The Hero + Vegas = No Regrets

Two months later

Whenever I’ve been back to Cincinnati before, I’ve felt like a version of the child I was when I lived here—but not this trip. I don’t know if it’s because I’m with Worth, or if it’s because I feel distance between me and Cincinnati since all the drama with my dad. Whatever it is, I’m back and I feel like a woman. Lots has changed, but for the first time in a long time, I’m not coming back to Ohio with dread in my heart.

Worth and I are staying at the hotel we stayed at last time. Mom tried to persuade us to stay with her, but Worth was clear that staying in the hotel was what he wanted. I was happy to go along with it.

I wouldn’t normally make the trip for Oliver’s birthday, but I want to make sure Mom’s doing as well as she says she is. I also want to see my brothers. The three of us have made an unspoken pact to be more connected, without relying on Mom to be the glue binding us together. I’m not seeing Dad on this trip. We’ve exchanged a few messages and maybe I’ll see him later in the year. Everything’s still raw. No one is pushing me or Oliver or Noah into seeing him. We need time. And maybe we don’t want anything to do with him, but if we do, it won’t be out of a sense of obligation. It will be out of any love that still exists between us.

“Worth!” Oliver almost squeals as he opens my mom’s front door. It’s like he hasn’t even seen me. Maybe I should find it irritating how much Oliver and Noah like Worth, but I can’t. It’s beyond cute to watch the three of them bond.

In the kitchen, Worth hands my mom a huge bouquet of flowers and kisses her on the cheek. We all take a seat around the kitchen table. Oliver takes the stool without a fight. We must be maturing.

“Any news on this second wedding you’ve been promising me?” Mom says as she slides a tray of freshly baked cookies onto the counter. “Or are you here to tell me it’s not going to happen?”

I glance at Worth. We’ve talked about this a lot. A big wedding doesn’t suit either of us. But our families want to celebrate, which is lovely and uplifting and truly heartwarming. We’re here for the love. “We thought we’d do something in May,” I say.

“And what exactly is something?” Mom asks.

“A party,” Worth says.

Mom will be disappointed. She wants to go dress shopping with me and see me hold a bouquet and walk down an aisle, but it’s not what I want. And it’s not what Worth wants. Our ceremony was strange and unplanned, but it’s going to be the only one we need. We got married that day and I don’t want to dilute it by doing it again. It was special and private, and the fact that it was only the two of us makes it feel more about us than a big wedding could. Plus, the sheer luck of our divorce papers never getting filed feels like a good omen.

Mom tries to mask her disappointment with a forced smile. “And where will this party be?” she asks.

“New York,” I say. Cincinnati isn’t my home. There’s no reason to have it here.

“I suppose that makes sense,” she says. “But remember, I have my Christmas Town, so your kids are going to make you come back once a year at least.”

“Are you pregnant?” Oliver asks.

“No, not yet,” I say. “But we hope to be one day.”

“So New York in May.” She sniffs and unties her apron before coming to sit. Noah pours us all drinks. Somehow, Worth gets served first.

“You’d better give me the dates sooner rather than later,” she says. “I have a vacation scheduled around that time.”

Noah, Oliver, and I exchange glances. Mom doesn’t go on vacation. Not ever.

“Oh?” I ask, without trying to sound like I’m what the fuck-ing her. “Where are you going?”

“Vancouver. A hiking vacation,” she announces.

None of Mom’s friends hike. Like, none of them.

“Who are you going with?” Oliver asks.

“Well…” Mom stands and transfers the cookies to a cooling rack, then brings them to the table. “I’m going with my new friend, Liam.”

Oliver’s eye bulge out of his head and Noah nods slightly manically.

“Vancouver’s beautiful,” Worth says. “And spring is the perfect time to go. The hiking is incredible.”

Mom and Worth chat for a few minutes about Vancouver, which gives the three of us a moment to collect ourselves. Worth is more aware of his needs now, but that doesn’t stop him being acutely cognizant of other people’s. I’m not sure he’s ever been to Vancouver. I’ll have to ask him later.

“I think that’s great, Mom,” Noah says, his nodding having subsided a little.

“Yeah,” Oliver says. “Great.”

“Will we meet him anytime soon?” I ask.

“Sure,” she says. “He’s on standby to come to dinner tonight.” A smile curls around my mom’s lips.

I rest a hand on top of hers. “I can’t wait,” I say. “How did you two meet?”

“He’s a regular at the library.” She starts to laugh. “Turns out he’s never been the greatest reader, but came to return some books for his neighbor, who was sick. I checked them in for him. And he came back after that every week for fifteen years.”

“Oh, Mom,” I say. “That’s so romantic.”

“We used to chat about the books he took out and brought back. But he never asked me out until the day he saw me without a wedding ring.”

