“One more year unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately?” He rests an arm on a bent knee, beer dangling from his fingers. “Trust me, city girl, you don’t want to rush it. The nine to five shit—or maybe I should say five to nine—isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“No?” I smile and sip. “I thought you were excited to be working for the family business.”
“I was. And I am. It’s just a fucking lot when you’re in charge.”
“In charge?”
He nods and brings his beer to his mouth. “Yeah, I took it over a few weeks back.”
“Took it over?” Holy crap. “You’re so young.”
“My old man wanted to retire. It was either now or make him wait. Couldn’t do that to him.”
“Jesse, that’s amazing. You’re twenty-four years old and running a company.”
He shoots me a sidelong glance, a small smirk on his face. “You impressed, city girl?”
I laugh and nod. “Um, yeah. I mean, you’ve been out of college for a year and you’re already killing it.”
“Eh.” He lifts a shoulder and glances out over the water, as crickets and frogs sing around us. “What about you? What are you going to be doing this time next summer?”
“Hopefully landing my first job in corporate finance.”
His brows lift. “No shit. You’re smart like that, huh?”
I roll my eyes. “Says the engineer with an MBA.”
He sticks his tongue in his cheek. “You been checking up on me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I never told you what I went to school for.”
“Yeah, you did. Last summer.” Right? I mean, maybe I did a little poking around, just for curiosity’s sake, but I’m sure he told me.
“Pretty sure we didn’t have that discussion, but it’s okay. I might’ve done a little checking up on you, too.”
“What?” I laugh and bump my shoulder into his. “Why would you do that?”
“Not sure your boyfriend would like my answer, so I should probably keep it to myself.”
“Oh, really.” Heat fills my cheeks, but I can’t keep from grinning. “It’s like that, huh?”
A low laugh rattles in his chest as he cranes his head from side to side and cracks his neck. “We should probably change the subject, city girl. Before you get me in trouble.”
That warmth in my face slips down my neck and then lower until every inch of me feels overheated. And just from words and insinuation. Good Lord.
“Tell me more about this dream job.”
Thank goodness for the subject change. “What about it?”
“Why did you choose finance?”
“Oh, jeez. That’s… a long story.” And one I haven’t told many people about, because it’s so personal.
He makes a show of checking a nonexistent watch on his wrist. “You have someplace else to be?”
“No.” I laugh again. Seems to be a thing when I’m around him. “It’s just a little embarrassing, that’s all.”
“So?” He twists to face me, light eyes searching mine. “We barely know each other, right? Maybe think of this as an opportunity to tell someone who isn’t going to judge you for it. You know, like a cathartic exercise.”
“If I tell you, you’ll know something about me that most people don’t. We definitely won’t be able to say we don’t know each other anymore.” I tip my bottle toward him and a slow smile curls at his lips.
“Is that a bad thing? Us knowing each other?”
“Not sure my boyfriend would like my answer, so I should probably keep it to myself.”
He snorts. “Well played.”
“I have my moments.”
“I see that.” He shakes his head and something about the sparkle in his eyes does something to me.
“We lost our house when I was a little girl. To the bank.”
He freezes, his gaze locked on mine, waiting.
“I had just turned seven. There were still pink balloons in the living room from my party when the repo men showed up at the door.” I pick at the logo on my bottle, while he watches me in silence. “They took our furniture and even the bike my parents had just given me for my birthday.” I suck in a breath. “A week later, we were living with my grandparents.”
He swallows and nods. “That must have been tough to understand, being so young.”
“I knew my parents had problems paying the bills. I heard them argue about it all the time. But at that age, I had no idea what it meant until everything was gone.”
“What’d the bike look like?”
“Lavender with silver streamers.” I smile and shake my head. “Had a basket in front, too.”
“That’s exactly what I expected.”
“It was so pretty.” I sigh and stretch my legs out on the blanket. “I eventually got a different one from a garage sale. In fact, for the next ten years, most of my things came from garage sales. Or hand-me-downs from my sister.”
“Hannah, right?”
“Yeah.” The breeze picks up and I brush the flitting hair from my face. “I don’t want my kids to ever have to worry about where they’ll sleep or whether or not someone is going to knock on the door and take all of their stuff away. I figured if I had the financial knowledge my parents didn’t have, I could save my own family from having to go through what I did.”
“I get that.” He stretches his legs out, too. “Your family obviously worked things out. I mean, you’ve got this place here now.”
“Actually, the cabin belonged to my great aunt. My mom inherited it when she passed away ten years ago.”
“Ah, that’s why you only started coming around in high school.”
“Junior high for me, but yeah.”
“I’m glad.”
“For?”
“You coming around.” He gives me a soft smile. “Might not see you very often, but I enjoy your company when I do.”
I watch the glow from the fire dance across his profile, the orange flames reflecting from the water to his eyes.
“Let me also say this…” He sniffs and lifts his chin. “I believe if you work hard enough, you can achieve anything you want to. You want financial stability for your family, you’ll get it.” He pauses and swallows. “But I also believe that some things are out of our hands, no matter how badly we want them.”
Yeah, I know a little something about that, too. “Sometimes the powers that be know what we need better than we do.”
He smiles and tips his beer my way. “That’s what I’m counting on, city girl. That’s what I’m counting on.”
Chapter 12
PRESENT DAY…
HAYDEN
Some things are out of our hands, no matter how badly we want them.
I hear Jesse’s words in my head as clearly as he’d said them six years ago, and I smile to myself as I click off the Zoom call with Albertson Enterprises, early Thursday afternoon.