Chapter 20

Kate thumbed the screen of her phone to flick to the next picture on Oz’s Instagram feed. He wore a slick black tuxedo perfectly cut to his body, and she recognized his parents on either side of him.

Next photo. Oz stood with a man who looked like a slightly heavier-set version of him and a woman in a hijab. His brother and sister-in-law.

Next photo. Oz holding a gold, disc-shaped statuette, his other arm around the shoulders of a Hollywood-starlet Swedish actress who held a matching one.

Next photo. The Swedish Prime Minister, a famous musician, the actress again, and—

“Katie, your sister is talking to you.” Her mom’s stern voice cut through her distraction. Sheepishly Kate put the phone facedown on the counter.

“Sorry, what?”

“There’s another twelve-pack in the trunk. Can you get it? I forgot to bring it in and my nails are wet.” Emily held up her alternating pink-and-purple manicure.

“Sure.” Kate grabbed the keys for the Sentra from the bowl on a window ledge and headed out to the car, barely aware of her surroundings as her thoughts churned and spun.

She hadn’t heard from Oz since the award ceremony last night. In fact, they hadn’t had much to say to each other at all since she left his house on Wednesday morning. The pictures on his social-media accounts told the tale, though.

She opened the trunk of the car and stared unseeingly at the forgotten twelve-pack. Oz was insane to invite her. A wedding reception in a hotel was one thing, but a televised red-carpet event was quite another. He obviously hadn’t thought it through. For one, she would’ve had to find something to wear, and she was pretty sure a clearance item from Wedding Belles wouldn’t cut it.

He probably wanted to buy something for her, she acknowledged reluctantly. He probably had a grand notion of sending her shopping with his mother and sister-in-law, swirling around the high-end boutiques of Stockholm and meeting him at a hotel with arms full of bags like in Pretty Woman.

But this wasn’t Pretty Woman, and she wasn’t in the market for a makeover. Losing her job clarified one thing she knew she wanted, and it was independence. Time to step out of men’s shadows and discover the shape of her own.

It was a nice fantasy, a really nice fantasy, but nothing more, she concluded, hefting the twelve-pack from the trunk and slamming the lid shut with her elbow. She was not red-carpet ready and never would be. She wouldn’t know what to say to a gossip columnist, let alone one asking questions in Swedish. And sitting for hours at a fancy dinner, the television cameras rolling the whole time—no way. She’d rather spend a week in Baghdad. Far less stressful.

For better or worse, Emily’s birthday party was right at her level. She tore open the twelve-pack and distributed the cans amongst the ice-filled buckets, coolers and other improvised containers on the front porch. Sure, it would’ve been nice to go on a big trip and get all dressed up. It was nice that Oz thought she could handle it, too.

Flattering.

Crazy.

The beer unloaded, she made her way back into the kitchen. Her mom was emptying a bottle of vodka into a jug of fruit punch, her sister was applying top coat to her nails, and Dallas held up Kate’s phone, a photo of Oz filling the screen.

“Is this your boyfriend?” her niece asked.

“What did I tell you about taking things that aren’t yours? And how did you unlock the screen?”

“I guessed the code,” Dallas said sweetly. She extended the phone to surrender it but Emily intercepted, sweeping it out of Kate’s reach.

“Damn, Katie, your man is hot. What’s his name again?”

“Oz.” Kate snatched the phone out of her sister’s hand and shoved it into her jeans pocket.

“Oz,” Emily repeated, picking up the nail-polish brush. “Weird.”

“It’s foreign,” their mother insisted. “Probably normal where he’s from. Bet it’s the same as Wayne or Mike in Switzerland.”

“Sweden,” Kate interjected.

“Same difference.” Her mom rolled her eyes, dragging a wooden spoon through the punch. “Anyway, I’m glad you’ve stuck it out with him. You could do a lot worse.”

“Hell yeah you could. Good job, Katie,” Emily encouraged her sincerely.

“How far do you think you can push it?” her mom asked, stowing the spoon and pulling out a cutting board.