“And he’s not married?” Oliver asks.

“His wife passed away about seventeen years ago.”

“And he’s been in love with you for how many years?” I ask.

“We hardly knew each other,” she scoffs.

“I didn’t believe in love at first sight before I met your daughter,” Worth says. “But now I do. Sounds like Liam had the same kind of experience when he met you fifteen years ago.” Worth turns to me. “Thank god it didn’t take fifteen years for you to be mine. Although I would have waited twice as long.”

Mom deserves the kind of man who waits fifteen years for her. A man who fell in love with her the moment he saw her. The kind of man who went into the library every week, just to catch a glimpse of her or exchange a few words.

Liam sounds perfect. She deserves her happily ever after.

A Month Later

Worth

Having lunch with my wife never gets old.

“You look beautiful,” I say as I take in Sophia. It’s not the first time I’ve told her today. And it won’t be the last. I can’t help myself. It’s the truth.

She smiles, and it warms me like palms raised up against an open fire. “It’s our last lunch for two days.”

I groan. I head to Colorado tomorrow, which means we’ll spend two nights away from each other. These will be the first nights we’ve spent apart since she came back to me on Christmas Eve. “I wish you could come with me.” I open the door to the car I have waiting for us. Lunch today isn’t about eating. I need to visit Hotel on Ninth Street and it’s the only time I have before heading off tomorrow.

“Next time,” she says. I slide in next to her and pull the door shut. It should only take us a few minutes to get across town to the hotel. But they’re precious minutes I get to speak to my wife.

“Will Avril be there?” Sophia asks.

“I doubt it. She’s juggling a lot at the moment. I didn’t tell her I was coming.”

“I can’t believe she’s trying to finish her degree and oversee the refurbishment at the same time.”

When Avril came to me and said that because the hotel refurbishment was going to take nearly eighteen months, she’d like to try to finish her degree, I thought she was kidding. It was all the proof I needed that I’d done something right as her brother—that she was taking responsibility for her own life and making the most out of the opportunities she’d been given. “We have a great project manager. She’s going to learn what it is to hustle, and this is her first lesson.”

“Oh, I think she had a pretty good teacher.” She squeezes my hand.

“Not many people would describe me as a hustler.” To most people, I’m the ultimate cool head—the planner and provider.

She laughs. “Yeah, but not many people know your story. Your sisters know what you did to get through the tough times. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Her eyes are bright, pride shining in them like she’s lucky to know me. Doesn’t she know it’s the other way around?

I bend and press a kiss to her neck. Her fingers thread through my hair just as we come to a stop. I glance out the window at the boarded-up exterior to the hotel. I sigh. The one time I needed a little New York City traffic.

She laughs like she knows exactly what I was thinking. “I’m excited to see the progress.”

I like to check on things down here at least once a week. It’s not because I don’t trust my sister—I completely do. Truth is, I’m excited. This hotel is one of the first things I’ve ever worked on that feels personal.

We punch the key code into the panel on the doorway and make our way inside. I stalk out in front and Sophia pulls me to the panel of hard hats and high-vis vests on the other side of the entryway.

“Did I ever tell you how hot you look in luminous yellow?” she asks, placing a hard hat on my head.

“Liar.”

Her eyes flash. “I dare you to steal your hat and vest and bring them home, and you can judge for yourself.”

I growl and grab her ass, pressing a kiss to her lips.

“Hey, you guys!” Avril interrupts us.

Sophia bats my hand away from her ass. “Avril! We didn’t know if you’d be here.”

“Yeah, Worth didn’t say he’d be down.”

“I thought you’d be on campus.”

“I don’t have any classes until three today. One of the lecture theaters had a flood. So I thought I’d come down and do a walk-through.”

“That makes three of us,” I say.

Avril grins and it feels like she’s really pleased to have me here. She doesn’t get pissed when I ask her questions about the site and progress—even though part of me is testing her, making sure she’s on top of everything. She seems to relish it. Like she enjoys my involvement in the project and isn’t trying to shoo me away.

“Where should we start?” she asks.

“How’s the top floor coming along?” Sophia asks. Last time we were here, they’d started on the interior walls and electrical on the top floor, and were working their way down.

“It’s actually pretty cool,” Avril says. “They’re working on the top three floors now.”

That seems fast. I was only here a week ago and they were slightly behind schedule.

“It’s going exactly per the project plan,” Avril says. “Pete is doing an incredible job keeping everyone on track. You were right—I couldn’t have project-managed this place.”

Avril had listened to me when I said she wasn’t qualified to manage a build like this. Luckily for me, Pete agreed to step in and guide Avril through the process while he acts as PM. I have the best of both worlds.

“Hello!” someone calls after us as we head to the only working elevator in the place.

“Is that Poppy?” I ask, just as my sister appears.

