by Lindsey Hart
When Trey was finished, he leaned back, drained, like the words pulled the last ounce of strength he had left from him. In reality, they did. He felt empty. Hollowed out.
He expected his father to explode out of his chair, rail, rant, and rage. To tell Trey that there was no way in hell he was leaving. That he’d be ruined if he did. That he’d never speak to him again. That Ambi was just after his money. That he was in puppy love and it wasn’t real, and he was making the worst mistake of his life.
Instead, Dale shocked him again by smiling. Not a sardonic, sadistic smile, but a real, honest, genuine smile that spread across his face. He followed that up with another soft chuckle.
Trey raked a hand through his hair, mussing it all over the place. “What the hell is so funny about all of that? You’ll have to tell me because I seriously don’t think it’s a joke.”
“It’s funny to me that you’re just seeing this now. I’m glad you finally got here. It’s been a long road.”
“What are you talking about?” Trey was growing exasperated. He felt like he was in the middle of a maze with no hope of ever finding his way out.
“All I ever wanted was for you to be happy. I’m sorry that you misunderstood everything I said and tried to do. I made a promise to your mother. That I would always take care of you. You’re my son and naturally, I want what’s best for you, but it goes beyond that. I promised her that I would help you find your way. Five years ago, I gave you a choice. Pick the girl you’d been dating for all of six months or lose your inheritance. Honestly, I hoped you’d pick the girl. Instead, you picked the money.”
“I would have had nothing!”
“That’s not true. I never said choose between her or your family. I told you to make your mother proud of your decision. She would have been proud if you’d have followed your heart. If you would have chosen Amberina, I wouldn’t have given you your inheritance. I would have offered you a job here and let you work your way up. I didn’t want to hand everything to you on a silver platter. I wanted you to learn the value of it.”
“That’s a little fucking cheesy, don’t you think?” Trey snapped.
“No. Well, if it is, then I’m sorry. I did what I thought I should do. I didn’t want to just hand over the money to you. It was a large sum and I wanted you to invest it wisely. Working here, I think, taught you that. It helped you prepare for the world out there. I knew you wouldn’t stay here forever. I wanted you to learn a little before you went out there. Learn about yourself. I wanted to give you the tools you needed to build a life. I was trying to look after you. I would have eventually given you the money anyway when I thought you were old enough and mature enough to use it wisely.”
“That’s not- you can’t just… you can’t just use reverse psychology on me and tell me that I’m the one who made all the mistakes.”
“I’m sorry you see them as mistakes. I don’t. You chose a path. You thought it was what you wanted, but you know now, that it’s not. Your grandfather made me work for your mother. It was true that he didn’t like me. He didn’t like that I came from nothing and had no way to support us. They weren’t rich, but he wanted to know his daughter was taken care of. She was his treasure. She was worth fighting a thousand lifetimes for her. He made me earn her. Earn her respect, her trust, and her love. He made sure that I understood what a treasure I was getting and that I wouldn’t just love her, I would truly cherish her over the years. That I’d never stop. The point is, I wanted you to make your own path. Work hard and appreciate the value of that. I wanted you to work hard earning Ambi’s love and respect and trust and if you weren’t prepared to do that, then to take some time to mature and truly understand what it is you want out of life. Maybe you had to be miserable in order to appreciate the other side of things.”
“You’re not a psychologist!” Trey spat. “You can’t just choose those things for me. Do those things and expect me to think that it was a good idea when I find out that you had an ulterior motive for commanding me to give up Ambi.”
“I never commanded you to give her up. I gave you a choice. I also never said that I wouldn’t support you, whatever that choice was. You read between the lines what you wanted to read. You never asked me for clarification. You’ve never once said you didn’t enjoy working here.”
“I work here because it was expected.”
“I’ve never expected that of you, Trey. I wanted you to continue on the legacy here, wanted you to take the company and make it your own if that’s what you wanted, but if not, that’s fine. I want you to be happy. I would never tell you to stay here and waste your life on something that you didn’t love doing.”
“No!” Trey banged his hand on top of the desk. His dad never flinched once. “You can’t just say those things now and act like it’s all my fault. Like all of this was a misunderstanding.”
That time, Dale did flinch. “I’m sorry, Trey. I really am. I didn’t know. I didn’t know you were unhappy. I didn’t know you were so serious about Ambi. I wanted you to fight for her and when you didn’t, I just thought she was not the right one. I gave you a job here because I thought you wanted to do this. You never once told me otherwise. You never told me how you felt. About anything.”
Trey slowly shifted back in the chair. It creaked under his weight, all that fancy square modernness of it not doing a damn thing to help bear the load of his shame and sorrow. The weight of realization. The weight of regret.
His dad was right. He’d never once voiced his feelings. He’d gone through life, doing what he thought was expected. He and his father didn’t talk. Not even on their fishing trips. They didn’t talk about their feelings. They were men. His dad was old-school. That kind of thing wasn’t easy for him and Trey never instigated a conversation about it. It wasn’t easy for him either. His mom had always been the go-between for them and without her there to mediate and spell out what the other was feeling, it was like all those lines of communication had been burned and he was just guessing. Was it possible he’d guessed wrong? For so many years?
