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“I’m not in love with my ex.” She cocked her head and hoisted an eyebrow. “Go to the festival. You need a night away, to feel something other than regret. Plus, you’re wrong. I special-ordered the belt buckle and paid for it with my own money. It’s not returnable.”
She turned on her boot heel and clomped out of his office.
Vic sighed as he moved the paper bag from desktop to floor. What difference a fall festival was going to make, he had no idea. He’d figured out at least one benefit to going, however—it’d get his siblings and his friend off his back.
“Knock, knock.” Layla entered his office next.
“I’m going to the fall festival,” he announced before she started in on him. “I’m going to bob for apples and pin the tail on the scarecrow or whatever shit they do there. I’ll take first prize for whatever contest they hold. Are you happy?”
Layla’s eyebrows climbed her forehead. “The contest they’re having is for the best needlepoint. I’ve seen your clumsy fingers, brother. I doubt you could create anything that would final.”
A reluctant smile crept across his lips. He scratched his cheek. “Sorry. It’s been a morning.”
“I don’t care if you go to the fall festival or not.” Layla knelt to dig through the bag on the floor. She held up the suit jacket. “This is nice.”
“Morgan.”
“I saw her. She’s on a mission.”
“Everyone is. It’s Operation Help Vic Because He’s a Pathetic Bastard.”
“You’re not a pathetic bastard.” She patted his head. “You’re lovesick and giving up. Which, I guess, is another way to say you’re a pathetic bastard. So, in a way, you’re right.”
“I didn’t give up.”
“No?”
“I know you think I should skywrite Aubrey’s name over her apartment complex, or buy her a horse and tie it to her car, but she deserves to have the space I didn’t give her after her accident. She’s the woman she grew into without me. She’s incredible. And she broke up with me to become that woman. I can’t demand she take me back. I tried demanding when we split up the first time around. All I managed to do was create a rift between us that was irreparable.”
“I doubt that.” Layla cocked her blond head. “You two were behaving like you loved each other from what I could see. She’s not the same Aubrey who dumped you, true. She’s an adult who knows her heart and mind. She is intelligent and thoughtful. Even if she was missing a memory or two while you were sleeping together and making out in the stable—”
He sent her a warning look that didn’t slow her down in the least.
“—she knew in her heart that you were meant for her, and she was meant for you.”
“I want to believe that, Lay, I do. But—”
“Then believe it. Lose this hangdog thing you have going on.” She tossed the suit jacket on his lap. “Walk into the fall festival with your head held high. You’re the sole male Grandin of your generation, Vic. You’re a catch. Aubrey would be a lucky woman to have a man like you loving her for the rest of her life.”
He narrowed his eyes at his sister. “There something else you want? It would explain the abject flattery.”
“You to be happy, baby bro. That’s enough.” She offered a sincere smile, blew him a kiss and stepped out of his office.
