it a thought. We’ll miss him, of course, but it hardly matters if he’s here for the Festival of Ice now that he’s quit the Senator’s campaign.”
“Quit?” I shifted on the couch to stare at her more fully. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither did we.” Addressing herself to Layla, Patricia explained, “For months, Reagan’s been dying to work as Trent’s social media manager. We had doubts about the idea, of course, but after Thatcher raved about Reagan’s performance at PennCo and we realized Reagan could help us reach younger voters, we decided to give him the job on a trial basis. Then, not an hour later, he quit! Children.” She sighed as if to say What can you do? and gave a commiserating pat to my knee.
Layla nodded sympathetically. “That happens with young people, doesn’t it?”
“Not always,” I said tersely. “He’s not a child. Reagan is twenty-eight. And not at all fickle. There must have been a logical reason why he chose not to work for Trent.”
“Weeeell, there may have been a bit of a kerfuffle at the festival this morning,” Patricia allowed. She played with the collar of her cashmere sweater. “A… a misunderstanding. Imagine Reagan implying that his father isn’t supportive of his children simply because Trent wanted to take a few campaign photos with a constituent who doesn’t, ah, wholly endorse rainbow flag stickers. Ridiculous, really! Everyone knows we are extremely supportive parents. I mean, our eldest is practically living with a Honeycutt, and I’ve hardly said a word about it.”
There were a lot of things I wanted to say, like “Is Trent really so desperate for votes that he’d willingly pose with an asshole like that?” or “Surely Reagan wasn’t upset about the sticker but what it represented…” but my brain had snagged on something else she’d let slip.
Children, Patricia had said. Reagan implied Trent didn’t support his children. Plural. Did that mean…? Had Reagan come out to Patricia and Trent and then taken a stand and quit the campaign, all in the same morning?
If so, I was both proud as fuck of him and his bravery… and devastated that he’d had to handle that on his own. I knew he was capable—beyond capable—but the idea of Reagan going through something so difficult without someone—me—at his back made it difficult to catch my breath.
What the hell was happening to me?
“In any case,” Patricia went on airily, “Reagan can be very dramatic at times—I have no idea where the boy gets it—but Trent and I are willing to hear his apology and smooth things over when he’s ready. We do love him very much, and he has so much potential, if he’d just stop wasting his time connecting with online people and find his true calling. We’re hopeful that his job at PennCo is a step in the right direction—he seems very dedicated, don’t you think? You know,” she confided, leaning toward Layla’s chair with a satisfied smile, “Reagan’s very like me in that way. Dedicated.”
Dear god. Connecting with people was Reagan’s calling. How could someone who claimed to know him not understand that? And was she really taking credit for Reagan’s dedication to his job? The idea was not only absurd but disgusting. Reagan was his own person. An adult. He’d been raised by Patricia and Trent, yes, and he’d learned things from them, but what he’d forged himself into after a whole lot of trial and error was nothing that they could take credit for, any more than they could take the blame for… oh.
Oh.
I was not a person given to epiphanies or over-the-top realizations, but sitting there on Patricia’s sofa, I had a lightbulb parenting moment. More accurately, it was as though I’d been trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle in the dark, and hearing the way Patricia talked about her youngest son was like turning on a klieg light. Under its glare, the things the woman at dinner had told me, what Thalia and I discussed, every parenting book I’d ever read, and what I’d known deep down all along, all slotted into their proper place easily, and I was able to see the full picture at last.
Brantleigh was my son. But the things I’d given him as a parent—all my love, my wealth and privilege, the pieces of my own fears and phobias, my poor priorities, my need to keep his life safe and happy and easy—were raw material. Building blocks. What he chose to keep and discard, what he chose to make with them, was entirely up to him. It had to be. Until that moment, I’d never truly accepted that the most painful and terrifying part of parenting wasn’t rushing around trying to fix things for my child before they got derailed but stepping back and accepting that it wasn’t my place to control any of it.
I pulled in a deep breath and let it out.
“Thatcher?” Layla asked in concern. “Are you alright?”
“I am,” I said honestly. “I will be.” I pushed to my feet. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going upstairs to find Brant.”