“There are things I regret, Trey,” his dad said, slowly. “I regret that we never talked about this properly. That we’re just doing it now. When I saw Ambi at the party a few nights ago, I knew why she was there. I knew it. I just didn’t know if you did. I was trying to push you in the right direction. The direction where you finally fought for her. If I’d just come out and asked you if you loved her and gave you my blessing, would that have been easier for you? Would you have been able to communicate to her what you felt for her? Would you have fought so hard for her? Would you have been able to tell me now that you love her and that you aren’t happy where you are? Would you ever have left here? I didn’t know how to talk to you, Trey. I’m your father and it’s the one thing I was never able to do. Talk. Feel openly. That’s not my strong suit. I’m sorry about that. For my failings and shortcomings. I was trying to push you into taking that step forward or stepping back for good. Can you see that? Maybe I was wrong…”
“I don’t know,” Trey shook his head. “It’s going to take me some time to process this properly, because yeah, it probably would have been easier for you to tell me that I had your blessing.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know any other way than to make you fight for her like I fought for your mother. To make you realize, for yourself, just how far you were willing to go for her. That you don’t just love her, but that you truly cherish her. That you’re truly in love. I needed to make sure that you weren’t just giving your heart to anyone and that you’d be willing to move heaven and earth for her because that’s the only way these things actually work. The only way you’ll ever succeed is to have the kind of love that they write stories about. I had it. I never lost it. I still have it, even though your mom isn’t here anymore.”
“I- dad…” Trey raked his hand through his hair again. He let out a sigh that wasn’t so much frustration as it was just a release of everything. Everything he’d held pent up so tight for the
past five years.
“And what about her? Does she love you? Does she love you enough to move her own heaven and earth for you?”
Trey finally looked his father in the eye. There was no malice there. No anger. Not even regret, as though he’d purged it all by telling Trey he was sorry and admitting that he’d certainly failed in some respects, as a father, and as a human being. He saw love there, shining in his father’s eyes. Pride as well. His father never told him he was proud of him. He’d never used those words, but Trey could see it. He could see it, for the first time, because he was finally, finally actually looking. He knew he would have seen it before if he’d had his eyes open.
It was like he was seeing Dale for the first time. Not as a little kid, but as a fellow adult. As a fellow human being who had fumbled, stumbled, and done the best he could, even if it was messy and open for debate. He’d done what he thought was right. He’d tried to set Trey on the right path, even if Trey saw it as a pretty convoluted way to get there.
“She told me that we couldn’t do this without you. That she wouldn’t be with me if it meant that I had to give up my family. She knows that you’re the only one I have left. That it’s just us. It’s always been her and her mom and family is everything for her. She told me not to come back if you weren’t on board with this.”
His father’s lips wobbled. “Smart girl. Beautiful too. Definitely worth fighting for as hard as you have.”
“I did pick wrong,” Trey mumbled. “I get it now. You never told me what to do. You were just trying to help me open my eyes and see. I went through most of my life with them shut like a blind man. I didn’t love Ambi enough back in college to fight for her properly. I know that was a mistake. I’m never going to make it again because she’s it for me. She’s the only one I’ll ever want.”
Dale grinned. “What are you waiting for then? Give me your damn resignation and go find out what makes you happy. You’ll always have a position here if you ever want to come back. And for goodness sake, go out and get the love of your life back.”
Trey stood up so fast he just about knocked the chair over. He set out a hand to steady and right it. “Thanks for the advice, dad. One day I’ll come back here and thank you for everything. When I can truly mean it.”
His father nodded solemnly. He picked up his favorite pen and rolled it between his fingers, almost absentmindedly, except that his father didn’t do anything without a reason. “I’m looking forward to it, son. Very much.”
CHAPTER 19
Amberina
“I can’t believe you recorded everything.”
“It was the only way I could think of to get you to believe me. If I’d just told you he was on board, you would have called me a liar. Even if he told you flat out, I don’t think you would have believed he hadn’t been somehow coerced into it.”
Ambi stared at Trey’s phone, which sat on the edge of her desk. She was standing on the far end of the room, her arms pretty much wrapped around herself. She couldn’t press into her floor to ceiling bookcase any further if she tried. It was one of her favorite parts of her office. The built-in bookcase from the previous owner. She’d filled it up with every single book she owned and there was still a bit of room. Which was good. She loved reading and she couldn’t help buying books, even if she had switched over to mostly reading electronically.
Trey stood in the doorway. He’d basically caught her at the office and cornered her so she couldn’t dodge past him and get out of the office. She’d retreated to the far end of the room, up against the bookcase, putting as much distance between them as she could, and she’d stayed there, her massive metal desk between them. Trey had slapped his phone down and told her to listen. She didn’t want to, but short of plugging her ears like a disobedient toddler, she had no choice.
She’d listened.
She’d listened to the whole twenty-minute recording.
“Does he know? That you recorded it?”
