Page 42 of Love You, Mean It

“What didn’t you agree about?”

“Mostly little stuff. I wanted to invest more in our properties between tenants, find ways to make them shine. There are so many beautiful old buildings in Milborough, but it’s easier and cheaper to get rid of what makes them special. Replace it with a ‘fresh, modern’ look that winds up feeling…”

“Antiseptic.”

Theo nodded rapidly, something like gratitude skipping across the surface of those deep blue eyes.

“Exactly. Vinyl plank flooring is easy, but it has no personality. But, in Ted’s words,Character costs too much. And that was just a couple thousand this way or that on properties we already owned—there was nowayhe was going to hear me out on new directions for the business.” Theo shook his head, lost for a moment in memory. “Anyway, it was clear I wasn’t going to get to try anything different at Taylor Properties, so I was figuring out what else to do. I’d gotten as far as requesting applications for architecture school, and then…”

He licked his lip slowly, staring at the ice so hard I was surprised it didn’t melt.

“And then what?”

“Chase died, and I couldn’t do it.” Theo’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

“Chase?” A hint of memory nipped at the back of my brain.

“My brother.” His voice was chipped slate. “He was the year below you, but he wound up at Benedictine after freshman year. His grades weren’t good—Ted seemed to think dyslexia was a cheap excuse—so they sent him to private school to ‘get more individualized attention.’ ”

“Did it help?”

“He graduated with a decent GPA. Made it into UMass Amherst, though I think Ted’s donations were a big part of that.” Theo shrugged.

“How did he die?”

“On one of our building sites. He was there after hours, and…I don’t want to go into it.” His hand went clawlike on his glass.

“How long ago was it?”

“It’ll be six years this summer,” he murmured, gaze sliding to the floor. He didn’t have to say it:almost the exact amount of time he’d lost in the hospital. And his brief bout of amnesia came just after an accident—or a near accident—on a building site. God, nowonderhe’d lost his shit with Jaime.

Heart aching for Theo, I reached across the table and took his free hand in both of mine, squeezing gently as I stared into his startled eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Theo.”

He swallowed hard as his fingers curled around the edge of my hand.

“Anyway…it was hard on all of us, I didn’t feel like I could leave the businessthen,and by the time things started to feel less…chaotic…” He rolled his eyes, weariness hanging heavy on every feature. “I don’t know, it just felt too hard.”

“What about now?” I said, releasing his hand but leaving mine nearby. Fully pulling away felt too callous, somehow.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you looking to make a change now? To leave?”

He chewed his lower lip.

“Now…I’m trying to make changes from the inside. I have more clout than when I started, and Ted’s much less involved. But if he brings Mangia in, we’ll lose the chance to rethink one of our most valuable assets for years, maybe decades.” He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. When he opened them again, his usual steely self-control had returned. “So to answer your question, you can trust me because this is my last real chance to do something Icareabout. If Mangia comes in…I either have to find a new line of business, or, more likely, I’m doomed to serve in Ted’s trenches indefinitely.”

“Oh. Well…okay, then.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. The Theo across the table was the same man I’d walked in with, in the same crisp shirt and slim-fit trousers that I could tell from a singleglance were high end, with the same commandingly handsome face, but he suddenly felt different in a million indefinable ways, as if someone had slid a filter over the lens I’d been seeing him through, or maybe pulled one off. Somehow it had never occurred to me that his relationship to what he did could be so complicated. That his high-sheen polish might just be a veneer.

And I felt flat-out terrible that I hadn’t known. Had Ma told me when it happened? I could conjure the conversation: a call home from New York, her hushed tone as she relayed a stranger’s heartbreak, voice equal parts empathy for that other family and relief that tragedy had sparedus. But that wasn’t a memory, it was just the reflection of one Frankensteined from a hundred other phone calls filled with tidbits of hometown gossip meant to remind me that I was still tied to this place. I’d griped to friends in New York about how often she called, but really, it had been a lifeline. It wasn’t just the failure that made New York so hard, it was the sense of dislocation. The absolute certainty that this city didn’t belong to me—that I wasn’t really a part of it, that the people around me didn’t know or care what happened to the short, dark-haired girl in the dingy walk-up—had brought on a loneliness I’d never experienced before or since.

We spent the next few courses focusing on the food. I tried to make jokes about various foams, draw Theo’s attention to the customer rearranging her entire table in search of the perfect photo while her overpriced entrées congealed, but I only eked out a few dutiful replies and the vaguest approximations of pleasant expressions. Eventually, I decided to just stick to eating.

I was staring at the reflection of the room in the floor-to-ceiling windows, wavery and glittering, strangely ethereal, when a voice boomed out from over my shoulder.

“Theo, my man! Sorry I couldn’t get over to check on you two sooner.”

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