Page 62 of End Game

How long do I wait? Do I put myself in misery forever? I want her, I love her, but I respect that she’s her own person. She doesn’t have to return my feelings.

“Have you talked to her about it?” he asks.

“Who?”

“Diana.”

“Why would I talk to her about marriage and grandchildren?”

Dougie rolls his eyes. “Okay, whatever. You can be in denial all you’d like.”

“I’m not in denial.”

“So you admit you have feelings for her?”

I blink. “You know?”

“Damn it, B, I’m pretty sure everyone knows except her,” he says, shaking his head. “If you want to pursue her, do it. If you don’t, give yourself the freedom to move on. You owe it to yourself.”

Blowing out a breath, I take a sip of my coffee and let the anxiety swirl around me.

“You don’t have to make any decisions now,” Dougie cautions me. “Get through school first. Hold off the old biddies at least until you’re done with your MBA.”

“I… I don’t know if I’m going to go for it, at least not right away,” I admit.

He raises his brows. “And you’ve said this to Dad?”

“Well… no.”

“Good luck,” he laughs.

“I want to work. I want to see what I like before I go to business school. I don’t know who I am yet, not really.”

“Do we ever?”

“Yeah, some people do.”

“And you think working will magically grant you some sort of enlightenment?”

I sigh. “No. But it would at least give me some space. I’ve spent so much time invested in school, invested in football. I need to see who I am and who I want to be when I’m not distracted by all of… this.”

“Okay, yeah, I get that,” Dougie says. “I still don’t think Dad will go for it.”

“I only want a year or two, enough to learn the company a little bit. I don’t know that I want to go into management, and it’ll get awfully crowded with the three of us, Uncle James, and Nate at the top.”

“You want to be a number cruncher?”

“I want to learn everything there is about the business, and that involves, yeah, crunching some numbers.”

My brother shakes his head. “Okay, man. You do you. If you need it, I can be there when you tell Dad.”

“Really?”

Never in a million years did I think he would volunteer to be part of what’s sure to be the most painful conversation in the history of the world. Maybe because it will make him look good in comparison. Yeah, that sounds like him.

“Any idea when you’re going to tell him?”

“I’m more focused on avoiding as many family dinners as possible,” I admit. “They’re more draining than a football game, and doing them back to back...”