Page 96 of Give Me a Reason

“Finn offered to quit, so she didn’t say. I think she was upset that we were fooling around at the venues.”

Ireland sighed. “Finn doesn’t work there anymore. Problem solved.”

“Finn would realize soon enough that I wasn’t the right person for him.”

Ireland sighed. “Because of how you grew up? That you didn’t go to college? If you’d been paying attention, you’d know he doesn’t care about any of that.”

“I’m scared of losing him. Last night, I thought I’d lost my job, my apartment, and my best friend.”

“You haven’t lost anything yet. You just forgot to fight for what you want.”

Hope soared in my chest. “You think I need to fix things with Finn.”

“Only if he’s what you want,” Ireland said carefully.

“I love him.” That was the only truth I could wrap my head around.

Ireland smiled. “Then it’s not too late.”

“When I talked to him this morning, he said he’d fix it.”

“Does that sound like a guy who doesn’t want to be with you?”

I bit my lip. “I screwed up.”

“You panicked. But you still have time to turn things around.”

“What do I do? Finn said I needed to figure a few things out.” I tried to remember everything he’d said, but it was a bit of a blur. I felt like I was reacting on autopilot this morning.

“I’m guessing he said you needed to work on your confidence and believe in yourself and him.”

I nodded miserably.

Ireland pulled out a notebook. “I like starting with defining what you want.”

“You mean out of a relationship or my job?” I asked, scooting closer to her chair.

She tapped her pen against the paper. “What do you want out of your life?”

“I want to be happy.”

“That’s a feeling. I want actionable things. I want to be a millionaire, fly first class, that kind of thing.” Ireland waved a hand in the air.

“Well, yeah, that sounds good too. But I was thinking of taking some business classes while still working for Gia. She said she was thinking of eventually promoting me to head wedding planner.”

Ireland paused to high-five me. “Good for you. So you don’t want to be a teacher anymore?”

“I don’t think so. I really love planning the perfect day for couples.”

Ireland grinned. “Yay! Me too.”

“And I want Finn and Paisley. I want to live with them when they’re ready. I want to plan a future with them.”

Ireland did a little victory dance on her stool. “I love that. Okay. We can work with this. Have you spoken with a college advisor or signed up for any classes?”

I winced. “Not yet. I haven’t been able to take that step.”

“You do that,” she said as she looked at the list in front of her.

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