A smile spread over my face before I could stop it.
“Ms. Barton, you are a genius.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “That so?”
I dropped a noisy kiss on her wrinkled cheek and grabbed my phone to call the one person I knew would help me. Even if it got my ass kicked in the process.
Chapter 54 Tucker
The back door on my childhood home squeaked loudly when you opened it too fast. Something I’d found out the hard way in high school when I was trying to sneak in past curfew.
But this time, entering my parents’ home, I was fine with my presence being announced before I step foot into the mudroom.
“In the kitchen,” my mom called out the moment my shoe touched the floor. “And it’s about damn time you showed up.”
I took the hit without argument and tossed my keys into the ceramic bowl by the back door. My parents were seated at the kitchen table, my dad reading the paper and my mom working on a grocery list.
Neither one of them looked at me as I pulled out a chair and sat in it. My dad pushed the sports section toward me, and I took it with a half-smile. It was the same thing he did at work if we were getting coffee at the same time. With each portion of the paper he finished, he passed it to me.
“You’re going to make this hard for me, aren’t you?” I asked quietly, when they still hadn’t looked up.
My mom paused as she was writing. “We should make it easy?”
“No.”
The paper folded in my dad’s hands, and he finally pinned me with a serious look. “You should’ve told us.”
“I know.” There was a lot of that particular argument aimed in my direction. “I’m sorry I didn’t communicate better. I can’t expect it from you if I’m not willing to extend the same courtesy.”
My parents waited me out, attention unwavering. Firmly curious, but not unkind.
This felt, very much, like the first time I was in court on my own. The judge behind her desk, waiting to hear me out, see how prepared I was, and if that preparation would give me the outcome I wanted.
On my drive here, I decided not to practice what I was going to say. Not to think like a lawyer. I decided to think like a son who was talking to his parents about his life, and what he wanted out of it. So, my preparation came from trusting my gut. Knowing my heart.
“The most important thing I can tell you right now is that I found someone incredible. Who loves me. Who knows me. Who trusted me with her heart, and I wasn’t as careful with it as I should have been.” I took a deep breath and studied the woodgrain of the table. “From the beginning, she saw something that no one else has. She saw how unhappy I am, in doing the job that I’m doing.”
My dad’s chest expanded slowly, but he didn’t interrupt. My mom’s hands folded together on the tabletop, but she didn’t speak either.
“I don’t know if I’ll win Grace back, but I’m going to try, because I fell in love with her so easily that I hardly saw it happen. The way I feel with her … I’ve never felt it before.”
That was the thing that had my mom raising her eyes to mine, and they were bright with tears when she did. “I hate that I had to find out like that, Tucker. As much for that poor girl’s sake as my own.” She wiped under her eyes. “She must have been mortified.”
“She was,” I agreed. “And I, man, I made it worse. I was a fool, and I’m paying for that foolishness right now.”
“I had no idea you were so unhappy,” my dad said quietly. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it.”
“I didn’t want you to see it, Dad.” I covered my mom’s hands when she sniffed. “Either of you. But regardless of whether Grace gives me another chance, I know I need to make a change. I want my future to involve her, but it needs to involve me, too.”
My dad nodded slowly, studied my mom’s face before laying a comforting hand on her back. “So let’s talk about what that looks like, Tucker. You’re an equal partner in Haywood and Haywood. How do we make this work for all of us?”
The weight shifted and fell, as easily as dust being swept off the surface of a table.
“I have a lot of logistics that need to be discussed, and it’s not just up to me,” I told him. “But if we can talk about reducing both our hours, it kills two birds with one stone. We reduce our hours and ease the budget. You take some steps closer to retirement by reducing your days, and if I do the same, it gives me time to balance Haywood and Haywood with something else. I’m still … well, that piece is up in the air too.”
His eyes widened. “You’re not walking away altogether?”
“This is our family business,” I told him. “No, I’m not walking away completely. But I’d like to have time to explore what else I might be able to do.”
My dad nodded. “I think that sounds like a fine discussion to have, son.”
Mom smiled at both of us. “Do you have a plan to win back your girl?”
“I do,” I said with a grin. “I don’t know if it’ll work though.”
She patted my hand. “If it does, you bring her over for a proper introduction.”
I smiled, already feeling lighter than I had in years. How much happier would I feel, if I could cross this last hurdle with Grace? “Yes, ma’am.”
By the time I left, with a bruising hug from my dad and a bit more fussing from my mom, and was on to my next