“No. I had my phone in my pocket the entire time. I wanted to record it just for evidence. I needed it. I knew if I came here again claiming that I’d talked to him and he’d agreed just like that, you’d call bullshit. He didn’t know I was recording, but he wouldn’t be opposed to me sharing it with you. You heard the end. He told me to get my ass in gear and get you back.”
Ambi nodded. It felt like a dense fog had flooded the room and was swirling around her in a dense cocoon. Her brain was processing so slow that someone might as well have undone the top of her head and jammed it full of slow-moving molasses. She realized, belatedly, that it was shock. She wasn’t just shocked. She was in shock.
“I agree with you,” she finally breathed.
Trey had waited until the afternoon when he was probably sure she’d be at the office. He wasn’t wearing a suit, which told her that he probably hadn’t gone to work that morning. It made sense now, seeing as he basically told his dad he was done there. Instead of his usual suit, he was dressed in a pair of faded jeans, a grey t-shirt, and a black zip up. He looked amazing, as usual. Somehow the casual look suited him better than the expensive formal clothes.
“About what?” Trey’s brow arched up. He lounged in the doorway, so maddeningly casual. He didn’t seem ruffled at all. Did he always have to be so sure of himself?
“About your dad’s methods being questionable at best. I’d call them outright shitty. I don’t know why he thought he could accomplish anything by testing you like that. I mean, maybe I do. I don’t know. I didn’t know that he had to fight for your mom like that. I don’t know how he grew up. I don’t really know anything about him. I only really know what you’ve told me, and you didn’t understand what he was really trying to do, so maybe I just have the wrong impression.”
“No, his methods were pretty shitty. I see where he was coming from, but I’ll have to agree to disagree about what he did. I can see his reasoning behind it after he tried to explain, but it’s still terrible.” Trey sighed. “Either way, Ambi, I lost the past five years. I lost them because they weren’t spent with you. I was a shithead. My father was less of a shithead than I thought. Maybe just a different kind of shithead. It doesn’t make a difference. I made the wrong choice. I made that choice myself. I don’t have anyone to blame for it except myself. I’m owning it now.”
“So, you’re here. You’re here because I said we couldn’t do this if your dad wasn’t on board and he appears to be, so you’re back to ask me for a second chance.”
“Yeah. Pretty much.” Trey grinned, but it was a reluctant, self-deprecating grin. “I’m back for more punishment. Whatever you want to dish out. I’ll stand here and take it because I more than deserve it. If you want to call me an asshole, it’s well deserved. A turd, or whatever you were calling me before, I agree. I’m a turd. The smelliest, squishiest, drain clogging epic kind of turd.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Yes, well, I’m that too. I agree. I’ll get on my knees if you want me to, Ambi. I’ll beg you for another chance. I’ll beg you to forgive me.”
Ambi knew that her face was blank so far, but in another few seconds, she was going to crack. Her chest felt like it was going to explode and rain rainbows and glitter and happiness all over the place. She wanted to be cautious. She wanted to tell Trey that she needed time. That she needed space and distance to think. Fortunately for him, she’d spent the past five years doing all of that.
Somewhere, buried not so deep inside of her, were the seeds of love that Trey planted all those years ago. She’d kept them carefully protected in the most barren soil. She hadn’t given them water or fertilizer, but they remained. They stayed dormant and she always knew that if given even a glimpse of sunlight or a drop of rain, they’d sprout up and in a matter of minutes they’d be full-grown, blooming and blossoming all over the place.
That first time Trey kissed her when they were cake tasting was the sun.
When he’d ended up at her apartment that night, he was the rain.
He’d pulled her into the same closet where they’d had their first time. Those seeds came busting up to the surface and she could do nothing to hold them back.
She’d thought that Dale pulled out all her precious plants at the Christmas party. She’d lost all hope and was ready to let those plants die.
Then Trey came back. He went to his dad and talked it out. He was here and he was hers if she wanted him. They could try again. They could try and they could be something. He’d fought for her and he was finally here, ready to love her.
If she wanted him to. If she let him.
She should be afraid. She should be filled with doubts and hesitance and reluctance. She shouldn’t just give in, but if the past five years had taught her anything, it was that there wasn’t time for fears or doubts, hesitance or reluctance. She loved Trey. She knew that beyond the shadowiest shadow of a doubt.
“Did you mean it? That part?”
“Which part?” Trey’s voice was so soft. So gentle. So hopeful.
“The parts about me being your everything and your whole world.”
“Of course.” Trey took a step forward. “I’m sorry I wasted so much time.”
“It wasn’t wasted,” she said. Trey took another step forward and another. “We both needed to grow up and go after what we wanted. We needed to figure out how to make ourselves happy before we could even think about trying to do that for each other. We had to mature.”
“Like fine wine?”
“Well, I turned out fine. I think you might have turned into vinegar.”
Trey threw back his head and laughed. Truly. Laughed. God, she missed that sound. She missed it almost more than anything else. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually heard him laugh like that. It was always chuckles here and there. The not so serious, not so real, a little forced even at the best of times, kind of laughter. This was real. This was authentic. This was beautiful.
