“Are you home tomorrow?”
She shuddered out another breath, before answering my question. “Yeah. I told my boss I needed the day. He wasn’t thrilled but he gave me the time off. But the day care doesn’t open again until after New Year’s. I may ask Evelyn, my neighbor, to watch her for the few days before school starts. She’s there with her girls and Blue loves them.”
I heard shifting and Blue’s muffled voice asking for something. Sofia spoke softly to her. I felt responsible for not letting Blue get caught up in the same bullshit we’d grown up with.
I exhaled and felt like shit for not being able to do more. “I wish I was there to help you. I wish you didn’t have to depend so much on them. It’s not good for you, or for the baby.”
She sighed, and it sounded resigned. “You do too much for me already. More than anyone else. I’ll figure it out. Besides, you got the big move planned. When you’re ready, Blue and I will be too.”
I couldn’t betray my sister’s faith in me. I could not let her down.
“Don’t worry. I’ll get us there.” I looked up and saw the light in Julia’s apartment. I had to take care of this too. “Sis, I gotta go. I’m late for something with Julia. I’ll call tomorrow to check in about the CPS visit. I know you’ll be fine. When they call me, I’ll tell them there isn’t a better mom than you.”
“Thanks, bro. You always have my back.”
I knew that wasn’t true.
“Give Blue a big kiss for me.” I ended the call in turmoil, but certain of what I needed to do.
Chapter Thirty
Julia
As soon as I opened the door, I knew something was wrong.
“Hey.” I leaned up to kiss Rocco on the mouth. Feeling like it had been days and not hours since I’d seen him. Relieved that he was here after the awkward end to our call this morning. I’d blurted out I loved him and regretted it immediately. I’d been needy and frantic and had put him in a weird position. The turmoil and frustration from work making me impulsive. More than once I’d felt the need to text him, just to know he was out there. That he’d be there when it was all over, but I had been trying to give him space.
But now that he was here, he felt a million miles away. Except when we pressed our mouths together, his kiss was desperate and a little rough. Like he was quenching a deep thirst. After a moment he let go and walked farther into the apartment. Away from me.
I followed, aware that he still had not said a word to me. I was about to ask if I’d freaked him out this morning, but before I could he opened his mouth.
When he spoke, it was wooden. His body was there, but his mind was very far away. “How did things go with the family?”
He was still in his work suit, the slate Zegna I’d gotten him for Christmas, and just like I’d anticipated, it fit him perfectly. I stood there watching him move around my space. His tall, strong body taking over the living room. In that moment I knew that I’d do anything to keep him.
I sat down on the couch next to him and ran a hand over the nape of his neck and he shivered. “Mom is in custody, and we’re trying very hard to locate her and figure out a way to get some kind of stay.” I threw my hands up, the frustration and helpless feelings of the day rushing back. “She’s got three kids, all of them American citizens, and they need her. They’re staying with one of the families who have fostered kids for us before, and they may be able to keep them permanently, if it comes to that. The attorney that the foundation got us talked with Gail and I for a while today. She sounded confident we could at least buy some time, but she may have to go back to Guatemala eventually.”
I rubbed my hands over my face, trying to breathe through the panic I felt whenever I thought of Antonio and his sisters. “Whenever I close my eyes, I see Antonio’s cheeky smile.” I shuddered a breath. “He’s such a great kid, with a great mom. This should not be happening to them.”
Rocco’s silence was starting to freak me out, so I turned to get a good look at him, and his face was like stone. No affect whatsoever. It was like he wasn’t even here.
“Is something wrong?”
He startled at my question, and looked in the direction of the window. “Just thinking about your client. I know your support means a lot. What you guys do is so important.”
The muscles in his jaw stood out like he was gritting his teeth hard. I had no idea what was happening, but something was really wrong with him.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to continue to do the work and help him. As long as we have the means, we’ll be there for those families.” I paused there, not wanting to go into the awkward place where we talked about how our funding depended a lot on how his firm felt about the foundation’s place in Sturm’s future.
He just stared at me with a blank expression again and my heart started pounding in my chest. I hesitated before adding the next part, because I was still not sure where we stood. “Even if I’m not there.”
This time he did react, his face panicked. “What do you mean, not be there?”
This was not the moment to bring this up. Again I’d almost let my own insecurities muddle things that were already extremely complicated. I flipped my hand, dismissing what I’d just said. “Nothing. Just talking.”
It wasn’t just talking. I hadn’t stopped thinking about what my mom and dad had said. I’d thought if Rocco felt the same way I did, that I could go back to New York. We hadn’t really talked about the future yet, but ending things just didn’t seem like where we were going. Except now, I wasn’t too sure where we stood, and I didn’t feel like I could ask.
When he turned toward me, he did not look like my outburst was news he’d wanted to hear. “Sofia called.” The way his mouth pursed made me think the call had not been a good one.
“What happened?”
“My parents were watching Blue today and while they were sleeping off an early afternoon bender, she walked out of the house. Someone found her before she walked into traffic. CPS has opened an investigation.”
