Page 96 of Wallflower
Violet blinks up at me before she gives her whole body a shake and tucks her phone into her back pocket. “No, I don’t.”
“You do.” I grip her upper arms, and when she refuses to look at me, I tip up her chin until she meets my gaze. “This studio is yours, no matter if you’re here all week or just the weekend or once a month or twice a year. And hey, why do you have to choose? Maybe you can do both. Maybe you can—”
“The job is in Milan.”
Every inch of me runs cold, freezing my breath and stopping my heart. I’ve been skating so fast and so blindly toward a completely different goal that for one of the very few times in my life, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do.
“It’s a three-year contract,” she adds with her fingers twisting in and out of each other between us. “I’d be on the design team. It would be—”
“Your dream,” I finish.
“Yeah.” Her face falls, and she glances around the studio I made for her like she can’t remember how she got here. “No. Imean, maybe once upon a time, but things are different now. I’ve got you, and I’ve got…this.”
She catches her bottom lip between her teeth, and I swallow my hurt. This is my fault. I put her out in the spotlight because I wanted so badly for the world to see her the way I do. Talented. Beautiful. Humble. Worthy. It shouldn’t hurt this bad that everyone did what I wanted them to do. I can’t get selfish about sharing her now.
“Violet.” I squeeze her arms to get her full attention. “You’ve worked so hard for this. If Milan and Leonardo Bellucci are what you want, then you have to go.”
I think of the second set of keys burning a hole in my back pocket—the ones that will unlock the apartment I bought for us. It’s the property Violet liked the day we came to view it—the one with the cream-colored walls and wood-burning fireplace, the vintage finishes and natural light and the view over the park.
My throat feels tight, and I blink to erase the pictures of us I’d been dreaming about these last few weeks. We’d live together in the city while I took the Fury to the championships, and she established herself as a designer. We’d spend the next two years getting to know each other. Live big. Laugh. Have fun. Fall harder and deeper in love every day. Then we’d pack it all up and move to the ranch. I’d build her a studio, or she could commute to this one if she wanted to. We’d get married. We’d have a bunch of kids who would play hockey and make art and collect eggs from our chicken coop. Daisy would teach them how to ride. We’d have the kind of quiet, forever love that Mom and Dad had, and I wouldn’t have to fight the world anymore.
We could just… be happy.
It’s still possible, I tell myself. Violet isn’t gone yet, and she wouldn’t be gone forever. This doesn’t have to change things—it would only delay them—but three years is a long time to beapart. To live separate lives. To chase different dreams. Three years could change everything. I’d miss her too much.
Violet’s focus turns inward, and I hold my breath as she shares the thoughts that pass across her face.
“No.” Her voice is firm, and her mouth flat as she shakes her head. “This is what I want. You are what I want. Plus, I have to think practically. I can’t leave my father. He’d be all alone, and after what happened this summer with me only an hour away?” She shakes her head again. “I can’t risk moving halfway across the world. It would be too much.”
Violet throws out her obligation to her dad like it’s an insurmountable obstacle when it’s not. Still, I reach for it like a drowning man clamoring at a lifeline. Relief burns the back of my throat as I realize I can keep her here without having to be the selfish prick who begs her to choose me over her dreams.
I don’t want to be the reason she turns her back on this opportunity, but I don’t want her to go. She is my happily ever after, and I’m not wired to let that go without a fight.
“If you’re worried about your dad, you shouldn’t go,” I agree, drawing her to me. She slips her arms around my waist, and I hold her tight even as I swallow a thick lump of shame. “Stay right here in California, Wallflower.”Stay right here with me.
thirty-six
Violet
DAY 74 AT SILVER LEAF... ONLY 12 TO GO
The next morning, Itell Chord I’m meeting Dad at his cabin instead of the house for our morning coffee, but it’s a little white lie. Instead, I leave early enough to get to Dad just before he walks out, knocking on his door as he’s tugging on his boots.
He opens the door and greets me with surprise. “What are you doing here, Blossom?”
I shrug. “I woke early and felt like taking a walk. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not. Come on in, and I’ll make you breakfast.”
I follow him down the short, narrow hallway of his cabin and give the place a quick scan. The accommodations at Silver Leaf are clean, neat, and well-maintained—white-clad cabins with timber floors, white-washed walls, functional kitchenettes, and compact European laundry closets. Half of them have a single bedroom, like this one. The others have two. All have modest but full-size bathrooms and small patios that overlook the green vineyards here and the purple mountains beyond.
I take a seat at the small dining table while Dad fusses at the coffee machine. I’ve been here twice before, but there’s something different about the cabin today. I can’t point out any one thing that changes the vibe—maybe it’s the way Dad moves around the place, his shoes near the front door and a jacket hanging from the back of the armchair, the groceries stacked in the open kitchen cupboard—but it feels warmer somehow. Lived in.
Dad joins me with two steaming mugs, and I take a careful sip. He mirrors me, his eyes watching me over the rim of his cup, then following my hands as I set my coffee down and trap them between my bouncing knees.
He lowers his coffee to the table, and… there it is. Thespill itlook.
“I have some news,” I say, even as I’m silently screaming at myself to leave my father out of this. If I’m going to accept Chord’s studio here and not go to Milan, then Dad doesn’t need to know about the job offer. But the thing is, I desperately need to tell him. I need someone to tell me that by turning it down, I’m doing the right thing. And I need Dad to know the truth.
