Page 93 of The Secret
The building we called the office was really only three rooms. The main room was dominated by a large, laminated-wood table, a giant whiteboard with important color-coded dates, and bizarrely colorful safety posters. At one end of the main room was a miniature kitchen, complete with an oven no one had ever used and a fridge that was always stocked with bottled water. My mother’s office was at the other end of the room, the door propped open with a five-gallon bucket of rock salt, as usual.
“Mama?” I knocked on the open door. She looked up from her computer and took out her headphones.
“Morning, sweetie.” Her eyes raked me up and down, and she smiled. “Looking rested.”
“Yep.” I scratched the back of my head guiltily, feeling disloyal to her for keeping a secret and disloyal to Micah for hiding the truth. “I wanted to talk to you.”
Focus, Constantine. One step at a time.
“Does this rested, relaxed you have anything to do with whomever you were texting on Thanksgiving?” she asked archly. A second later, she waved away her own question. “I know, I know, you’re twenty-four. But it’s been a while now, Constantine. Don’t you think it’s time we got to meet her? Am I so terrifying that my sons can’t bring their significant others home?”
She was joking, but it was no laughing matter.
I gave her an incredulous look. “You’re asking me that, even after the debacle with Jules and Daniel at Thanksgiving dinner?”
“Don’t be dramatic.” She rolled her eyes. “I already apologized to Julian for grilling Daniel. It’s a mother’s prerogative to—”
“It was more than grilling. You were rude.”
“Stop. You’re exaggerating the case. Julian knows.” She nodded once, firmly.
Focus on your own problems, I told myself.Focus.
But I couldn’t.
“Doeshe know? Or does he just want to keep peace with you so badly that he’s not pushing the issue, even though he thinks you actuallywererude, and to the guy he’s in love with, no less?”
“What?”
“Don’t confuse compliance with agreement, Mama. They’re not the same. And if you haven’t given Julian an actual apology, you owe him one.”
“Constantine, what’s gotten into you?”
“Do you know why Julian didn’t talk about Daniel for months and months? Not because he was ashamed of Daniel, but because he worried thatyouwouldn’t like him. Because he wanted to have something that washis, without you questioning it and making him defend it.”
“You’rewayout of line.” She tossed her braid over her shoulder and leaned forward, her eyes glinting. “You, Julian, and Theo are my heart and soul. I have doneeverythingfor you boys. I would die to protect you. Sometimes when you love someone, you have to take a stand. I don’t want to see Julianhurt—”
“I know, Mama. I know. But the only person who’s hurt him in this scenario right now is you.”
She shut her mouth with an audibleclack.
“This isn’t even what I came to talk about,” I said, pushing a hand through my hair. I dropped into the chair in front of her desk. “Look, I know you love us. But you asked me a second ago why Jules would keep a secret, and that’s why. That’s it. Because he loves you, but he can’t live his life to please you. He doesn’t want a life without risks. He doesn’t want you to protect him. He’s twenty-nine fucking years old and—” I held up my hand when she would have protested my language, “he doesn’t need you to shield him, he needs to know he can share stuff without being judged or questioned like he doesn’t know his own mind.”
She blinked. “Julian told you this?”
I shifted in my seat. “Some. And some I… guessed.”
“I see.” She leaned back in her chair slightly, but the way her eyes roamed over my face, I wondered if she saw more than I wanted her to.
“So. On that note.” I took a deep breath. “I’m putting together a proposal to add on a landscape design division to Ross. I’m going to show it to you in a couple of weeks. After the holidays.”
“Oh, Con.” She sighed wearily. “One family crisis at a time, please.”
“Mama, Julian’s relationship is not a crisis. And there will never be a good time. I’m not asking your permission. I’m telling you that this is what I’ll be doing. This is what I want to do with my life. It’s the thing I’m passionate about. And there is nothing I want more than to build this as a part of Ross Landscaping, to have you be involved.”
“You know why—”
“Yes, I know finances are tight. So if you’re not comfortable being involved, that’s okay. I’ll… start my own company if I have to.”
