Now . . .
I wasn’t sure. I’d learned more about love from the woman drooling on my shoulder in months than I had from years with Samantha.
With the arm not trapped beneath Eloise, I plucked my phone from the cup. We’d loaded Wi-Fi onto both our phones in case we wanted to watch a movie, but nothing had held my interest, so I checked to see if there were any missed texts or emails.
No surprise, there was nothing from my parents. No text asking if we were still meeting for brunch. They’d probably arrived at the restaurant and completely forgotten they’d even invited Eloise and me to tag along.
Or maybe they’d been relieved when we hadn’t shown up.
It stung. Would it always? Would there ever come a time when I could see them and not hope that they’d care? Not even meeting my wife could spark their interest. They’d been happier talking to their friends last night than their son and new daughter-in-law.
It was one thing for them to dismiss me. But Eloise?
She looked so young today, her face without makeup and her hair pulled up. She was in a pair of gray sweats and a matching sweatshirt with sleeves that fell to her fingertips.
Maybe this anger toward my parents had nothing to do with me. Maybe it was for Eloise.
She deserved better than they’d offered.
We both did.
I pressed a kiss to her forehead, then went back to my phone, scrolling to the email that I’d been ignoring since Friday.
It was from the fighter I’d met with in Vegas. He needed an answer about the job offer.
So with one hand, I typed out my reply.
Eloise stirred the moment I hit send, like she’d felt the weight of that decision. “Hi.” Her eyelids were too heavy to open. So she let them fall closed and snuggled deeper, curling her hands beneath her chin. “How much longer?”
“Not long.”
She sighed and, this time, opened her eyes for good, sitting up straight and climbing off my lap.
I shook out the arm that had been behind her. It had fallen asleep five minutes after she had.
On a yawn, Eloise snagged her phone from the backpack at her feet. Whatever she read on the screen made her gasp.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh my God.” She answered by handing it over.
There was a text open from Taylor. I hadn’t met her but Eloise had talked about the girl enough I knew she worked at the hotel desk.
I’m so sorry to bother you on vacation but Blaze came in to the hotel today even though he wasn’t scheduled to work. He would hardly leave the front desk and every time I told him I was working and couldn’t talk, he’d just ignore me.
“Who is Blaze?” I asked.
“My mom’s college roommate moved to Quincy. Her name is Lydia. Blaze is her seventeen-year-old son. Mom asked if I’d give him a job. I guess he was struggling and Lydia thought a job might do him some good.”
So Anne had asked for a favor. “That’s the kid you were training last weekend?”
Eloise nodded, pinching the bridge of her nose.
She’d gone to work all weekend to train a new housekeeper, but I hadn’t asked for details. When she’d come home, she’d been exhausted. I’d assumed it was because she’d been working so hard to get ready for the trip.
Taylor’s text was broken into two so I kept on scrolling, reading the second message.
While he was talking, a bird hit one of the front windows. He went out to get it and even though it wasn’t dead he brought it inside anyway. When it tried to fly away, he broke its neck. I started crying and called my mom. She said that if he keeps working at the hotel, then I’ll have to find a different job. Blaze finally left when Mateo came in but I wanted you to know. I’m sorry.
“What the hell?” Blaze had killed a bird? In front of a teenage girl? “That’s fucked up.”
“Yep.” Eloise took the phone, typing out a reply to Taylor. She hit send, then tucked it in her backpack. “He’s fired. I hate firing people but I don’t think I’ll mind this time.”
“I don’t want you doing it alone.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll take care of it.”
“Look at me,” I ordered, waiting until I had those blues. “Not alone, Eloise. Call me. Call your dad. Call one of your brothers. But you don’t talk to this kid alone. Please.”
She sighed. “I’ll have to change the schedule. I don’t want Taylor at the front desk alone anymore.”
“I don’t want you there alone either.”
“Well, that’s not an option,” she muttered. “I never should have hired him. What a mess.”
“Your mother’s mess. She put you in this position.”
“I know. But I could have told her no.”
“And how would that have gone over?”
Eloise fiddled with her fingers in her lap. “She probably would have been upset.”
“Exactly.” My molars ground together. “Your parents get mad because you’re too close to your employees. Yet your mom pressures you to hire her friend’s kid. How is this different?”
“Well, hopefully this time we won’t get sued.”
I huffed. “Make your mother fire him.”
“She didn’t hire him. I did. Ultimately, it’s my responsibility. So I’ll deal with it.”
“But you shouldn’t have to. She shouldn’t have asked you to do this in the first place.”
“I know, Jasper.” She wrapped her arms around her waist, her shoulders curling forward.
The seat belt light turned on above us, followed by a chime that filled the plane’s cabin. Then the pilot came on the intercom, announcing we’d be starting our descent.
There was more to say about her parents, about this situation with Blaze, but I bit my tongue, waiting until we were off the plane and leaving the airport to drive home.
The moment we were on the highway, I stretched a hand across the console, covering her knee. “When I said I don’t want you to fire Blaze alone, it’s not because I don’t think you can do it. I don’t trust that kid.”
“It’s not that.” She waved it off. “It’s my parents. You’re so quick to criticize Mom.”
My jaw clenched. “You agreed. Your mother shouldn’t have asked you to hire this kid, especially if she knew he had problems.”
“I don’t think she knew. Trust me, when she finds out about this, she’s going to be ten times more upset than I am. And like I said, I could have—should have—told her no.”
I pulled my hand away, wrapping it around the steering wheel so I had something to squeeze. “But you didn’t. Because you didn’t want to cause trouble, right? Because they hold that hotel over your head like a goddamn string and you’re their puppet.”
Eloise flinched. “Jasper.”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
The heavy silence that filled the cab was answer enough.
“Your dream is that hotel,” I said. “You work your ass off. They want you to be this hard-ass person instead of who you really are. You give it everything you have, and it’s still not good enough for your parents.”
“That’s not fair.”