Kate dropped into a chair at the kitchen table. “What do you mean, how far?”

“Do you think he’ll marry you?” Dallas supplied.

“Don’t sign a pre-nup,” Emily warned.

She laughed bitterly. His Instagram feed spelled out that impossibility in every photo. “No one’s getting married. We’re playing things by ear. Figuring out whether we can make this work.”

Her mom and her sister exchanged glances over the kitchen counter. Then her mom began mercilessly slicing an orange.

“It never works,” her mother decreed. “Enjoy it while you can, and get as much as you can get to tide you over ’til the next one.”

Emily reached across the table and grabbed her wrist. “You done good, babe. Caught yourself a big fish. Keep him on the reel as long as possible.”

Kate didn’t have the heart to protest. For once in all of their lives, her mom and sister were right. She wasn’t going to change to suit him, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to change to suit her. Might as well enjoy it while it lasted and brace herself for the finish.

She pushed up from the table and poured herself a tall glass of punch, then coughed as the alcohol burned her throat.

Her mom grinned. “Strong enough?”

Kate nodded, topping up her glass. “Perfect.”

The party was fun for the first two hours. Kate stowed her phone in the room Dallas and Emily shared so she wouldn’t be tempted to continually check the score in Sweden’s friendly against Slovenia. Emily’s friends, most of whom Kate knew from high school, drifted onto the property in clumps. Soon pickup trucks in various states of disrepair lined the driveway all the way out to the road, lawn chairs littered the yard and a gaggle of kids older and younger than Dallas flitted around the house leaving a trail of toys in their wake.

Kate settled into a camp chair beside Pete, a high-school friend she hadn’t seen in years. She spent their junior year hoping he’d ask her to prom in the spring, crushing fiercely but secretly on his shaggy reddish-gold hair, his illicit smoke breaks behind the school, and the man-of-few-words temperament that set him apart from their peers. She’d hoped he’d interpret her shyness as mysterious and find attractive virtue in her studiousness and good grades.

Instead he asked out big-breasted, pouty-lipped Whitney, who went to prom as his date but left with another guy. Two months later she got knocked up by her coworker at Dairy Queen. She’d put on a lot of weight since high school, but she’d also found religion, and now ran a home-baking business out of her basement.

Regardless, Kate concluded, Pete picked the wrong prom date.

He was still good-looking, the red-gold shades in his hair now echoed in a couple days’ stubble. The hems of his jeans sat perfectly over steel-toed construction boots, and his faded Braves T-shirt was just tight enough to hint at work-hardened arms and a flat stomach.

Two months ago he would’ve lit her fire. She would’ve gulped enough liquid courage to make out with him. He might’ve invited her back to his place, where she’d numbly tolerate five minutes of his thrusting, then another five minutes of his drunken snoring, and then slip out and drive home, sobered by disappointment and regret.

At the beginning of the summer she would’ve figured that was the best she could get. Now she knew she could do so much better.

But for how long?

“Your mom says you’re working down in Atlanta. Private security.” Pete popped the tops on two cans of Bud Light and handed one to her.

“Actually I got fired on Tuesday.”

“That sucks,” he replied, completely without judgment. “What happened?”

“Didn’t meet my sales targets.”

“So they figure the best solution for you not bringing them enough money is for you to bring them no money?”

“I guess so.”

“If that’s the kind of thinking these people get paid the big money for, you and I should be millionaires.”

She raised her beer can in agreement. “Are you still installing floors?”

“Yeah, but I’m looking around for something else. The business is hanging on by a thread. Not enough new houses going up around here, and not enough people with money to renovate the ones they’ve got.”

“You could move down to Atlanta, or close enough to drive in,” she suggested. “Lots of high-end real estate changing hands all the time.”

He wrinkled his nose. “I’m not cut out for the city. I’d rather be poor and happy than rich and stressed.”

“I’m still trying for happy and rich.”

“Good.” He grinned, clinking his can against hers. “Don’t give up.”

