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Lauren shrugs. “Trust me, there’s enough to do to keep a life and marriage running outside of a formal job, that you’d be busy. Mitch and I are a partnership. But I think what he’s saying – correct me if I’m wrong here, honey – is that you could take another job for a while, to re-up your visa and to give you and Jax a chance to… date.”

I consider them both. “Take a step back?”

Mitch shakes his head. “Take a leap of faith, Sienna. Trust that the right thing in the short term might be to focus on what could make you happy outside of work. Give yourself time to come up with a plan, rather than nailing it to the finish line in a five-week window, while holding down my job at the same time.”

“By which, again, correct me if my interpretation is off here, honey,” Lauren says, making me break my concentration to smile, “he means, stop beating yourself up all the time. Give yourself a chance to breathe, Sienna. Pick your head up and stop challenging your self-deprecating views of this small-town girl who has to compete for a place in the big city.”

Frowning at them, I sip my champagne, then ask, “What is this? A fucking intervention?”

But as we all fall into the kind of laughter friends do after an onslaught of home-truths, I wonder if there’s something to their idea. If I took another job to stay in New York, would Jax want to date me?

Drawing an abrupt end to the conversation, a sports agent I’ve worked with and would like to work with in the next iteration of my career holds up a hand across the room in greeting and for the first time I recognize the way my brain flips a switch. I’m suddenly Sienna Jamieson, career woman, who doesn’t put her wants and feelings first but who strives to have the best career, with an income to match, one that keeps you out of small-town entrapment, one that makes her parents proud.

As I cross the room to network my business contact, I ask myself, could I truly throw caution to the wind? Could I press pause on this constant hamster wheel and ladder climbing, to see what else is out there, if only for a short time until I get to know what else might be worthwhile in my life? The warm, light glow I had when I walked into this room with Jax is suddenly replaced by a different kind of energy – nervous energy. Fear and anxiety. Because if I’m not Sienna the career woman, striving to please everyone, then who the hell am I?

29

OCTOBER

Jax

How She Met My Mother

The rest of my family arrive together. My sister has come without her plus one – Colton plays for pro-football team the San Antonio Bears, so he’ll be tied to Texas for training. I still can’t believe my sister fell for a cowboy. Instead, she arrives with Mom and Dad, each of the women with an arm looped through Dad’s.

As I make my way through the crowd to them, it dawns on me that the expression I’ve always thought was one of supreme confidence on Dad is pride. Rather than smugness, he’s happy with his wife and eldest child at his side. I know because I’m certain that’s the look I was sporting on the red carpet when I arrived here with Sienna.

It’s killing me having her so close to me and looking the way she is tonight, being unable to kiss her. I thought when she escaped my pompous conversation to seek out Mitch and Lauren that it was a good thing to put some physical distance between us for a beat, to give my brain a chance to remember that this isn’t real, she doesn’t want me to kiss her if it’s not within the rules, she doesn’t want us. But without her next to me, I’ve felt weirdly out of sorts. If Sienna exists, she should be with me.

I stop dead en route to my parents.

“What’s up? What happened?” TJ says, now next to me.

The room feels like it’s rocking under my feet as I tell him, “I think I’m falling for her.”

“Who?”

My mouth is dry, lips parted, as I just breathe. “My wife, dumbass. I think I’m— I might be⁠—”

“In love?” That should sound strange as my brother says it but it… doesn’t.

I nod.

TJ points to himself. “I’m the dumbass here? You’ve finally caught up with what you told everyone in Las Vegas in August.”

“I said what?” I question, searching my brain, coming up with a memory of Sienna and me standing by the Bellagio fountains and me thinking… “Holy fuck.” I roll my fist against my chest, which suddenly feels tight and wild as my important organ, my lifeline, feels like it’s going to explode.

TJ mocks me, scoffing as he shakes his head, then in a slurred voice says, “TJ, I think I’m in love.” Mimicking me in Vegas, I assume. Then he adds, “You told me right after you told me you might be having a heart attack and I asked if you’d taken gummies. Which you denied, for the record.”

“Too close to season,” I whisper.

“My boys!” Mom says, holding out her arms to TJ and adding, “My favorite boy. The one who didn’t tear my heart to shreds and ruin the chance for me to throw a beautiful wedding party for the children I grew inside me for nine months, then birthed painfully, endured years of stress and mania for, so that I could witness them one day fall in love and acknowledge my efforts in front of the most important people in their lives at their wedding.”

As Sas, TJ and Dad laugh, I shake my head, unpeeling Mom from TJ and bringing her into a hug. “Alright, I deserve that. I know you still think I’m your favorite kid, though, Mom. You’re a terrible liar.”

We embrace for longer than usual – me apologizing and her accepting it, I think. When she pulls away, she holds my face between her hands, the way she has countless times before, when she’s had something important to say. Often, in complete contrast to dad, when I’ve lost a big game. Dad has always preferred the big wins.

“You’re different,” Mom says.