Page 60 of Single-Minded
“I’ve checked several items off my list.”
“Same. Thanks for helping me create my list. It’s sort of terrifying to start a business.”
“What made you decide to do it then?”
She pulled her long, thin legs up and crossed them under her. “That’s a long story.”
“I love stories.”
She glanced around as she chewed a bite. “Everyone who’s lived here for a while knows my story anyway, but it’s not one I’m proud of.”
I knew just enough of it to be curious.
“My dad controlled me for most of my life with money. Long story short, he cut me off and disowned me when I broke my engagement to the creep he wanted me to marry for business reasons. His business reasons.”
I frowned. I knew Chloe had found Magnolia the night she’d dumped the creep and that whatever had happened between Chloe and Magnolia had made Chloe more sympathetic toward her childhood enemy.
“Your dad wanted you to get married for his business goals?” I asked, unable to understand how someone could think that was okay.
“Yep,” she said. “Business is the only thing that matters to him, and as he constantly threw in my face, his all-important business bought me everything I could ever want.” Her tone was steady and almost nonchalant, but there was a flash of an expression on her face that told me she was anything but nonchalant. “It turns out, I’m much happier without all those things and without him in my life.”
“Nobody needs a blackmailing, bribing asshole trying to run their life,” I said.
“Amen, sister. My dad let me keep my car and the clothes I could fit into a trash bag. Then he locked my bank accounts, changed the locks to his house and the one he’d bought for me, and wrote me off. All in one night.”
“I’m sorry. What a piece of shit.”
“That’s an insult to pieces of shit everywhere,” she said, her lips flirting with a smile. “He was counting on me to fail, to come begging him to take me back in, to say I’d marry the cheating piece of scum he’d chosen for me?—”
“An insult to pieces of scum everywhere,” I said.
“That’s true too.” She held out a hand for a high five, and I obliged her. “Anyway, I’m determined to succeed.”
“To prove him wrong.”
“You got it. Fuck him.”
“Fuck him indeed. He can fuck right off along with my dad, who was also controlling and manipulative, as well as a wife-beater.”
“Insecure men are such a pain in the ass,” she said with conviction, and something about it made me laugh. Because it was absolutely true and yet seemed out of character for this pretty girl who I’d never heard swear before.
Magnolia laughed with me. “For real though,” she insisted. “They’re likely trying to compensate for small penises.”
“I’m not arguing in the least.” I was starting to understand her better, and in spite of the mean person she’d apparently been as a child, I was beginning to feel a kinship with her, between our asshole bully fathers and our new business aspirations. “You’re going to succeed. We are going to succeed. Which reminds me, I’m going to need someone to plan my grand-opening event. You know anyone?”
She let out a restrained squeal. “Oh, my goodness. I’d love to do it. Tell me what you have in mind.”
The day passed quickly, with both of us getting a lot accomplished, including the beginning ideas for my grand opening. I was just finishing up ordering furniture for my office when I heard the front door of the shop open. I stood, alarmed because we hadn’t unlocked that door, and went out to the front room.
My heart raced for a reason other than alarm as soon as I saw West, the dirty postwork version that I liked as much as the clean prework one.
“Hey,” I said, “what are you doing here?”
“Told you I was gonna do the second coat of mud after I finished at your house today.”
“Right. You’re already done for the day?”
“It’s four thirty,” he said. “Let me guess. You forgot to eat lunch?”
