Julien
Tell her I said hi.
Martha
I’m still trying to wrap my head around this. I really thought my parents would have a problem with us being together. As a kid, they always made sure I knew there was a strict line dividing our families.
Julien
I have definitely noticed that you are not a kid anymore. I’m pretty sure they have too.
Martha
Now our moms are talking about when we get married, how great it will be that they won’t have to fight about who gets us on holidays since they practically live together. Apparently, every Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and Fourth of July are spoken for from here on out.
Julien
I’ll mark it on my calendar.
Julien grinned. He didn’t hate the sound of holidays surrounded by both their families. Marriage was something they’d talked about during their long nightly conversations. Sometimes in broad strokes—what made a good marriage, how should husbands and wives handle conflict, finances, and the distribution of household responsibilities—and sometimes with a more narrowed viewpoint—what would marriage between the two of them look like if their relationship progressed to that point?
They talked about everything and anything, from their favorite teachers growing up to whether or not they wanted children of their own, how many, and what their parenting methods would be. They talked about their greatest fears and what true happiness meant, both their best and worst memories, what regrets they had and what they wished they’d done differently. They laughed about their pet peeves, what silly things were on their bucket lists, and which character they most identified with fromFriends.
Even when Julien had been engaged to Lauren, he’d never felt so connected to another person. He hadn’t even known it was possible. To be both simultaneously completely comfortable and relaxed while also exhilarated and energized. To enjoy both the stillness and quiet with Martha as well asthe stimulating conversations and deep, soul-searching moments. He’d never had someone who challenged him and yet also offered a soft place for him to fall. He didn’t feel judged. He didn’t feel like he had to prove anything or live up to any specific expectation. He felt fully accepted, supported, and fulfilled.
Was that what true love felt like? The realization that maybe you’d found someone who could do a better job at keeping your heart safe and cared for than you’d been doing yourself up until that point? The desire to give your heart to her, to live with it beating outside of your body, and know that it would be the best decision you’d ever made?
A knock sounded on Julien’s office door, disrupting his thoughts.
Tomiko poked her head in. “Sorry to interrupt, Mr. King, but I wanted to remind you about the marketing meeting happening in five minutes.”
“Thank you. I’ll be right there.” Julien gathered his things and headed for the conference room. The marketing department was one that had experienced a big restructuring with the personnel shift, so the day’s meeting would be a good measure on how everyone was settling in and getting a handle on their new responsibilities.
When he stepped into the conference room, he was pleased to see most of the team already there. He was not, however, happy to be greeted with the presence of his father at the head of the table. When would his dad finally stop seeing the need or make up excuses to come into the office? Julien had been patient, he thought. He’d bit his tongue while he listened to his dad explain about running the business—things he’d been instructing Julien on for over two decades. His mom had even called yesterday, asking when her husband would finally start acting like a retired man and stop waking up early to put on a suit and go to work. She’d told Julien she expected him todo something about it. What, he wasn’t quite sure. It wasn’t like he could kick his dad out and bar him from the building.
The new head of the marketing department was fiddling with a laptop, working on connecting the computer to the room’s screen for her presentation. He was interested to see her campaign ideas and what channels she proposed they spend the allocated budgets on for the biggest return on investment.
Julien greeted his employees and shook hands as he made his way around the table. He stopped beside his dad’s chair and sat down next to him, resting his elbow on the table. He turned his body to block out the rest of the room, talking privately with his father. “I have this well in hand if you’d like to meet up with Mom for lunch.”
His dad waved away the suggestion. “Pretty soon I’ll have all the time in the world to take your mom out to eat in the middle of the day. This is a crucial time for King. It won’t hurt for me to stick around a few more days just to make sure everyone is comfortable in their new positions.”
“Stepping away for good is going to be hard no matter if it’s today, tomorrow, or two days from now. I promise you, I can handle this. You need to let me.”
Even though the skin around his dad’s jaw sagged with age, Julien could still see the muscle there firm. “I know. Your mother’s been hounding me about the same thing.” His gaze met Julien’s, pleading. “Will you give your old man forty-eight hours? I just need ... I just need a little bit more time.”
“Two days.” Julien squeezed his dad’s shoulder. “But then you need to take Mom on a nice vacation. She’s always wanted to go to Athens.” He gave his dad a side-eye. “And she didn’t mean the one here in Tennessee.”
John smiled. “She deserves that and more for putting up with me all these years. Maybe we’ll do a whole Mediterranean cruise. Do you think she’d like that?”
“I think she’d love that.”
He nodded once, and Julien knew it was a done deal.
Pam, the new marketing director, called the meeting to order, launching into her presentation without much preamble. Julien followed along with her slideshow, appreciating the amount of time and energy she’d put into her data collection and the way she presented new avenues for them to branch into.
“What abou ... abou...” John slurred, pausing in his speech.
Julien looked at his dad, his brows pulled low. He’d never not heard the man speak in an authoritative way.
