“Those idiots don’t know what they just let slip through their fingers.”
Oz sighed. “I’m sorry, Len. I knew it was a long shot, but I thought I had at least some kind of chance.”
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, Oz. Not a thing. Don’t you worry about it. Something else will turn up. And if it doesn’t, we’re doing just fine. I just wanted this for you. I hate to see you working so hard all the time.”
“Yeah. Well. It’s for a good cause,” he said with a slight smile.
“You’re a good man, Oz. Don’t you ever forget that.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“When are you coming home? You going to hang around out there for a while? Do some sight-seeing? Maybe see some more of that woman you rode with that you refuse to tell me anything about?”
He knew she was just teasing him but her words slammed into his gut like a sledgehammer. “No,” he ground out. “I just want to get out of here. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she said, sounding faintly surprised. “Well, travel safe and make sure you check in. Don’t make me start calling the hospitals.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Love you, Oz.”
“Me too! Me too! Love you Uncle Oz!” Tyler shouted from the background.
Oz laughed. “Love you guys, too. See you tomorrow.”
He hung up and leaned his head back against the headrest. There would be other jobs. Sure. There probably would be. Maybe even better jobs with more money and more along the lines of what he wanted to do. But with his lack of experience, it was pretty safe to assume those opportunities would all end the same way. He was just a blue-collar guy from a middle-of-nowhere town and that is all that people saw when they looked at him. No matter what kind of fancy clothes he was wearing.
He looked down at the passenger seat, frowning when he spotted something on the floorboard. He reached down and snorted. The damn hand sanitizer. He chucked it into the backseat, but couldn’t get rid of Cher’s image so easily. He could still smell the light jasmine scent of her on his shirt.
He understood the whole sanitizing episode now. Good God, did he. If that woman had been his mother he would’ve dipped himself in battery acid to avoid a confrontation with her. He’d overreacted and he’d been an ass to not let Cher explain. And, with his last thoughts still on repeat in his mind, he realized he’d also been the worst kind of hypocrite.
He’d spent nearly their entire trip razzing her about not going after what she wanted, being too afraid of what her family would think. Letting that fear stop her. And what had he been doing his whole life? What had he just made up his mind to keep on doing because of one disappointment? How could he expect to deserve an incredible woman like Cher if he couldn’t even believe in himself first? And how could he just give up and walk away from her without a fight?
She made him feel like he could take on anything. In fact, not once had she ever actually said he wasn’t worthy of her, or of a better job, or of anything. In fact, she was the one who had encouraged him while they had prepared for his interview. She was the one who had cheered him on. And here he was, ready to give up, because of one stumble. Sure, he and Lena were making ends meet just fine in the meantime. But he was tired of just making ends meet. He was tired of working three jobs so they could just manage to get by.
That wasn’t living. That was surviving. It never really bothered him before, but now? Now he wanted to live.
And he didn’t just mean his career.
He wanted Cher.
The incomparable, irritating, irresistible Cherice Buchanan Debusshere. More than anything he’d ever wanted. Including that damn job. And he was pretty sure she wanted him, too. She’d said that they’d made love, and she’d been right. It hadn’t been just some cheap one-night stand, no matter what he’d said in the heat of his anger. He wanted her. The whole package. He wanted to see if they could build something together. Wanted to at least give them a chance to explore whatever they’d been feeling. He wanted her.
The disgust on her parents’ face ate at him. He was not good enough for their daughter. Not by a long shot. But he got out of the car anyway. Though he had about as much chance of getting his girl as a one-legged chicken in a horse race, he wasn’t leaving without at least making an attempt.
…
Cher sat at the head table, watching her father deliver a toast to the happy new couple. Of course they were happy. They were the perfect couple, with the perfect jobs, who’d married the perfect people their perfect families approved of, who were about to start their perfect lives together. Living in the perfect house in the perfect neighborhood raising their perfect 2.4 kids. It was the life Cher had been raised to want. The life she could have if she just followed her parents’ perfect plan, married the perfect doctor they had picked out and lived perfectly ever after.