Page 97 of Follow Your Bliss

His voice choked up, and he sniffled, his voice raw. It cut me clean to my heart.

I’m so, so sorry. And I’m sorry if I’m bothering you with all these calls and texts. I fucked up, and I’m so sorry. My mom was so horrible to you, and I should’ve stuck up for you. I should’ve made you feel comfortable in your own home. I should’ve told the whole world how much I love you. Because I do. There’s no excuse for my behavior. I know I…I have to make changes to be worthy of you, because you sure as hell deserve someone stronger and braver than me. I love you, Rose, so much. And I just want you home with me. I miss you.

The emotion in his voice felt like someone ripping all the stitches that held my heart together. By the end of his message, I was sobbing. I didn’t trust myself to call him and be able to talk rationally. So, I texted him back, texted my mom, and turned off my phone.

Jason

This French Quarter dive bar was the last place I wanted to be. It’d been three days since Rose left. Three days since her last text to me, the night she broke up with me. Sitting alone at the bar, I pulled my phone out to read it—and my response to her—again.

Every day without her was a little more of my soul whittled away.

I threw myself back into my socials, custom pieces, and hurricane repairs, but everything I worked on reminded me of her. Working on my Insta made me go to her profile and check her follower count. I worried about her keeping up engagement because she hadn’t touched it in days. I couldn’t pick out a wall color for the bathroom because I wanted to make sure she’d love it. I was up late last night working on my plans for the community room for the first time since Florida, and I was out of my chair to bring the plans to her sewing table and ask her what kind of rooms she wanted in her dream house. Then I remembered.

And this morning I called Faduma and turned StudFinders down. She definitely didn’t expect it. She did her best to talk me into it, but I told her, respectfully, that I couldn’t sign a contract that dictated how to live my life. She was disappointed but understood, and she wished me luck. I may never be able to afford to finish my house, but none of that mattered if I had to hide the woman I loved.

Alex stumbled up beside me at the bar. “Come on, dude—”

“For the last time, Alex, I don’t want a fucking lap dance.” I pushed my brother back toward the crowd in this godforsaken Bourbon Street strip club.

He laughed at me. “I already paid for it, so I guess it’s for me!” He whooped and retreated back into the crowd as my dad sat beside me.

“I see you enjoy this kind of establishment as much as I do.” He took a sip of the beer he’d been nursing for an hour.

“It’s not my scene on a good day.” My eyes flickered back up to the football highlights playing on the TV over the bar. The bass thrumming up through the soles of my shoes was making a nauseating slosh of the peanuts and beer in my stomach. The other bars the bachelor party hit tonight were cleaner than this one, and the streets in between reeked of puke and piss.

My dad studied the TV for a minute. “Saints might have a chance this year, with that new running back.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“I ever tell you how when I started dating your mother, her parents hated me?”

I frowned over my beer and snapped my gaze to his. He was studying the TV still, the images flickering over his glasses. Alex may’ve looked more like Dad, but I was more like him. I was more sensitive, usually more open about sharing my emotions. Which is why I was shocked that I’d never heard this before.

“What?” I needed him to say it again.

“They absolutely hated me.”

“Nana and Pops love you.”

“They do now, after thirty-some-odd years of faithful marriage and giving them four beautiful grandchildren. But back then? They didn’t want me dating your mother. They were upset when we got engaged, and…”

“And?” I took a sip of my beer.

“They were furious when I got her pregnant before we were married.”

The beer went down the wrong way. I coughed, grabbing napkins off the bar to get myself straight. Son of a bitch. Rose was right. “When you didwhat?”

Dad laughed. “Don’t ever tell your mother I told you.”

“So, wait. Mark was born out of wedlock?”

“No, your brother was born plenty inside wedlock.” Dad shrugged. “He wasconceivedout of wedlock in the back of—”

I put my hand on his arm. “Dad, stop. I don’t want to hear anymore. Excuse me,” I said, catching the bartender’s eye and pushing my half-drunk beer away. “Can you bring me a Sprite?”

Dad shrugged. “All I’m saying is that it took a lot of hard work for us to show your grandparents that I was a good guy who’d do right by their daughter. Our hard work together. You mom seems to have forgotten all that.”

“And you’re telling me all this…because?”

---