Page 29 of Mostly My Girlfriend
“You’ll be warm enough when you start yelling at me.”
We only stopped to grab our coats, then he was all but pushing me out the front door. Once it was closed behind us, I turned on him.
“How could you? How could you?!” I half shouted, half whispered so my mother wouldn’t hear us fighting and get upset. “This was my responsibility.”
“I know.”
“You know? Then how could you?”
“Because I can, Julia. Because your mother got a warning notice from the bank. She’d basically been making every other payment. Because I had this money I all but plucked out of thin air, and because no one else I knew needed it as much. Go ahead and yell at me, but then swallow your pride and get over it.”
I could practically feel my eyes bugging out. “Get over it! How do I do that, exactly? I’m in debt to you now. I have to find a way to pay you back. Even if I decided I hated working for you I couldn’t quit now…”
I stopped myself as that idea sank in. I couldn’t leave Ethan. At least, not his employment. He would know that about me. I would work for him until the debt was paid off.
“Is that why you did this? So I couldn’t go even if I wanted to?”
He looked away from me. “Why can’t it just be about me wanting to help you and your family?”
Because nothing was that simple with Ethan. But suddenly my anger with him was gone. I walked up to him and let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
“I’m not going to leave you, Ethan. Even if I’m not working for you, I’m not going to leaveyou.We’re friends. That’s never going to change. I know that because it didn’t change in the three years we were apart.”
“This wasn’t meant to be some kind of…trap. I really did mean it as a gift.”
A gift with strings that put him in charge. Maybe he didn’t do it intentionally, but it was always his first and last instinct. To control.
“I’m going to pay you back. We’ll set something up to have the money deducted from my paycheck. But every penny of the mortgage and interest and penalties have to be paid by me.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s my burden, Ethan. My responsibility. My family.”
“And if I want to share in that burden?”
He couldn’t. Because we weren’t like that. Our lines in the sand had been drawn four years ago when we met. Him on his side, me on mine. But we’d formed a mutually beneficial partnership. To make that work, I couldn’t owe him. Not my family’s farm. Not anything.
“Can we go inside now?” I asked him.
“Are you done being mad at me?”
I considered that. “Mostly. Did you getmesomething nice for Christmas?”
“Beyond the farm, you mean? Yes, I got you a mug that says WORLD’S BEST EMPLOYEE. All big letters.”
I smiled. That sounded like Ethan. “Then I guess I’m done being mad at you.”
“Excellent. Merry Christmas, Jules.”
I thought of the way my dad used to say my name. How it made me feel. I probably should have corrected Ethan the first time he said it, but I hadn’t. Because I’d missed that feeling.
“Merry Christmas, Ethan.”