Shit.
“Did they remove Blue?”
He shook his head, but his mouth was still a flat line. “No. Sofia explained she was just with my parents only a few hours a week. But they’re coming to check the house tomorrow.”
“Has she been working with the agency I told you about?”
His face relaxed a bit when I asked that, and he dipped his head. “Yes, she said she’s been in touch with her advocate and they would call the CPA worker on her behalf.”
“Good. That’s good. Sofia has her shit together, they’ll see that.”
He didn’t look too convinced, and then went back to the awkward staring into space.
“Rocco, are you all right?” I tried to grab his hand as I spoke, but he stood up and started pacing around the room.
“Things are about to really rev up at work. There are—”
He stopped moving and turned his back to me. He was starting to freak me out. His shoulders were tight and when he refused to look at me, then I understood. Before he said the words, I knew what he’d come here to do. I sat there in a daze, thinking that this could not be happening again.
When he turned around and focused on something over my head, my stomach flipped and I had to cover my mouth to keep from puking. “I don’t think we should keep seeing each other, Julia.”
I almost laughed, but I knew if I opened my mouth I’d start crying, and I was not going to cry.
“It’s better this way.” He sounded like he was dead inside, and I had no idea what to do.
I stood up and moved toward the door, not sure what I was doing. It was like he’d turned into someone else. I knew this could be from stress, from the issue with his sister, from his parents and how shitty they were, but I was hurt.
I wasn’t his fucking therapist. I was his girlfriend.
I took a deep breath
and stood in front of him. I didn’t touch him but I stood close. “You’re going to look me in the eyes for this, Rocco.” I fisted my hands, so I didn’t grab his chin and force him to make eye contact.
But just my words made him flinch.
“No one is making you do this, Rocco. You are choosing to hurt me.”
His face was like stone. “I’m under a lot of pressure, Julia. I have no idea what I’m going to do about work. I need to get Sofia away from my parents before a fucking tragedy happens. I have responsibilities. My job—”
“What about your job? We’ve always known there was a bit of a conflict there, Rocco. You’ll do your job, and I’ll do mine and then we’ll figure it out.”
“You don’t understand. I’m going to give them the recommendation to go ahead with the IPO, Julia. That means cuts.”
Even as he said it, I wanted to argue. To tell him that his recommending they ax the foundation was something we could work through. I was doing it again. I was shutting off my own needs so I could tend to one more person who found it so easy to trample on mine.
I thought about the moment when Matt told me he was going back to New York. I remember the anger, the frustration, the hurt—but this was something else. This was like Rocco had blown out my heart. I swallowed down the sob that was threatening to get out, and held myself together. I would not fucking lose it in front of him.
“This is how you do it, huh? You martyr yourself?”
He said nothing.
“You make it about other people so you can keep punishing yourself,” I said, hugging myself, suddenly feeling frozen to my toes. “I can’t fix this for the both of us and I won’t beg you. I deserve better.”
He flinched again and walked to my door and I let him go. He grabbed the doorknob and turned to look at me. “You deserve the very best, and that’s not me, Julia.” He laughed then, a hoarse, broken sound. “That’s not me.”
He walked out without so much as a backward glance, as I did everything I could to hold in the sob in my throat until he was gone.
I screamed. Hard and loud, and I knew he could hear me. But he didn’t come back, he left me there, because I was now a prop in Rocco’s theater of misery and isolation.
I don’t know how long I sat on the carpet crying, but after a while I walked over to the couch and grabbed my phone.
I tapped on the screen and after a couple of rings, José answered. “Hey, chula. I thought you’d be busy with Mr. Quinn, or is he still at the office?”
“Mr. Quinn has come and gone.” I started crying then. “He came to break up with me tonight. It only took him like five minutes.”
“What? Why?”
I scoffed, because I wished I knew. “Because he’s going to tell the board they should cut the funding for the foundation. He came over, could barely look at me, told me we had to break up, and left. That was the extent of it.”
“I’m coming over. I’ll tell Salome too.”
“You don’t have to.”
He sucked his teeth, and I could practically see his eyes rolling. “Stop it. Of course I have to. I have no idea what got into him, but we’re going to figure this out, babe.”
“Okay.” I sounded small and pathetic. “Thank you.”
“I’ll see you in thirty, ma.”
I ended the call with José and sat there with my eyes closed replaying the scene with Rocco. I tried not to psychoanalyze him. He wasn’t my client. He wasn’t my project. He’d been my boyfriend...and now he wasn’t.
Rocco
I walked into the Sturm’s corporate office in a fog, my body aching from lack of sleep and what I’d done to Julia last night. I knew I had to. I didn’t think it would hurt so much though. I didn’t know anything could hurt like this.
