Page 81 of Tripped By Love
I took the card he held out, and then he sauntered out of the cafeteria, talking to people as he went. Marco and I ordered at the counter and then stood with some other employees, waiting for it to be prepared.
“Why don’t you go find a seat?” Marco suggested. “There’s no reason for us both to stand here.”
I was going to object, but with Lance’s talk still pounding through my brain, I was reminded of Marco’s words from the airport coming back to me:I’ll try if you’ll try. It wasn’t just balance I was lacking in my life. It was allowing others to take care of me without feeling like it made me weak.
“Thank you,” I said softly and moved off to find a table in the corner near a window. My eyes were drawn to the summer storm that was brewing outside. My thoughts felt as heavy as the sky. Like they were going to burst out of me just like the rain.
I’d been worried that this deal would be yet another drain on my already limited time, but Brady had been right. If I got this deal, I could hire extra staff at the café. I might be able to focus on creating food rather than managing the day-to-day. While I loved the restaurant, I loved the designing and crafting of the food and menus even more. I would never have admitted that to anyone before. I’d barely whispered it to myself because it would have felt like I was slapping Brady in the face to say, “Oh, hey, thanks for spending gazillions of dollars on my restaurant, but I’m not sure I really want to manage it, after all.”
The idea of just being able to create the recipes and menus while someone else managed the restaurant itself seemed to lift a weight from my shoulders, and I suddenly wanted to make this deal happen with every part of me. I wanted it not just for myself and for the time I might get back with Chevelle, or to pay Brady back, but I wanted it for the restaurant itself, which might grow even more with a team running it instead of just me. I could make Cliff head chef and hire Willow as a manager and assistant chef. We could get more kitchen help and more waitstaff to ease the load on everyone. We might be able to stay open for dinner, and I’d be able to give everyone a raise. Just that made my heart soar.
But more importantly, I might be able to take weekends off and spend extra time at home. When Chevelle started school, I might be able to be there at the end of his day. I could spend the nights in someone’s arms and not feel like he was only getting the leftovers of me before I scrambled back out of bed at the crack of dawn.
“You’re practically glowing. Where did your mind go?” Marco asked as he slid into the seat next to me with our food.
I smiled. My heart felt truly light for the first time in days. “I just realized how much I actually want this deal with Ralley to work.”
His eyes fell to my lips before gliding away again.
“Yeah? No more queasy feeling in your gut?” he asked, and there was something in his tone, as if he was holding back, and I frowned.
“Do your Spidey senses not agree?” I asked.
He shook his head, glanced around the room, and said, “No. Not at all. If anything, I feel the complete opposite of worried. It says a lot about a leader when their staff is this at ease around them.”
“But…”
“No but because of anything here with Ralley. No lingering doubts. The but is really because of you. Are you wanting thisfor youor are you only thinking about paying off Brady?”
“I’m not going to lie and say that it isn’t one of the reasons. But it isn’tjustabout the money or paying my brother back. This is about my life. What I want for me and Chevelle. What good am I to him if I only role model working myself to death without also showing him that it’s okay to care for yourself? That it’s okay to work hard for your dreams but that it’s even more important to be there for the people you love most.”
I wondered if he understood what I was insinuating, but then his hand froze halfway to his mouth with a fry, and his look turned heated. I flushed as my thoughts went back to the car, my offer, and the reasons I’d ended up getting two keys instead of one. I’d hurt him in doing it, but I’d thought it had been the right decision. I hadn’t wanted him to accept less. But what if he didn’t have to? What if I simply had more to give?
“Last night, you said something about being greedy…” I trailed off, having a hard time speaking while his eyes seemed to devour me. I swallowed and continued, “I realized I’m greedy too. I want Chevelle to spend more time with me than he does my family. I want…I want to be able to have a relationship with someone who brings me joy without them feeling like they only get the leftovers of me when I’m exhausted from working twelve hours a day, six days a week. I want”—I looked around the room—“balance.”
Marco reached out and curled my hand into his. He didn’t say a word but let me continue to pour every thought I had out. “For a long time, I’ve felt guilty because Brady gave me this amazing gift, and I didn’t want to let him down, so I worked really hard to make it successful. But the truth is, Brady doesn’t care about that as much as he wants me to be happy. And this…” I brought his hand to my mouth and kissed the knuckles. “This would make me happy.”
Marco swallowed hard before clearing his throat and saying, “I don’t really have balance in my life either. I’ve been all about my job for years. Maliyah and Jonas… They ought to have had more of my time and attention. There should be more to me than just working out and guarding Brady. I’m not exactly sure how easy it will be for me to change.”
His admission both tore at my heart for him as much as it soothed me to know I wasn’t alone in my obsessed focus on my goals.
“We’re quite the pair of workaholics,” I teased. “But maybe we can start our own Workaholics Anonymous or something. Maybe…we could be each other’s sponsors?”
His lips quirked, one of the first times I’d seen his partial smile all day. “I don’t want to be your sponsor, Angel. Sponsors can’t end the day tangled in the sheets together.”
His words filled my belly with desire. Thoughts of our skin merging and blending together. Of whispered moans and stroking fingers. My face flushed, and he saw it, reading easily where my thoughts had gone, and his face broke into a huge smile. The one that was so rarely on his somber face. The one that was like the light breaking through the clouds and sending heavenly rays down to the ground.
We sat there, eyes boring into each other, for so long that it felt like the day had disappeared into night by the time we resurfaced.
“You done?” he asked with a wave at my plate.
I nodded. He shifted both trays together and took them to the garbage cans divided into recycling, compost, and trash—environmentally friendly, like everything else at Earth Paradise had been. There was no reason for me not to do this deal.
I grabbed my purse and headed over to join Marco at the door.
His gaze was full of lust as he watched me walk. My body burned to simply return to the hotel with him. To pull him directly to the SUV, drive straight there, and head to one of the two rooms I’d stupidly rented the night before. But I had one more meeting to get through before we could do that. I needed to meet with Marsha before I signed on with Lance and made my life over for the third time at barely twenty-five.
“Marsha’s?” I asked.