“Worth?” She pulls Sophia into a hug. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

She grins like she just won the lottery. “I just handed in my notice.”

Before we had an honest conversation about it, I hadn’t realized Poppy wasn’t enjoying her work at the bank. Or as Avril put it, “Hated the bank with every molecule of her being.”

“You did it,” I say. She’s been threatening to quit for months now.

“I did. It feels great.”

“Okay, good. You can start at my office tomorrow. I’m in Colorado for two nights. Veronica can find you a desk there.”

“And I found you a desk here,” Avril says.

“Here?” we all chorus, looking around at the bare floorboards and listening to the sound of shouts and drilling coming from above our heads.

“You need to be onsite,” Avril says to Poppy.

“I can come to site. I don’t need to work here all the time. The dust alone will drive me crazy.”

“Okay, but I picked us out an office to share.”

Poppy groans. “I didn’t agree to share a room with you. We haven’t done that since we were kids.”

“Are we all going up or not?” I snap. I can only listen to Poppy and Avril bicker for so long.

Sophia’s hand shifts in mine and she finds my pulse point on my wrist. This simple movement calms me. Her touch makes me aware of her—makes me remember what’s important. “I’m going to miss you,” she whispers as we step into the elevator.

I tune out Avril and Poppy and start to think about the journey tomorrow. None of our friend group knows I’m headed out to Colorado. It’s not a secret exactly, we’re just not telling anyone.

“I’m going to miss you too. You could come with me.”

“I have a job,” Sophia says, her tone teasing.

“A job you don’t like.”

“Right. But until I figure out what I’m going to do, it’s a job I’m keeping.”

“If you quit, you’d have time to think about what you want to do.”

“Maybe you’re right. Or maybe I’d just follow you to Colorado and wherever else you’re traveling to, and then I’ll start getting up later and going to the gym at noon, and then five years would have passed by.”

“You could find us somewhere to live.”

“Oh, I did that already,” she says as we exit the elevator. “Your kiss scrambled my brain and I forgot to tell you.”

“You found a place?” We’ve looked at a couple of places in the last month or so.

“Well, only on Zillow, because surfing Zillow’s my side hustle now. It’s on the next street over from ours, just a block away.”

“Sounds good. Can we go have a look at it?” Sophia’s gone back and forth on moving out of the brownstone now that she’s settled in. But even though it was she who first suggested a move, it’s me who’s pushing for it now. I want a fresh start. Marrying Sophia was the beginning of so much, and I want to honor that by living somewhere I bought because I want to live there with my wife—not because it was convenient and big enough for my sisters to move in if the need arose.

“Sure—oh wow, progress,” she says as she looks around. I follow her gaze.

“Walls,” I say.

“And electrical and plumbing and HVAC. We’re completely back on schedule.”

I’m impressed. They’ve achieved a lot this week.

We step off the corridor and into one of the newly constructed rooms. The drywall hasn’t had a plaster veneer yet, and the floors are covered, so it’s difficult to get a sense of proportion. “Is this a bedroom?”

“Yes,” Avril says. “It’s a standard bedroom. Most of them will be this size. Bathroom is in there. Or will be.” She lifts her chin at a doorway to the right of the entry.

“It doesn’t seem especially big,” I say.

“A typical New York hotel room is three hundred square feet. This will be four-ten. It’s very generous. We’re going to be able to bring in rollaway beds for families.”

“It’s great,” Sophia says. “You’re going to be opening the doors in no time.”

“You mean, we’re going to be opening the doors,” Avril corrects her. “We’re family now.”

Sophia’s mouth curves into a shy smile and I pull her closer. I’ve been hers since the moment I laid eyes on her. And now she’s mine. My lover, my best friend, my wife—my family.

“What hotel are you staying at in Colorado?” Sophia asks.

“I’m staying with Byron. He has a place there. Why?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I was just thinking maybe… you know, I’m owed some PTO. But if you’re staying with Byron, that might not be a good idea.”

It’s the last thing I expected her to say. “I’ll buy a hotel out there if it means you’ll come with me.”

She laughs. “I’m going to put you on a budget. No more hotel purchases. But the thought of you being away for two nights—” She shivers, and I kiss the top of her head.

“Get a room,” Avril calls as she brushes past us.

“If I can figure things out with work, I’d like to come with you if you think Byron won’t mind.”

“I know he won’t.” I cup her face in my hands. If she’d waved a magic wand and finished this place, I couldn’t be happier.

“And while you have all that free time up on your trip,” Avril says, appearing at the doorway, “please arrange for your brothers to come to New York. I’ve seen Noah on Insta and I’m all in.”

Sophia groans. “This could go badly wrong.”

“Very badly wrong,” I say. “Let’s escape to Colorado. Quick.”