Emily joined them, and eventually so did Tyler, Dallas’s father. Pete excused himself to get another beer but never reappeared, leaving Kate to referee the antagonistic, sexually charged flirtation between the two. After half an hour she gave up and wandered to the porch for another drink.

She fished a beer out of a bucket of mostly-melted ice water and propped her hip against the railing, surveying the party in full swing.

She thought of the sharp disappointment in Oz’s tone when she’d turned down his invitation. He’d been a little high-handed to assume she could leave with him at such short notice, but that was Oz—a man unaccustomed to being told no.

What distressed her more was his struggle to see how she could choose her sister’s birthday party over a glamorous trip to Sweden. She understood that one seemed trivial compared to the other, and she probably hadn’t articulated herself well at the time. But as she looked at each member of her family in turn—her mother laughing at a joke, her sister tossing her hair, her niece twirling in the fading afternoon light—her reasoning crystallized.

They loved her. Sure, they depended on her for money and emotional support and basic common sense. They relied on her to bring some order and calm to the loud, messy, tilting chaos of their lives. But beneath it all they loved her and always would. She could lose everything, make hideous mistakes or totally self-destruct and they would still love her, flaws and bad choices and all. And she loved them too, no matter how frustrated or angry she got.

For years she’d thought of the Mitchell women of Jasper as a three-piece unit, and herself as an orbiting outlier. As she stood on the porch of that old house in the countryside instead of in a five-star hotel on a faraway continent, she realized they’d always been a foursome. If a year in Iraq hadn’t put enough miles between them to sever this tie, what would? Not a job in Atlanta. Not a pro-athlete boyfriend. Not even his globetrotting future.

They didn’t need her to stick close by. She’d spent years away with the military and they survived. But she’d come to a point in her life where she wanted to be near them. To see Dallas grow up. To hear Emily’s melodramatic tales of romantic mishaps. To ride her mother’s unfailing optimism that the next man would be The One, and pull her back to her feet when it turned out he wasn’t.

Oz was one of the best things that happened to her, and she was pretty sure she would love him soon—maybe she already did, if she was honest with herself. But her future was here, on this scrubby plot of land in the middle of nowhere, with the unruly, unpredictable, beautiful women who made her who she was. She’d spent nearly ten years away. It was time to come home. “Kate?” Pete touched her elbow. His other arm was locked firmly around a young woman she didn’t know. “Someone’s phone is ringing off the hook in one of the bedrooms. You might want to check in case it’s an emergency.”

She cringed slightly at the thought of what they might have been doing in the bedroom, then headed into the house. She shut the bedroom door behind her and picked up her phone, which flashed with missed calls and unread texts.

All from Oz.

Hi gorgeous, did you see the result? 3-0, clean sheet!!

Going on TV in 5 mines, you should be able to watch if you want. Google ‘sweden slovenia SVT live stream’

How’s the party? All good with the fam? Missing you here.

Hi, are u around? Really missing u, can u talk?

Can u txt me when free & I’ll call u? Won’t keep u long, just want to hear your voice.

She eased onto the unmade bed and checked the time. It was after 11 PM in Sweden—she may have missed her chance already. She thumbed a reply: Sorry didn’t have my phone. You can call now.

Her phone rang within seconds. She raised it to her ear and answered breathlessly. “Hello?”

She heard fumbling on the other end. “Kate? Can you hear me?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, savoring the distant rumble of his voice. “I can hear you.”

“Hold on, I’m going to switch us to a video call. It’ll ask if you want to accept. Say yes.”

She lowered the phone and watched the screen, wondering if he had any idea what he’d just told her to do.

Say yes.

She wished she could. To everything. Forever. But it wasn’t meant to be.

A message flashed on her phone and she accepted the video call. Oz’s smile filled the screen, all white teeth and dark eyes, and a surge of affection clogged her throat. She fought it down with a grin and a wave, holding the phone at arm’s length so he could see her.

“Hello,” he greeted her warmly.

“Hello to you, too.”

He extended his arm to hold the phone farther away, and she got a glimpse of his long, lean torso in a blue polo with the collar buttoned up to the top.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“In the hotel suite. Everyone’s here.”

