Page 53 of Ours to Lose
“No, it’s not.”
His shoulders tensed. “Evan’s right. I chose my career over my family and let them down.”
“No, you—” My tongue tripped over the dozen ways I wanted to disagree. “It was never meant to be a choice between the two. The surgery was supposed to be straightforward. Everyone believed the worst was a long way off.”
“I shouldn’t have risked it. Evan?—”
“Evan’s upset. He’s angry your mom is gone, and he’s worried about your dad, aboutyou.” I poked his chest. “He wants to keep everyone from ever hurting again, and he knows he can’t, so he’s lashing out.”
A muscle flexed in Gabe’s jaw, his defiant gaze fastened on his lap.
“Your mom wanted you to stay for that fight,” I told him. “It was all she talked about. She had Evan bring her an old pair of your boxing gloves that she planned to wear for the match and told every doctor and nurse who walked in that her son was about to be a High Hitter World Boxing champion. She didn’t feel abandoned by you. She was inspired by you.”
He rolled to his back and covered his face with his hands. His chest rose and fell with sharp breaths, fragments of the love and joy and comfort his mom used to bring that were left shattered in her absence.
It would pain her to see her sons like this. Hurting, not speaking, spinning in circles while waiting for the world to make sense again. She would hate it.
I hated I couldn’t fix it.
“She was inspired by you too, you know.” He dropped his arms to his sides and met my gaze. His eyes were red. “That Thanksgiving before she died? The last one I was home for?”
I nodded. It was the first time I’d seen him since graduating from culinary school and navigating the world as something resembling an adult. He’d texted me later that night to say how nice it was to see me.
My heart had just about exploded. Not even because his handsome features had grown more stunning as they’d matured into those of a man, like they’d been waiting since birth to reach their full potential. But because it felt like confirmation of my place within the Hardt family. A place offered by each of them in kind and not just by Evan.
We hadn’t continued texting then. He’d gone into training mode for the High Hitter tournament, and I’d committed to the grind of a fine-dining kitchen. One year later was his mom’s funeral.
“After you left,” Gabe said, “she talked for almost an hour straight about how you were already a sous chef after just three years, and you’d graduated from culinary school at the top of your class. How she’d been there to see it and rubbed it in all her friends’ faces that soon she’d have an in with a Michelin-star chef.”
I snorted. “No, she didn’t.”
He grinned as if remembering. “She did. She had zero doubts it would happen.”
“It hasn’t.”
“Doesn’t mean it won’t.”
I didn’t care if it did. Stars were exciting, but there were other measures of a great chef. Like the respect of your peers.
Gabe must have thought so too. “Your team still cares about you. Just because you’re in a solo sport now doesn’t mean they won’t still be behind you in the ring. I bet if you asked, they’d all want to be.”
Ah, but that was the problem: asking.
I was the personothersasked. The person who handled things so others wouldn’t have to. The one who was supposed to be solid and reliable and useful. And if I did ever ask, it was a question of how I could help.
When I’d first moved in with Nana, I’d been the one to askherfor chores. She started tying my allowance to whether I played outside to make sure I still experienced being a kid. And as Jase’s sous chef, I’d regularly volunteered for the extra shifts.
The one time I’d accepted help without question was immediately after Nana had died and the Hardts stepped in to help me with the million things that needed to get done. Arranging the funeral, handling the will, talking to accountants, transferring bills, notifying social security, calling banks.
A whirlwind of demands in a storm of grief, and they hadn’t waited for me to ask before stepping into the eye of it with me. They’d just been there, standing in the receiving line with me at the wake and leaving food in my fridge. Sitting beside me while I met with lawyers to counter my parents’ challenge on the house and helping me pack Nana’s things when it was finally time to sell.
Evan had slept in a sleeping bag on my floor for a week after the funeral so I wasn’t alone. I’d done the same for him after his mom.
But a little loneliness and a heavy workload weren’t life and death. Neither was a creative funk. I hated the idea of bothering the guys with this, especially when they were already at full capacity with Ardena. It wasn’t fair for me to ask them to take on my stuff too. Not when it wasn’t anything beyond my ability to handle on my own.
“I’ll figure it out,” I said. “I’ve got more interviews lined up, so…” I tucked my knees into my chest. Nothing had been fixed, but that wasn’t why I’d come. “Thank you for listening.” I’d needed to release a layer of what had been building these past few months, and it was nice not to do it alone.
“Any time.” He extended his palm to me, and I placed mine in his. His thumb rubbed my wrist so gently it almost brought more tears to my eyes.
