Page 85 of For the Record

“Divorced?” Liam shouted across the bar.

“Oh, Adam.” Marigold pouted and then promptly started tearing up—I assumed because of the pregnancy hormones. Liam put an arm on her shoulder.

I squinted at all of them. “I haven’t even said anything.”

Crew pointed at my lower body. “You asked Nathan for a ride, and you’re wearing sweatpants in public. And you definitely have not showered today. This is full-on crisis mode.”

Luke adjusted his glasses. “You do seem kind of off.”

I felt it in my instincts to brush it off, to dip my chin and keep quiet and move the conversation past me. But wasn’t that what had gotten me here in the first place? Keeping everything to myself had gotten me nowhere. Actually it had gotten me less than nowhere. It had gotten me ten steps away from the woman I loved more than anything else on this earth.

My fingers raised to pinch my nose. Force it out. You need help. You can’t do this alone.

“I screwed up.”

That was an understatement for how much guilt was sitting on my chest because I’d made Rachel cry. How everyone around her has somehow messed up and worked their way out of her good graces when I swore I never would.

Marigold twisted the chair beside her my way, patting the empty seat as an invitation. I accepted and moved to sit down while my siblings gathered around. Crew sat beside me and tried to rub my shoulders, but I shrugged him off.

“What happened?” Luke asked, still wiping down glasses.

No more holding back. No more avoiding the subject or brushing it off. They were bound to find out at some point, so I couldn’t beat around the bush.

“Do you remember how I sold my portion of Romfuzzled to Liam a year and a half ago?”

They all nodded.

“I used it to invest in the record store.”

It was silent for a moment.

“Rachel’s record store?” Crew asked.

I confirmed with a nod, and then it got quiet again.

“And…you never told her?” Liam asked, his hands still resting on his wife beside him.

“No.”

Marigold looked between all of us and stood up as quickly as a very pregnant woman could. “This seems like something I shouldn’t be here for, so… I’m gonna walk outside.”

Layla quickly closed her laptop and followed. “Mmm me too.”

They both slipped out, and with them gone, I felt a little more relieved to share, considering they would probably rather hear Rachel’s side of things.

When the door shut, I continued.

“When she told me that the store was for sale years ago, I felt like I had to do something to help. The old owner needed a certain amount out of it to retire, and I tried pulling strings, but I couldn’t make it work.”

I left off the part where I searched for two weeks to try and find Arthur’s number without Rachel finding out. Or the fact that when I couldn’t get the right number, I showed up at his house and nearly gave the guy a heart attack until I mentioned wanting to buy the store. He said he thought I was coming to rob him—I would assume because of the tattoos that he eyed like they were going to jump off my skin and attack him.

“I told him I wanted to invest at least. Make it better for her. She’d call me and complain about her feet hurting from standing all day or say how there was a spider infestation in the back room and she was scared to go in there. Stuff like that. I wanted to help. I offered him the cash up front to fix what he needed, but he refused. I left him my number in case he changed his mind, and I waited. Eventually he called me. Said that there were some investors new to town that wanted to buy it. They didn’t have all the cash for the building and renovations. That was where I came in. I loaned them the rest of what they needed and used the leftover money for essentials.”

Liam tilted his head. “So you were an investor then?”

“Right. But then I started suggesting different things, and they started listening and implementing and…” I closed my eyes and flared my nostrils. “I didn’t see it as a bad thing back then. Not really. I thought I was doing her a favor. Then she was being so overworked when business started doing good again, and even though they hired help, I knew she deserved more. So when the other investors mentioned raises, her name came up, and I…well.” I avoided any of their staring gazes. “What was I supposed to do? Not sign off on it?”

Crew spoke up next to me. “I don’t see anything wrong with it. You bought her a record store. Got her a raise. Cool to me.” He shrugged.