The image swung around to show his parents, his brother and his sister-in-law seated on both sides of a small breakfast bar in a kitchenette. Oz instructed, “Say hi to Kate,” and the chorus of greetings was so loud the audio crackled.

“Hi, everyone,” she replied brightly.

“Okay, now I’m moving into the bedroom so you can tell me what you really think of my brother’s choice of shirt.” Oz pointed the phone at his brother, who raised his hands to protest the criticism of his pink-patterned button-down.

Oz flashed a grin at the camera before the screen bounced with his steps. She caught a glimpse of what looked like a luxurious hotel suite. A built-in seating area piled with pillows, floor-to-ceiling windows, a TV that looked bigger than her kitchen, and then the background noise faded as Oz shut the door and positioned himself on the bed, his face returning to the center of the screen.

“Can you see me?” She shifted.

“I can, and you look beautiful.”

She fought her instinct to shrug off his compliment, smiling instead. “Thank you.”

“Is this the part where we have phone sex?”

She laughed at his joking, but not entirely unhopeful, grin. “Definitely not. Your family is right outside that door and I’m surrounded by drunk people.”

“Party’s going well, then?”

“Everyone seems to be having a good time.”

“Are you having a good time?”

She shrugged, suddenly uncomfortably aware that she had chosen to be here by herself and not there with him. “Yeah, I am.”

“I’m glad,” he said quietly, then glanced down. When he looked up again his smile was back to full force. “Did you see the result?”

“Three-nil. Not bad.”

“It was a lot harder than it sounds. Slovenia has this striker who plays in the Spanish league. In moments it looks like he’s a pro who’s wandered into an amateur match, then all of a sudden he becomes super dangerous, throwing himself down the other end of the pitch and—”

Her sister’s shriek cut through the thin wall, and it was evidently loud enough to be heard on the phone because Oz paused.

“What was that?”

“Someone being stupid. What were you saying?”

“So this striker, he takes these crazy runs—”

Emily’s voice sliced through the room again, shouting something incoherent but so piercing Oz lost his train of thought. Kate shifted so her back faced the door, hoping that would reduce the noise.

“Keep going,” she told him.

Oz hesitated, his expression growing serious. “Unrelated, but I had a meeting on Friday afternoon before the gala. My agent got a call from—”

The door burst open and Emily and Tyler spilled into the room, clutching each other and giggling. Kate shot to her feet and her sister’s eyes widened.

“Oops, sorry Katie… Wait, is that your Viking lover boy? The Swedish superstar?”

Emily lunged and snatched the phone out of Kate’s hand, then skipped into the hallway. Kate darted after her but Tyler shifted his big frame into the doorway, smiling playfully.

“Move,” Kate commanded.

Instead he crossed his arms. “Let her talk to him.”

Kate scowled as Emily slurred something at the screen, then announced, “I think we need to discuss a few things in private.” She cut the video connection and pressed the phone to her ear, so Kate could hear only her end of the conversation, not Oz’s responses.

She started to shove Tyler out of the way, then changed her mind. Why should she protect Oz from the reality of her life? Let him see what she’d chosen—and would continue to choose.

Tyler narrowed his eyes, clearly suspicious at her apparent surrender as she resumed her seat on the bed. He braced his feet against the doorframe, ready to stop her attempts at escape.

She smothered a laugh at how seriously he took this assignment, which was emblematic of his relationship with Emily. No matter how often they fought or for how long they stayed apart, they always drifted back together with odd but enduring loyalty.

Emily wandered down the hall and Kate lost the train of her discussion, though she could hear her sister’s voice rising and falling, and then her laugh. Her words became clearer as she walked back, demanding, “And what are your intentions for my older sister, sir?” Each s was drawn out and sibilant, and Emily swayed as she arrived beside Tyler.

“Really. I hear you. And you’re not married, right? Separated? Divorced? Never? No kids, right? No secret love children with flight attendants scattered all over the world? All right. No, I believe you. You sound like a trustworthy guy. Are you a trustworthy guy? Good.”

