Page 119 of The Last Goodbye

Presley, Emerson, and Gracie disappeared into the back dressing room, while the owner, Marilyn, refilled our glasses with champagne.

“Give me an update,” Tatum said, even though we’d already debriefed her about my trip home. “You and Bass seem to be spending so much time together. And you even took him home to meet your family. What do you think you’ll do when it’s time to leave? I know you had this plan where you were supposed to hate one another, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

I laughed before taking another sip of the bubbly goodness. “I don’t know. It’s definitely more complicated than I expected it to be. So I’m just going to take it one day at a time.”

“Sometimes things happen when you least expect it. When you aren’t looking for it.” She leaned her head on my shoulder. “And I really like having you here, Briar.”

“I like being here, too,” I admitted, because it was the truth.

I’d been thinking about it a lot. About my options, and what I actually wanted to do after this project was completed.

“It shows, Briar.” She squeezed my hand. “Are you happy in New York? I mean, are you this happy in your regular life?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I’ve been so focused on being grateful for the opportunity to work for the family business, to live in this apartment that I could never have afforded before… But after being back home, I realized something.”

“What?”

“I realized that I spend a lot of time trying to fit into a world that I don’t know if I truly belong in, and I don’t know if I actually want to belong in it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m truly not sure if I’m just desperate to have this family so badly that I would sacrifice my own happiness to be accepted.”

Tatum put an arm around my shoulder. “It’s important that you figure that out, because your happiness is important, Briar.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I know. I didn’t realize how apparent it was until I stepped away from it, during my time here. And I feel—comfortable here. And I was on edge the entire time I was back home. So it’s just something I’m working through, I guess.”

“Have you talked to Bass about it?” she asked.

“He knows that my family dynamic is a struggle, but I’m determined to make it work at the same time. And he also knows that my career is important to me, and I’ve worked really hard to prove myself at the company. So it’s just a question of how that all fits into my life, and then how to handle things with my relationship with him, when I leave.”

“What does he think about the long-distance thing?”

I sighed. “Bass and I have agreed to just take it one day at a time. I mean, we’ve discussed the fact that we probably won’t hate each other before I leave at this point.” We both chuckled. “So we’ll cross that bridge when we get there, I guess.”

“Ahhh…you’re finally admitting that you aren’t going to hate each other. I love it.” She shook her head, a goofy grin on her face. “Gracie’s getting married, and you’re in love.”

My eyes widened. “I’m not in love.”

I didn’t want to be in love. I knew it would complicate everything. So saying it out loud made it too real. But in my head…in my heart—I was struggling to come to terms with my feelings.

“Aren’t you? You both seem like you’re madly in love. We’ve all noticed it. And it’s a beautiful thing. Don’t run from it.”

“Well, we haven’t said those words to one another. I’ve actually never said those words to a man. The only time I ever used them freely was with my mom and Granny. And unfortunately, ‘I love you’ and ‘goodbye’ tend to go hand in hand for me.”

“Briar, ‘I love you’ and ‘goodbye’ do not go hand in hand. You just happened to have loved two people who passed away. But that doesn’t mean everyone you love will leave.”

I chewed the edge of my thumbnail. “I know. It’s not logical, but there’s this innate fear connected to my feelings, you know? And it’s not like he’s said it to me, either. We both knew this was temporary, and we don’t even have a plan beyond my time here. So, no sense even letting myself go there.”

“Well, the truth is, you can’t stop those feelings from being there, even if they scare you. But it’s all going to work out, I promise. Meanwhile, I’m just over here in a terrible holding pattern. The only male attention I’m getting is from Stan at the assisted living place. He told me if he were sixty years younger, he’d be asking to marry me.” She smirked.

I laughed. “Well, Bernice does call Stan a dirty dog. I guess the man is giving it his best shot.”

She smiled and then leaned her head on my shoulder. “I love you, Briar Sinclair. And I’m going to be right here beside you to prove to you that it’s a good thing.”

I felt my chest squeeze at her words, and I nodded, even though she wasn’t looking at me.

But I didn’t say the words back to her, even though I absolutely felt them. I loved Tatum and Gracie. As an adult, I’d learned to show people that I loved them, instead of saying it.