Page 96 of The CEO I Hate

“Did she take it badly?” I asked weakly.

Connor finally threw himself down into a chair. “If by ‘take it badly’ you mean did she call me in tears begging me to tell her we’re not going to leave her behind too, then yeah, I’d say she took it pretty fucking badly.”

“Man, if you were going to bail,” Finn said, “you should have called one of us to cover.”

“I didn’t mean to bail on this!” I growled.Shit.Fuck.“Everything’s a goddamn mess.”

Connor’s expression shifted slightly, maybe at the utter defeat on my face. He exchanged a look with Finn, then kicked at my foot under the table to get my attention. “Don’t go all melodramatic on us.”

I knew it was a peace offering of sorts, but I just shook my head, feeling like an utter failure. I’d failed as a boyfriend, and now I was apparently failing as a son.

“Look,” Connor said, the hard edge of his tone softened. “I was able to talk her around and got her on the phone with Grace for a while, and when I called to check on her this morning, she sounded a lot better.”

“Did she?” I asked, skeptical.

He nodded. “She also said she’d gotten her therapist to squeeze in an appointment for her this afternoon, which is a good sign.”

“At least she’s got better coping strategies now than she did back in the day,” Finn muttered.

Connor nodded. “I don’t think we need to worry about her going blank on us.”

Ever since we were kids, we’d called itgoing blankwhen Mom fell into a full-on depressive episode. To think that could have happened yesterday all because I was too out of it to remember how important the date was…I needed to get a grip.

“Okay, so Mom’s status is stable for now,” Finn said. “That’s good. But that doesn’t explain what the hellyourproblem is,” he continued, eyeing me. He didn’t even sound angry—just worried. “It’s not like you to just cancel on her.”

“I know,” I said, still beating myself up. I was the one who fixed things. Who saw a problem and found a solution. I was the one who stepped up to be with her yesterday, and I’d let her down. “I seriouslydidn’t mean to bail. There’s just been…so much on my mind recently.”

“Like what?” Finn said. “You and Mia break up or something?” He’d meant it as a joke. I could tell by that little half smile he flashed me, but his face fell when I didn’t correct him. “Oh,shit, man. I didn’t mean…For real?”

I swallowed hard and nodded. It was all I could do.

Connor sighed heavily. “I’m sorry. That’s rough.”

He more than anyone knew just how horrible it was to have a relationship break down. All I’d wanted to do was take care of Mia, to protect her, but she hadn’t let me. Hadn’t trusted me. Because, apparently, I’d been doing a shit job of being there for her.

“What happened?” Finn asked.

I lifted my shoulder. “We just…Yeah, things ended pretty badly. There was a problem at work, and Mia didn’t feel like I’d supported her—at work or in other ways. And she just…wasn’t sure about us anymore. So I said there’s the door, and she walked through it.”

“You said ‘there’s the door’?” Finn repeated. “Dude, why?”

“What was I supposed to do, force her to stay with someone she doesn’t want? Someone she doesn’t trust?” I tried to shrug off the horrible tension that surged through me as I remembered her walking out of my office.

“So what, are you just going to avoid her now? How can you even pull that off? She works in the same building as you, she lives down the hall from your best friend who you visit all the time,andshe’s said-best-friend’s sister.”

“Well, Jake slammed the door in my face the last time I tried to visit, and every time I call, he only answers so he can yell at me, so that ‘best friend’ title is a little up in the air at the moment.”

I sighed. “And that sucks especially hard since it turned out that Jake broke up with Gabrielle while they were away on the cruise. I want to be there for Jake, but he’s not letting me because he’s too furious at me formybreakup.”

“And for dating his sister in the first place?” Finn said.

“Who knows?” I growled. “Plus, I’m still trying to babysit the writers’ room to get the finale ofEnd in Firewritten, only now there’s all this silent resentment and hostility there too.”

“Because of the breakup? I thought they didn’t know the two of you were together. Do you think Mia told them what happened?”

I thought about it for a minute, but shook my head. “It doesn’t sound like her. She’s not the scorched-earth type. But maybe they figured something out on their own? All I know is that Jerome has been shooting me dagger eyes any time I walk past the door.”

“So, to sum up,” Finn said, interrupting my spiraling thoughts. “Mr. Fix-It is surrounded by problems, most of which arehisfault, and no one will let him fix them. Is that about right?”

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