Dropping the Ball: a Holiday Rom-Com
Dropping the Ball: Chapter 28

Drake handed me the answer I need and don’t want. This cause is too distant to the people we’re asking to donate.

I brood over it. Obsess over it.

We can depend on the gala guests to throw big money at whatever we put in front of them. The impulse to flex in front of peers will kick in. But we have a massive supply problem, and I don’t know if it’s solvable. As much as I care about Threadwork and the people in Dhaka it helps, Drake’s critique is fair.

That afternoon, Micah texts.

I think about it. Long and hard. About the looks on their faces. About the stress this will put on Madison. About how Madison’s stress will weigh on Oliver. Maybe even Harper.

I think about something else all day too. Micah’s words. That maybe the task was never possible. More than anything else, I think about how even knowing how big my failure is, Micah still has faith in me. Not that I can do it, but that if I can’t do it, it can’t be done.

That is more faith than anyone has ever had in me.

The full weight of it hits me. Micah’s faith in me is complete despite my failures. He was there for me last night. He wants to be there for me today, tomorrow, the day after that. He told me that. He’s shown me that. And I said Thanks but no thanks, gotta study.

I am an idiot.

I am the world’s biggest idiot.

I check the time. It’s almost 4:00. I grab my purse from my desk drawer and almost run out of the office. “Headed out! Everyone else should go too! See you Monday.”

The office door closes on the sound of three cheers.

I get in the car and curse every extra minute the holiday weekend traffic slows me in getting to the warehouse, but when I arrive, a few vehicles are still in the parking lot, including Micah’s truck.

Inside, it’s much noisier than I’m used to. The high whine of a saw and the pounding of several hammers cover the sound of the door opening and closing behind me. I don’t see Micah anywhere, but the guy running the saw spots me and turns it off. He’s standing on the other side of the beginnings of the staircase, and he looks down and says something with a nod in my direction.

Micah rises next to him, and suddenly there is six-feet-plus of sexy architect staring at me across the warehouse. He’s wearing a Santa hat, and that’s when I register the rest of the changes. Sometime today, they’ve made a rebar Christmas tree in the middle of the floor, hung with empty soda cans, wood scraps, and a few paper snowflakes.

I put on a hard hat and walk toward Micah. He says something to the guy on the saw, who nods and goes back to work. He swaps his Santa hat for a hard hat and walks to meet me by the Christmas tree.

“Hey,” he says. “Surprise inspection?”

I can barely hear him over the saw and point to the supervisor loft. He turns and I follow him to the corner with the elevator. He pauses and mouths, “It’s fixed.”

I smile and press the call button. The door slides open. We step in and the noise outside drops by half when they shut. We don’t say anything as it makes its short trip, but when the doors start to slide open, I push the Door Close button.

“Hey,” I say at normal volume. “I liked the Santa hat.”

“Hey. OSHA violation.” He knocks his hard hat. “Can’t let the client see that. Speaking of which, I didn’t expect to see you today.”

My stomach behaves like we’re doing an elevator speed run, float and sink, heavy and light. He’s in a plain white tee and camo carpenter pants, but they’re soft-looking, like flannel. It is insanely hot. Him. In the outfit. It’s making the elevator warm. Or maybe just me.

“Didn’t expect to be here today,” I say, “but I probably should have. Probably should have been here even sooner. Days ago. Weeks ago.”

He cocks his head, waiting for me to explain.

“About an hour ago, I realized I’ve been an idiot. I would have been here sooner, but traffic is bad. I came to tell you . . .” I pause to take a deep breath. Why am I nervous? He already said he wants this. “I was wrong on Halloween. We should date.”

Surprise crosses Micah’s face. Maybe I should have set up a whole scene? Hinted at this conversation before inviting him to dinner at my house? Pointed to Zombie Lake on the TV screen and waggled my eyebrows?

Why is he taking so long to answer? I rub my sweaty palms down my gray suit pants. “Micah?”

He rubs the back of his neck, still eyeing me. “I don’t think so.”

He says it the way I talk to Daisy Buchanan when she’s accidentally done something naughty, like tangle herself in my sweater. No, Daisy. Gentle but firm.

“No?” I hear my heartbeat in my ears. Hello to you, cortisol, the rejection hormone.

