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Wow. That hit me in the feels. What a sweet gesture. “Well, that was very thoughtful of her.”
Seeming a bit embarrassed, he fidgeted and promptly changed the subject. “You never answered my question about staying home.”
“You’re pushing yourself too hard with the running. It’s catching up to you, Rafe.”
“I really want to get a scholarship. If I fall behind on either running or my grades, that’s not gonna happen.”
“You do know that we’re good financially to send you to college, right? You don’t need to worry about a scholarship.”
“You’ve always handed everything to me. It’s important to me to accomplish this myself.”
I pondered that for a moment, and then cracked a smile. “You’re more like me than I thought.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how I’m estranged from my family? That’s because I was determined to be successful on my own rather than take a job that was handed to me. So I can relate to how you feel. It’s okay to work hard, as long as you know it’s okay if the scholarship doesn’t happen. Your mental health is more important.”
“So, can I stay home tomorrow? Because that’s for my mental health.”
I had to give him credit for using my advice to his benefit. “I’m gonna say it’s okay because you haven’t done it before. But it can’t be a regular occurrence.”
He held his hand up in salute. “Got it.”
I expected him to run out of the room as he typically did when he got what he wanted. Instead, he lingered in the doorway. “My sister told me she’s going to Morgan’s law firm party with that guy, Dylan.”
I cleared my throat and nodded. “Yep.”
“I asked her if she wanted to hang out on Friday, but she told me she couldn’t go to the movies with Kelsey and me because Dylan had invited her…” He paused. “I don’t know if I like that guy. He seems too…perfect or something.”
I raised my brow. “Perfection is a bad thing?”
“I don’t trust people who seem too perfect. They’re usually hiding something.” He hesitated. “I think that was why I didn’t like you at first. I thought you seemed too perfect when my mother introduced me to you. Then when I got to know you, I realized you had a lot of flaws.”
I chuckled. “Thank you…I think?”
“Morgan sort of comes across as perfect, too. Almost like, too good to be true. So I’m not sure I trust her, either.”
That was the first time he’d ever mentioned Morgan like that. I wanted to hear more. I narrowed my eyes. “I thought you liked Morgan.”
“There’s some stuff I like about her, but some stuff I don’t.”
I sat up straighter. “You want to be more specific?”
“I don’t like how she acts like she runs the house when she’s here. She doesn’t even live here.”
“Is that the only thing?”
“And I heard her telling you once to take Mom’s photo down.”
Shit. “Ahhh.” I nodded. “You do know I would never do that, right?”
“Well, I just think it says a lot about her that she would even ask you to do that.”
“How come you’ve never expressed this concern to me before?”
“Because I don’t think it’s any of my business, and I didn’t think it would matter.”
I looked him straight in the eye. “Your opinion absolutely matters to me.”
We stared at each other for a few seconds before he turned toward the hallway.
“Anyway, I gotta go study,” he said.
“You should try to get some sleep tonight and study in the morning, since you’re staying home tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Maybe.”
He’d walked away when I called out, “Rafe?”
He turned back. “What?”
This conversation was yet another reminder of where my priorities needed to lie—with Rafe.
“I like this talking thing. We should do it more often.”
He rolled his eyes before disappearing down the hall again.
• • •
At the end of the week, the night I’d been dreading finally arrived.
Seifert and Goldstein’s twenty-fifth anniversary party was a black-tie affair held in the Four Seasons’ grand ballroom. I’d worn my tux this evening, and Morgan was dressed in a long, sequined black gown. She looked gorgeous, which was no surprise because Morgan was a beautiful woman who always dressed to impress—long legs, silky golden hair, perfect skin, white teeth. My eyes should have been glued to her and her alone. Instead, I was looking all over the place for Wren, even while knowing it was going to be difficult to see her on Dylan’s arm.
Maybe this was exactly what I needed, though—a wake-up call, motivation to stop going down this path of emotional destruction I seemed to be on. I was at the shit-or-get-off-the-pot point with Morgan. And I needed to leave Wren alone and let her move on with her life. And if the current situation caused me so much distress, maybe I also needed to consider whether being alone was a better option for me.