As I turned on the lights in my office, the brightness made my eyes ache. I’d gotten home from Julia’s and sat on my couch until Pulga started meowing at me in disdain. It was almost like she knew what I’d done and was pissed at me for not consulting her first. I lay in bed awake until 2:00 a.m., but couldn’t sleep, so I worked on my presentation. The presentation that had been bought and paid for by Duke Sturm, so he could turn away from his family’s legacy and reduce his company to a machine with the sole purpose of making money. I had the numbers, and Sturm’s would be leaner if they made those cuts that Phil and Duke kept advocating for. They’d be more appealing for savvy investors if they were less generous with their employee benefits. It was true no other high-end retailers offered sixteen weeks of paternity leave, or helped people who had kids with special needs, but it’s what made Sturm’s staff so dedicated. They loved their company and were loyal because Sturm’s was good to them. All of that would be lost.
I didn’t check my phone and I didn’t check my email. I just sat and reviewed what I’d decided on for my recommendation. I didn’t need to know what my boss had to tell me, I knew what he wanted me to do. Just as I was looking at the last few slides, with my stomach in knots, my phone started buzzing and I quickly picked up when I saw it was Sofia.
“Is everything okay?” I knew I sounded strung out, and there was no helping that.
But when Sofia spoke she sounded a lot better than she did last night. “Hey, just wanted to tell you that the CPS workers already came by. They were here at 7:00 a.m. sharp. But we were ready for them.” I could tell the visit had gone well, but I could barely muster up anything more than a grunt. “They loved how clean everything was and that Blue had her own space. You know how she is, she was showing them all her toys and she had on her cowboys boots.”
“That’s good, hon.” I sounded like death. “I’m glad. Whenever they call me, you know I’ll have a lot to say about how great of a mom you are. Once I’m back in New York I’ll—”
I literally gasped for air at the thought of never seeing Julia again. Or worse, being the cause for Julia being back in New York herself, hating me. Because that’s what would happen after today and maybe it already had: she would fucking hate me.
“Rocco, what’s wrong?”
The lightness in Sofia’s voice was completely gone now, her focus on me. “Nothing, sis. I’m fine.” I didn’t sound fine, and she obviously could tell.
“Did something happen with you and Julia?”
“I have to go, Sofia, but don’t worry. This promotion is happening, no matter what. We’re getting that place in Westchester.”
“What are you going to do?” The tinge of panic in her voice, the worry for me, gnawed at me, but I could not deviate from this plan.
“I’m giving my recommendation to the board today. I’m going to tell them they should consider cutting funding for the foundation.”
I heard my sister suck in a breath. “Is that what you think they should do?”
“It’s what I need to do. Sofia, we got to get out of New York.”
“So you’re going to risk Julia losing her job and hating you, so you can move me and Blue out of the city? No. You can’t do that.”
I gripped my phone hard, wishing she would just let this go. Let me fucking do this. “No. I am doing what I was sent here to do.”
“Is that what you think they should do? Cut those programs?”
I ran a shaky hand over my head, feeling desperate and so fucking alone. “It’s not about what I want. Who cares what I think? This is the way it needs to be.”
“No, it’s the way you think you need to do it, so you can get that promotion.” She scoffed, and I could hear the stubborn set in her voice. “You’re not doing it. You’re not risking your relationship and your conscience over this. We’ll be fine. We can find a cheaper place to live. Blue and I will go wherever. We’ll go to Texas.” She laughed nervously, but once that little glimmer of hope sparkled in my chest, it wound not go out.
I breathed out heavily, feeling like the world was on my shoulders. “I’m an employee, Sof
ia. If I don’t do what I’m supposed to, I will get fired. I’m not indispensable and I need this job. You know that.”
She sighed too, and now that she had said it, I couldn’t get the idea of her and Blue in Dallas out of my head. “Please, bro. You’ve been happy these past months. You’re always sacrificing yourself. Please don’t do this.”
“Sofia, this is what I’m here for. To do this for us.” I was trying to convince myself as much as her.
“No, stop it. Your life isn’t about doing stuff for me. What about you? What about your happiness?”
“I just want to do the right thing.” If only I knew what that was anymore. I thought about Julia and how bad I’d fucked things up with her. How doing my job was starting to feel like selling my soul. And then there were Sofia and Blue and the obligations I had to them. I felt like I was getting torn in four different directions.
“What about what is right for you? For your heart, Rocco? Have you ever thought that if you pick yourself we can be there for you too?” I wanted to say no. That I was her brother and that it was my job to help her, but God I needed someone to hold me up right now.
I looked at the time and realized I was going to be late. “I don’t know if I’ll have the guts to risk my job, sis, but it means a lot to hear you say you have my back.”
“Rocco Quinn, for one time in your life, just go with what makes you happy. I promise you the earth won’t shatter.”
Her frustrated tone managed to pull a laugh out of me. “I gotta go. I’ll call you later.”
I felt marginally less terrible as I ended the call. Just as I was getting my thoughts in order, I heard a knock on my door.
“Hey, we just came to say good morning. We barely got a chance to chat with you yesterday.” The twins gave me two identical strained smiles as they walked in. I was still a jumble of conflicting feelings, and had no idea what to say to them.
Here to Stay Page 28
