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Nick nodded. But he felt the guilt all the same.
“You’re a smart kid, and you work your ass off.” Michael squeezed his arm. “Mom and Dad wouldn’t have wanted you to throw away an opportunity. They would have been proud of you, too.”
Nick made a sound that was half laugh, half sob. “Would they have been proud of all of it?”
“Yeah, Nick.” No hesitation. “They would have been proud of everything you are.”
Nick swiped at his eyes and looked back at Michael’s letters.
“Do you regret it?”
“Regret? No. Do I think about what ifs?” He shrugged again, then smiled a little ruefully. “Yes. Every spring when I watch Chris play.”
“What are you going to do with the business, though? If Gabriel and Hunter are going to take the EMT course, and—”
“Nick, it’s fine. I’ll hire some people.”
He dropped the words so simply that Nick felt like an idiot for not even thinking about it. “You’ll—wait. What? You can do that?”
Michael leaned back in his chair. “Sure. I’d probably like it. I could do a job with someone who won’t give me a load of crap at the dinner table or sneak out of the house.”
Nick studied him. “You sound like you’ve been thinking about that for a while.”
Michael paused, and now he looked a little hesitant. “At dinner, Hannah’s father had some thoughts about how I could expand the business . . . maybe do more with it . . . I don’t know.
It’s something to think about. Maybe this college course is a sign.” He grimaced. “And honestly, Nick, you’ll need all the help you can get. You know we don’t have a lot of money for college.”
“Well,” said Nick, “maybe I can help with that.” He shoved his original stack of letters across the table.
Michael read the first. Then the second.
He didn’t even get to the third.
He was too busy pulling Nick out of his chair to hug him.
CHAPTER 35
Nick sat in the darkened auditorium, watching auditions, feeling the music as it rolled through the theater. Adam and Quinn had been sitting with him, offering running com-mentary on every dancer to take the stage. He’d nodded along and pretended to understand half the stuff they gossiped about, but now they were due on stage themselves, and they’d left him out here to watch.
He could feel their nerves from here.
Nick tried to feed positive energy into the air.
A hand grabbed the seat-back next to him, then someone swung into the seat beside him.
Nick almost did a double take. Gabriel.
It was enough to shock him out of silence. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Shh. People are performing.”
“You shouldn’t be here.” Nick’s chest felt tight with rage.
“This is important. This isn’t a joke, Gabriel.”
“No kidding. Would you calm down?”
“Get out. Now.” His breath was shaking and the air had dropped a few degrees. That his brother would use this—that Gabriel would show up here—this was—this was—