Emily flashed her an unreadable glance, then half-turned, but Kate could still hear her clearly. “I’ll let you go, Oz, because I need another drink. I appreciate you talking to me. You seem nice, and you better stay that way. Because if you hurt my sister, I swear to God, I will find you and I will fuck you up. You will not play soccer again, you may not walk again, and you sure as hell won’t ever have any kids. I will fuck you up. You got me? But we’re not gonna go there, because you’re gonna stay a nice guy and we’re gonna be friends. Right?” She nodded at his response. “Great. Okay. Y’all have a nice night now.”

Kate arched for the phone but Emily cut the call.

Her sister wore a big grin when she turned and handed back the phone. “I think he heard me.”

* * * *

Oz stared at the silent phone in his hand, trying to figure out what just happened.

He was halfway through texting Kate to ask if she wanted him to call her back when someone knocked on the bedroom door. He called out an invitation and his brother eased into the room, shutting the door behind him.

“Everything okay?” Yusuf asked in Swedish. Although their parents spoke it fluently, they’d always exchanged brotherly confidences in the language they were born into, not the one they inherited from their parents’ homeland.

Oz exhaled, setting his phone aside, the text still unsent, and pulled one leg onto the bed. Yusuf moved a pair of Oz’s jeans off the armchair and took a seat.

No matter how successful or famous he got, Oz still idolized his older brother. A competent youth player in his own right, Yusuf’s promising career as a full back ended with a serious knee injury. He redirected all his focus onto his studies, moved to the UK for university and probably made more money in banking that he would’ve as a mid-tier professional footballer. Unflappable, strategic, and brutally honest, Yusuf was Oz’s first port of call whenever he wanted advice on a major life decision.

“Did you tell her?”

Oz shook his head. “Her sister took her phone. Told me she’d fuck me up if I ever hurt Kate. She was wasted.”

“Classy. But at least her heart’s in the right place.”

“I guess.”

Yusuf stretched his legs in front of him. “What’s bothering you?”

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “We were going so well until this week. I know I should’ve given her more notice for this trip, but I feel like this wasn’t really about logistics.”

“Did you ask her what it was really about?”

“She told her sister she’d be at her birthday party. So, logistics.”

Yusuf shook his head. “Don’t oversimplify. Not having a valid passport or enough vacation days is logistics. Not wanting to renege on a promise is something else.”

“Semantics.” Oz waved a hand.

“No, because one is a choice. She chose not to come with you. She chose her sister instead, and that bothers you. You want to be with someone who’ll choose you every time.”

Yusuf was exactly right, but Oz glowered at him anyway.

His brother leaned back in his chair. “It’s natural to want to be the center of someone’s universe. You’ve never had to deal with not starring in someone else’s life, adapting to their plans, adjusting your goals to fit theirs. To be honest, I’m not sure it’s a bad thing that she didn’t drop everything and follow you to Stockholm. You need someone who can stand up to you.”

“It’s one of the things that first attracted me to her. She doesn’t take any of my diva shit.” He smiled at the memory of their early, antagonistic exchanges.

“Good. I liked Nedda, but sometimes she was too deferential. Made me wonder how much of it was about you and how much of it was about your career.”

Oz propped his ankle on his knee and studied the seam on his sock, nodding thoughtfully. “I told you they met at Jack and Caitlin’s wedding. Nedda certainly had some strong opinions about our compatibility.”

“Sounds like she felt threatened. She thought you might…” He shot forward in his seat. “You had sex with Kate, didn’t you?”

Oz threw up his hands. “Do I have a sign on my forehead? How is everyone figuring this out without my saying a word?”

Yusuf whistled. “Wow. This is serious.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Oz sighed, exasperated. “It’s serious, and I don’t know if it should be.”

“Why not?”

“I’m worried.” He scrubbed a hand over his eyes, finally giving voice to the thoughts that had been plaguing him for days. “I think I might be falling in love with someone I don’t have a future with. We’re so different, and that’s good, but maybe it’s also insurmountable. Like we’re two gears that don’t quite fit together, and for a while we can rub along and make a big noise and smooth each other out, but ultimately the whole machine is broken and we’ll never click enough to push anything forward.”

