I Hated You First by Rachel John

Lauren

 

 

 

It didn’t take Dad long to recover from his shock. As soon as Clay left, he launched into a long-winded lecture about how this was just like what happened with Boyce, and how he couldn’t believe I could do something like this to the company. Again.

But this was nothing like Boyce. Yes, Boyce had been a good guy, and probably a good fit for me. But I hadn’t loved him enough because I hadn’t allowed myself to.

I hadn’t trusted him with my whole heart because I was too afraid of what might happen if I let someone in. If people couldn’t see the real me, then they couldn’t judge me, and they couldn’t control that part of me, and my feelings were safe. But there was loneliness in surface relationships, and it took Clay coaxing more out for me to see it.

I did feel more with him. Jenny had been more right than she’d realized.

“How could you not see this coming?” Dad asked, dropping into his desk chair and putting his head in his hands. “Lauren, what were you thinking?”

I had to stop checking the hallway for Clay. He wasn’t coming back, and the only one out there was Paisley, who was surely listening in. Whatever, I was past caring who knew our business. I’d go and make things right with Clay, but not until I’d cleaned up the mess here. And, boy, was it a mess.

I turned around in the doorway to face my dad. My body shook with the control it took not to lose it completely. “This time is different, Dad. This time, I quit, too. I’m so ashamed of this family. Clay has never done anything to betray your trust before. Except fall for me. And for your information, I thought about Clay having part ownership before we started dating. I told him so, and he brushed me off. In fact, he forbid me from saying anything, but I did it anyway. Because I’m a Harwood and we’re a bunch of hotheads.”

I turned to Parker, who was squirming. I was about to make him squirm even more. “Did you really just tell your best friend you think he’s trying to weasel favor in the company through me? That is not only stupid, it’s cruel. Yeah, he lied to you about us, but that doesn’t change you being a bad friend. And Dad, the night Clay and I got together was the night of my double date with Noble. I found my guy, just not the one you expected. And I choose him over the company. I choose him.”

This weight that had been sitting on my shoulders for I didn’t know how long, lifted the moment I said it. If I had a mike, I would have dropped it. I wasn’t sure what I’d do after working for Sun Valley my whole life, but I needed to go find Clay more than I needed to figure that out right now.

I ran out and jumped in my truck. The beauty started right up, and I peeled out of the parking lot, waiting impatiently for the slow gate out of the property to open up for me. Clay didn’t answer his phone, but that didn’t worry me until I reached his house and he wasn’t there. I even did the whole jumping on my tip-toes and checking through the garage door windows to see if his truck was inside the garage. It wasn’t.

He didn’t answer the door, and he still wasn’t answering his phone. I sank down onto his front lawn and put my shaky hands together. I’d told my dad and Parker they were a bunch of hotheads, and I’d chewed them out, and then left, because that’s what I did best. I was the biggest hothead of them all. Maybe I should start thinking about all the stupid decisions that led me here.

I didn’t regret speaking up for Clay about ownership, but I certainly hadn’t respected him in the way I went about it. And my constant warring with Parker was the reason the meeting today had gone downhill so fast. I had tattled on Parker’s latest purchase, and he had tattled on my relationship with Clay. It was a continuation of the same battle that had always led us nowhere, and we’d just let it ruin the one person who cared about us the most.

Clay had always been the glue in the middle, holding us all together, but that wasn’t a position anyone could hold forever. Or should hold.

Pulling out a clump of grass, I continued to worry. I needed to tell Clay all this, and patience had never been a strong suit of mine. It killed me, knowing Clay was out there having just lost his job, his best friend, and his plans for the future. Did he think he was losing me, too?

I couldn’t tell him how much he meant to me if I couldn’t find him.