“Too much whiplash,” he says. “We get close, you withdraw and say no dating. Last night, we get close, you withdraw, and I get the silent treatment in a dead elevator for almost an hour. Today you’re here saying ‘no, let’s do this’?” He shakes his head. “Red flag.”

“I’m not a red flag.” It’s the most insulting thing anyone has ever said to me. I take a step back in the small space. “I’ve never been a red flag. I am the queen of spotting and rejecting other people’s red flags. I am a green flag. I’m such a green flag, they should slap a star on my forehead and sing ‘O Christmas Tree.’”

His eyebrows go up. “Who is ‘they’?”

“The freaking elves.”

“Believes in elves. Noted. That’s another red flag.”

“Elf yourself, Micah.” The last time I felt this self-conscious, there was a light post involved.

His lips twitch, but none of this is funny.

“Whatever,” I say. “A relationship sounds great as long as I’m perfectly calm and pulled together. One elevator meltdown, and it changes everything. Got it.”

“I’m not going to say yes to this just because you’re in a mood, Katie. I’m ready to say yes when you’re sure you want a relationship.”

“I came over here because I realized that you are the one person who already knows I’ve failed, and it doesn’t matter to you. Doesn’t that make you my person?” I press the first floor button. “If that’s not me knowing what I want, then I don’t know what is.”

“So you’re here because I make you feel good.” The elevator stops and he leans over and sends us back up. “Happy to do that, but I want to be wanted even when everything else in your life is good too.”

“Wants to be wanted, does not want to be needed. Sounds healthy.” The salt in my tone is unhealthy.

The elevator opens, but since the construction noise has died down, we ignore it.

He waves out toward the warehouse. “I will be everything you need in here. I got you.”

The doors rumble shut, but the elevator stays put.

“Here,” he gestures between us, “I want to be wanted and needed. Needed because I’m wanted. I’m ready when you are, but not before.”

I stare at him, my frustration growing. “If me standing here saying I’m ready isn’t enough, how am I supposed to prove it?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. You’ll know when you know.”

I clench my jaw hard enough to snap rebar. We’re talking in circles. I want you. No, you need me, and I want you to need and want me. I just said I want you. I need proof. What proof? I don’t know.

I reach for the button to send us down again, but the elevator starts the descent on its own. Apparently, it knows its own mind. Good job, elevator.

The doors open to Ty waiting for us. “Quitting time, boss. We good?”

Micah nods. “Go. See you Monday.”

“My mom said tell Tori she’s bringing pecan pie to Thanksgiving.”

“Best on the block,” Micah says.

“Best on the block,” Ty repeats, turning to signal the other guys to go.

I snatch off my hard hat, irritated I’ve been riding up and down in an elevator asking Micah to be my man while wearing it. Why does this man always see me at my worst?

I walk out to the warehouse and cut beneath the sculpture, wanting the fastest route to the exit. Micah calls my name, but I don’t look back. I leave the hard hat where I found it and head to my car, the other guys already pulling out onto the highway.

“Wait.” Micah’s hand closes around my wrist, the lightest hold.

I tug and he lets go.

He slides his hands into his pockets. His hair is a mess, sweaty and mashed. “Come for a ride around the block?”

“I need to get home.” To sulk.

“It’s my block. Five minutes. That’s it.”

“I’ve seen your block.”

“Please?”

Resisting will only make me look childish, so I walk to his truck. He opens the door for me, and a couple of minutes later, we’re pulling into his neighborhood. I stay quiet and study the houses in the dusk.

On his street, he slows below the residential speed limit and points to a small gray house. No fence, plain but neat. “That’s the Morrises. Their son joined the army when I was thirteen. They let me use their lawnmower to take over the yards he used to cut as long as I did theirs too. From that point on, no matter what, our power never got cut again if my mom forgot to pay because I always had enough saved to cover it.”

My jaw softens. But only a little.

He points to a yellow house on the other side of the street. “Mr. Martinez made sure I never had to bike to the bus stop in the rain. He’d wait in front of my house with his pickup truck for me to throw my bike in, and he’d drive me over.”

“At 6:30 in the morning?” I ask.

“Every single time it rained.”

