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“I’m serious.”
“And I am too.” She smiles at Angelica. “Thanks for the information. It was nice meeting you.”
There’s something hard in her tone, a clear dismissal. She busies herself with putting away her camera in its case. I give Angelica an apologetic look.
She presses a card into my hand. “Have her call my office,” she says quietly before she goes. “I’ll put her in touch with Doug.”
“Bex,” I say, looking down at the card.
“I’m not taking it.”
“Come on. I’m sure the photographs you took of practice are amazing. You could do this for a career.”
“I already have a career.”
“Oh yeah?” I say. “Making pie is a career? Arguing with suppliers because they brought you the wrong kind of bacon is a career?”
“Yes.” She slings her camera over her shoulder with way more force than necessary. “Don’t be a snob.”
“A career you’re excited about, I mean.”
She looks up at me with fire in her eyes. “We’ve been over this.”
“It’s not you, Bex,” I say, setting my jaw in frustration. “This? This is you. And forget the sports part, fine, don’t do sports. Butyou deserve to have a camera in your hands. You could have a photography studio. Or do weddings. Or—”
She snatches the card out of my hand and stuffs it into my pocket, effectively shutting me up. “It’s a hobby. I love it, but it’s just a hobby.”
“Would you say the same thing to me about football? ‘Hey, babe, I know you’re super talented at it, but it’s a hobby, you ought to go get that real job now.’”
“It’s not the same and you know it.”
“Why?”
“Because it is!” she cries. “I don’t have a choice.”
“You could sell it. Just sell it and take the money and open a business you actually want to run. You’ll have the business degree.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m not telling—I just want you to be happy.”
She turns on her heel and walks away.
“Beckett, come on.”
She doesn’t stop.
I catch up to her, ignoring the looks I’m getting from the couple of guys from the team who are still out on the field. I really ought to go inside, warm up and debrief about the practice with Coach, but like hell am I letting Bex walk away mad.
“You deserve everything you want,” I say. “Okay? That’s all I meant. If the diner is really what you want...”
“It is.”
“Okay.” I reach out and take her hand. Her fingers are like little icicles. “I’m sorry. But call her, please. Even if it’s just a hobby, if it interests you, you should do it. I watched you way more than I should have during practice, and I could tell how much fun you were having. Even in the snow.”
She looks up at me. I don’t like the guarded edge to her expression, like she’s afraid of revealing too much. We’ve gotten seriously honest with each other lately, and now I’m terrified that I fucked that up. As much as I want to just handle it all for her, I know I can’t. Not if I want her in my life.
I hope that by graduation, she figures out that she shouldn’t feel obligated to continue a business she never asked for in the first place. She’s loyal to her mother and that’s admirable, but if her mother really cared, she’d be helping her set up her own life, not guilting her into wasting it running the business she began with the husband who left her.
