TysonI barely slept a wink. All night long, I thought about Mae. I should have gone with her. I felt like an asshole that I didn’t.I hoped she would understand how important this was to me. Her father was gone and there was very little I could do to change that. I couldn’t change it. This was a time for her to be with her family. I was sure I would not be welcome.Gino was meeting me in thirty minutes. I was early to the museum with nothing better to do with my time. I couldn’t believe how empty I felt without her. I was used to traveling alone. That was all different now. I wanted to be with her. I wanted to share my life with her.I checked the time again. I had been checking the time every five minutes. She didn’t call me or text me to tell me she landed. I knew she landed safely because I had been in contact with the pilot. I was a little hurt she didn’t check in with me. She did it for Carrie.My phone rang just as I slid it back into my pocket. I quickly pulled it out, anxious

MaeI cracked an egg in the pan and stared at the yellow yolk spreading out, mingling with the white. I watched for too long and realized I fried the damn thing instead of scrambling it. I tossed it in the trash and started over. I was tired. Exhausted. I was completely spent. I had tried like hell to sleep on the way back, but it was impossible. It was like being forced to sit in a movie theater with your life playing before your eyes that were taped open.I couldn’t stop seeing my dad. It was little snippets of our lives over the last twenty-nine years. There were few really good, happy times, but they were there. Those were the memories I wanted to hang onto. Unfortunately, the overwhelming number of memories that involved my dad drunk and angry or drunk and humiliating me were hard to ignore.I finally managed to focus long enough to make a plate of scrambled eggs for me and Hayden to split. “Here,” I said, putting the plate with a piece of buttered toast on it in front of her.“I

TysonI tapped my pen on the yellow pad sitting atop my desk. Mae was still not talking to me. I didn’t blame her. I fucked up. The funeral was tomorrow. I only found out because I saw the obituary in the paper. The family sure as hell wasn’t talking to me.“Hello?” I answered my cell phone with no enthusiasm.“Wow, that doesn’t make a man feel welcome,” Alec said.“Sorry,” I mumbled. “It’s been a shitty couple of days.”“What’s going on?”“The Louvre wants to buy the museums,” I told him.“What? Are you fucking kidding me?”“No, I’m very serious,” I told him. “I just got back Sunday night, or morning. Fuck if I know when I got back.”“They want to buy you out?” he questioned.“Yes.”He laughed. “You sound pretty damn excited about that.”“It’s not been a great couple of days.”“You went to France?” he questioned.“Yes. They gave me a big presentation, showing me what my shit would look like in their big, fancy museum. He gave me a private tour.”“That definitely sounds awful,” he sai

MaeHayden and I sat in my car in the parking lot of the funeral home. We were early. Neither of us was in a hurry to get out of the car. I turned to look at her, taking in her black dress that was new. Retail therapy was therapeutic. She wanted to wear black and I wasn’t going to tell her not to. We’d found a pretty dress with short sleeves and a hemline that reached her knees. It was youthful and we were hoping she might be able to wear the dress again.“Are you ready for this?” I asked her.She stared out the windshield, watching a couple walk inside the funeral home. “I don’t think I will ever be ready.”“We can go in the side entrance,” I told her. “You, me, Patrick, and Mom will all be sitting in the first row.”“Why?”I sighed. “It’s tradition. I think it’s mostly so the other attendees don’t stare at you when you are crying. The only person looking at you will be the guy talking.”She slowly nodded. “Will there be a lot of people?”“I don’t know. Before Dad got too bad, he did

TysonI didn’t go into the office today. I wasn’t in the mood. Technically, there was little for me to do now anyway. I was going through my own version of mourning. I was pissed at myself for ruining the best thing going in my life.I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. I would give her some time and then try again. That was all I could do. I hoped she would understand and give me a chance to explain. It seemed like that was the rhythm of our relationship. Things went great, I fucked up, she got hurt, and I left her. It was not a great way to live and I understood why she was tired of it.I would beg forgiveness, promise to be better, and then commit to doing it. Although I’d tried that once before as well. I was destined to fuck up. I needed clear guidelines on how to navigate the very tricky road I was walking with her.The doorbell rang, pulling me from my thoughts. I got up from where I’d settled into the couch and answered the door. “Mae?”“Hi,” she said as she took off her dark s