He points out other houses to me as we roll slowly down the street. One who left new jeans and sneakers on his doorstep every Christmas Eve, but he only knew that because another neighbor told him. One who showed him how to pay the utility bill his mom had ignored and opened a bank account for him that his mom didn’t know about so she couldn’t clean it out on one of her shopping sprees.

There was the house where the dad had taught him to grill at the same time he taught his own kids.

Here was the house where a retired Sunday School teacher had lived. “At Easter, she’d gather all the kids on the street in her front yard and read them the Easter story from a children’s Bible. We all sat still for it too, because afterward, she turned us loose for an egg hunt in the back, and she made sure every egg had a dollar bill in it because Jesus paid for us.” He laughs. “That whole thing confused me for a long time.”

“She sounds sweet.” I can’t be sulky anymore.

“She was. When I got older, I’d bring her a potted lily every Easter Sunday until last year when she passed.”

We’re nearly to his house, when he stops at the red brick house before it. “That’s Jeremy’s house. His oldest just started community college. She wants to be a teacher. The younger one is a junior. I tutor him sometimes in trig.”

I’m struck again by how much was going on with him in high school. “I don’t know anyone like you. You go around giving and taking care of people like it’s second nature.”

“I was taught by the best.” He starts driving again, passing his house. “I’ll take you back now.”

“You’re blessed to have grown up on this street. It’s rare.”

He shakes his head as he turns onto the highway back to the warehouse. “It’s not. And you do know people like me. That’s what I wanted to show you. You’re like me, and you have people like me.”

He pulls in next to my car. “Didn’t you say this is how Madi is? And her friends? That they would do anything for each other? For her? For you?”

“For her, yes.”

“You don’t think they would do anything for you?”

“I’ve never needed them to.”

“But would they?” he presses.

I climb out of the truck. He cuts the engine and follows me to my car, waiting.

I drum my fingers on the roof. “I know you think the answer is yes, but they all have lives now. Husbands. Careers and babies. I would never ask them to drop any of that for me.”

“Would they do it for Madi?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. If the term ride-or-die hadn’t already existed, they would have invented it.

“And would she do that for them?”

“Yes.”

He places his hands on the roof of the car on either side of me, not touching me, but he leans in so that I lean back, flat against the door. “Would Madi do that for you?”

“She has a lot—”

“Kaitlyn. Would Madison do that for you?”

I sigh. “Yes, but I’m trying to be that for her.”

“You are. What else would you call putting your life on hold for seven months?”

“It’s not that big a deal.”

“Liar.” It’s a soft and sweet word, the way he says it. “Couldn’t you have taken the bar in July if you weren’t stepping in for your sister?”

“How did you know that?”

“I have lawyer friends. You could have, right? But you pushed it all the way off to the February date to get through this gala.”

“So?”

“Would she do that for you?”

“If I had a baby? Yes. She would run interference so I wouldn’t have to worry about anything. And that’s what I’m doing for her. Dragging her into the gala problems is not running interference.”

“You are the most stubborn woman I’ve ever known.” He rubs his hands over his face and gives a muffled groan before he drops them. “Last time I made you mad, you didn’t talk to me for eight years, but elf it.”

I snort.

“This needs to be said. What would Madi want more? For you to hide this from her, then you both watch it fail, and you’re both miserable? Or for you to ask for help, you both watch it succeed, and you celebrate the win together?” He tips my chin up and waits for me to meet his eyes. “You know who Madi is. Let her be that for you. Tag her in.”

He drops a kiss on my forehead. Then he opens my door, waits for me to get in, and stands there watching me drive away.

Let her be that for you.

Can I?

I consider the question all weekend. Can I ask Madi to help? Can I go to her and say “I can’t make this auction happen”?

It’s still not as simple as Micah makes it sound. I see now an underwhelming auction was inevitable and not my fault, and that does ease my guilt. But that also means Madison isn’t likely to come up with a solution either. What is the point of tagging her in to deal with an unsolvable problem? If I disrupt her new-mother time, she’s only going to spend the next four weeks stressing about falling short of our goals.

But will she feel that way?

That’s what I grapple with. If I don’t tag her in, will she always wonder if she could have turned it around if she’d known?

She hasn’t asked for detailed updates because she trusts me.

What does that trust deserve? Peace and protection? Or full transparency?

I know what I want to do for her as her sister. But I know what Madi will want. And they are not the same.