Page 77 of The Kissing Part
I so wish I could take that text back. Obviously, his answer is no.
17
Owen
“Okay, Owen, we all know you’re heartbroken, but can you stop taking it out on us?” Nathan asks at our work meeting the Friday after Shayla left for LA. How do I know she left? I got in touch with Zander to make sure he was staying on with her after filming wrapped, and guess what? He’s not. She let him go in favor of hiring someone in LA. And how long will that take?
“I’m fine,” I snap. “What’s next for business? I’ll take it.”
“Owen,” Mackenzie says gently, “we already covered that. Nathan’s taking the biotech job in New Jersey. You’re up for whatever comes next. We’re having a lull with the Fourth of July holiday coming up. Why don’t you take some time off?”
“And do what?”
Nathan and Mackenzie exchange a look.
“What?” I bark.
“We think you should go to LA and check in with Shayla,” Mackenzie says. “Talk things through.”
Nathan nods vigorously.
I exhale sharply. “And what’s that going to solve? She puts everyone and everything ahead of me. So I’m just supposed to trail after her wherever she goes? No, thanks.”
Mackenzie gives me a sympathetic look. “You know the first time she left for a job when she was sixteen, she was in a tough place.”
“I know her mom was hard on her,” I mutter.
“It was emotional abuse, constant criticism about her looks and her weight, constant comparison to other girls who were doing better than her in their careers. Her self-esteem was destroyed. She’d just become an emancipated minor when you met her, so she was flying without a net for the first time, sixteen years old and trying to make a life for herself. She had to take that job.”
And she was dealing with Hollywood, which can chew up young girls. Not to mention she’d recently given up drugs and alcohol, her coping mechanism. She was alone in a tough industry doing the best she could to make sure she landed on a good path.
And I hated her for that. Guilt stabs at me. I only thought about my side of things. Selfish. She had stuff to deal with and made the only decision that made sense at the time and, in fact, gave her the successful career she has today.
I proposed back then, but I shouldn’t have. She was still fighting for her life. And I wasn’t the man I am today. It wouldn’t have worked out back then, but now? I still don’t see how to make a future work for both of us.
“Do you love her?” Mackenzie asks.
“Thought you didn’t believe in love,” I return.
“I do, just not for me at this time,” Mackenzie says.
“What time are you waiting for?” Nathan asks.
She gives him a small smile. “I’ll know when I’m ready. For now I just want to have fun.”
“Me too,” Nathan says.
I grunt. “We’ve got to get more business. I’ll do some cold-calling.”
Mackenzie clicks on her laptop. “Sure, I’ll email you the list I was working on. You might not get a hold of a number of these, though. People do like to take vacation time around now. Kids are out of school. It’s warm outside—”
“The Fourth,” I say. “I get it. Just give it to me.”
“Okay, okay,” Mackenzie says, not looking up from her laptop. “There. It’s yours.”
“Thank you,” I bite out.
Nathan leans back in his seat and props his feet on the table. “You know what your problem is, Owen?”