“You can’t know that, not yet anyway. Look at me and Hajra,” he said, naming his wife. “You and I grew up with parents who see Islam as a broad set of guiding principles, a framework for making ethical and moral decisions, but not really a code of conduct for everyday life. They drink wine, they don’t pray, and the house is full of art that fundamentalists would consider obscene. But Hajra’s parents? They still ask her when she’s going to quit her job now that she’s married.”

“You’re talking about parents, though. The two of you are aligned even if your families aren’t. I’m not sure Kate and I are in sync.”

“Not so fast.” Yusuf raised a stalling finger. “There’s plenty of stuff we disagree on. Big stuff. Critical stuff. Our different levels of devoutness. Whether Islam can be about culture as much as belief. How we’ll raise our kids in the Muslim faith. But with compromise, respect, and commitment, we make it work. It’s not always easy, but it’s worth it. We love each other. And we both want to be together more than we want any of the things that could tear us apart.”

Hope and optimism stirred in Oz’s chest, but he wasn’t ready to surrender to them. “Kate and I aren’t as convinced about one another as you two.”

His brother lifted a shoulder. “Fine, you’re less certain. So what? That’s not a reason not to try. If it doesn’t work out, you’ll know you gave it your best, and you’ll come out a different person.”

“But wouldn’t that be a waste of time?” Oz asked.

Yusuf’s expression grew skeptical. “You’re twenty-seven. And you’re reaching. What are you afraid of, truthfully?”

He linked his fingers together and stared at them, unable to meet his brother’s eyes. “I don’t want to end up like Erdem.”

“Erdem? What does he have to do with any of this?”

“You saw what happened after his wife left.” Oz shuddered as his uncle’s sallow face loomed in his memory.

Yusuf stared at him for a few seconds, then nodded slowly. “That’s why you’re so hung up on the future. You think she likes who you are now, but she may not like who you’ll be in ten years.”

“Exactly.”

“Özkan,” Yusuf said softly, “What happened to Erdem won’t happen to you. He chose a woman who didn’t care whether he lived or died as long as she got paid. Plan or no plan, you’ll never be with a woman like that.”

He shook his head. “I know Kate doesn’t care about the money. It’s the pain. I’ll love her harder and harder and it’ll be so painful when life rips us apart.”

“What if life doesn’t rip you apart?” Yusuf countered.

“And what if it does?”

His brother’s silence was thoughtful. When he finally spoke his tone was soft but firm, signaling that this would be his final word on the subject.

“You’ve never been afraid of pain. You’ve spent your life flying higher and higher, never looking at the ground, never worrying about how far you might fall. Don’t start now.”

Oz couldn’t speak. He could barely think. He knew his brother was right, but that didn’t make the situation any easier. In fact it made it harder.

Now he couldn’t say no one told him to fight for her. The responsibility was all on his shoulders. If he gave in to fear, capitulated to uncertainty, ran from the best woman he’d ever met and never found one as perfect for him, it was no one’s fault but his own.

He couldn’t avoid risk, but he had to decide what he wanted to put on the line—his future or his heart. Did he take a chance on being lonely or having his heart broken?

Yusuf said he’d never been afraid to fly, but that’s because he’d always carefully constructed safety nets—his education, his backup plan, his constant awareness that soccer careers don’t last forever. There was no soft landing when it came to love, and the sudden drop would come with far less warning than the end of a contract.

As his brother quietly let himself out of the room and he was alone with his thoughts, he changed his mind. Yusuf was wrong. He did keep an eye on the ground, he always had, until he met Kate. For the first time in his life he was running blind, with no sense of how much distance he’d covered or how much farther he could go.

That wasn’t him. Not at all. The stakes were higher than ever and he’d gotten so caught up he’d lost track of how deep he’d gone. He had to regain control of his life, of his emotions, of the heart he’d so brazenly laid open.

Then he’d make the hardest decision of his life with the same ruthless precision to which he owed everything.