Page 107 of Fashionista's Playbook

Being alone was the only place to process, to grieve. Seeing Travis post breakup was a pair of scissors to the gut. Sharp, cutting cleanly through me like those I used on the gossamer fabric on the table.

If I went home, back to the apartment I shared with Rumer again, I’d have to talk about it. She wouldn’t understand, no one did. Travis who had given me so much, couldn’t give me what I really needed.

It broke my heart.

I couldn’t go back to Travis. I’d given him an opportunity to choose me, but he didn’t.

The bells over the door to my studio jingled. I straightened my smock and placed a plastic smile on my face. I didn’t get much foot traffic, but each time Harley James showed up somewhere in one of my designs—I got more.

“Moriah?” A man’s voice.

Of all the people I’d expected to see perusing the racks in my showroom, Vincent Madera wasn’t any of them.

“Can I help you?” My voice was quiet, maybe even a little shaken. I steeled myself against the discomfort of seeing Vin.

I stopped and stood on the eclectic, multi-colored rug that only Rumer would love, that she had gifted me. Vincent and Travis did look a lot alike. Though Vin’s head was shaved clean and he was bigger in the middle. Not overweight, but not cut from granite like Travis.

Vin’s eyes had always been meaner, like he was judging me harshly without knowing me. But not now. He looked almost contrite; his dark eyes shadowed.

“Hey Moriah,” he didn’t quite smile, but the corners of his mouth wavered. “Before you tell me to get the fuck out, I just need a minute and I’ll be gone.”

“Okay.” I marveled at the lack of emotion in my voice. The word came out longer than two syllables. I didn’t trust Vin, never would. But I wasn’t afraid of him, He wouldn’t hurt me, couldn’t any worse than he already had. “Travis send you to apologize?”

He turned a box in his hands and shook his head with a bark of laughter. “Nah, Lancelot doesn’t know I’m here.”

Then why are you?I couldn’t think of a single reason he’d have for coming to me. But I owed Travis, at least, to hear him out.

“I know you think Travis gives me too much. But there are things you don’t know that he’s not going to tell you.” He glanced up at the ceiling, to the framed pieces of art on the wall, anywhere to not look at me. “I wanted to catch you here. I got some shit to say, ain’t nobody’s business but yours and my brother’s.”

“Okay.” I was consciously measuring my responses. Mostly because I just didn’t have it in me to argue with anyone anymore. Seeing Travis at the facility had been all I could muster.

“I’m sorry for what I did to you. It took me a while to see the carnage.”

I held my tongue, curious as to where he was going with this and wishing he’d get there already.

“Growing up, Travis was smarter, faster, stronger, and more talented. I knew it. We all did.”

“He would never see himself that way.” I pointed out.

“I know. But it's true. When our parents died, it fell on me to make sure he lived up to that potential.” He glanced around nervously, as if someone might be listening in. “I couldn’t make the car payment. I tried, but the money wasn’t much and we weren’t the best at budgeting.”

My heart ached for the two boys, one barely an adult, fighting to survive through their pain and grief. I’d always seen Travis as that little boy, but for the first time I saw Vin much the same.

“He had to get to practice, keep the scouts interested. I had to get to work, so we could eat.” He spun the box again. “I didn’t even know what he was doing until he pulled into the backyard with our car. The spare keys had been sitting on the counter.”

All the pieces fit together, all the crap Travis took from Vin, I finally understood his reasoning. “You went to prison for stealing a car.”

“His entire life would have been ruined. No football, no scholarships, all that talent wasted. Our parents were gone, and I couldn’t take care of him. I’d failed. I had to make it right and I did.

“And I’m doing that again.”

Travis had never chosen Vin over me or anyone. I knew him well enough to know that he saw where he was in life as a direct result of Vin going to prison for him. The vicious churn in my stomach nearly knocked me to my knees.

“Every decision I’ve made since that car was stolen was to keep from hurting Travis. When you came along, something in him changed. I was afraid I would lose what was left of my family, my only family, to you. Instead, I lost him because of me.

“You don’t owe me your tears, Moriah.”

I hadn’t realized I was crying until he said it. I brushed the back of my hands across my cheeks. “I was never going to take him from you.”

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