“Are you and your sister all ready for school?”
“Mhm.”
“Great, let’s get going.”
I drop them off like usual, and I have yet another strategy meeting with Jeff before his custody hearing.
“You seem even more off today than you did before,” he mentions.
“Yeah, it was a really bad morning.”
“Did something happen with Bea?” he leans over and asks.
“Yeah, but it isn’t very professional for me to be talking about my girlfriend's problems with a client.”
He flicks his wrist at me. “Consider me a friend by this point. So, if you want to talk about it, I will listen.”
I sit back in my chair. “She’s just making all of these huge decisions without even speaking to me first.”
“Like?”
“Like, apparently, now she wants some fancy record deal with Peninsula Records, and she’s being put together with that guy from the video. I guess they want them to be a duo.”
Jeff nods. “They are very good together.”
“I know that. But all of that means she might be in England even longer. I just never thought she’d be okay with being away from me and the girls for so long.”
“That is tough. Do you want my two cents? As a divorced dad who would put up with just about anything to have a sweet, young girl like Bea in my life.”
I smile. “Yes, please.”
“Just let her live her life. She’ll come back.”
“But I don’t know when that will be.”
“Let me ask you something else: do you love her? Like really, really love her?”
“With my whole heart.”
“Can you imagine life without her?”
“No. I was going to propose. I already have the ring and everything.”
“Well, I guess you don’t have any choice but to do what I said then.”
I put my elbow on my desk and rest my hand on my dark hair.
“It sure sounds to me like she’s worth it.”
“She is. It’s just this in-between part that is killing me.”
Chapter 5 – Bea
I’m feeling really guilty for making Marco so angry at me. But like Blakely said, this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I can’t just let it slip by me.
But that’s not to say I don’t miss him and the girls. I almost feel like I can’t breathe when I think about them; nevertheless, I see a picture of them.
Before all of this music stuff exploded, I was really waiting for Marco to pop the question after Caroline found that ring in his closet.