When I got to work the next day my head was pounding so hard it felt like I had a hangover. The funny part was that, other than the beer I’d started and never finished at Mike’s place; I hadn’t had anything at all to drink. No, this was an emotional hangover, the kind I only got when I’d been through something stressful and didn’t sleep as a result.

Mike seemed to take what I had to say pretty well. I couldn’t have asked for much better, but he did seem like he was a little nervous about it all. I couldn’t blame him for that; I would’ve reacted the same way if I were in his shoes.

I mean, it’s not every day that your kinda-sorta boyfriend tells you his rich parents would never approve of you being together and might take away your entire financial future if they find out so why don’t we keep all this low key, right?

Still, Mike seemed to roll with it, like none of it bothered him at all, but I could see it plain as day on his face that it wasn’t fine. As much as I tried to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with my overbearing parents, he didn’t seem to believe me. I couldn’t blame him for that either because it wasn’t like it was a very realistic thing to say or do.

Thankfully, Jason seemed to have backed off. Mike said he was going to talk with him, but I didn’t think he would do that, and even if he did, I didn’t think it would lead to anything important. Still, when I walked through the door that afternoon for my shift, Jason waved at me and left me more or less to my own devices. All of his jokes and sly remarks about Mike and me seemed to have been dropped, so maybe Mike did call him. I might never know the whole truth of it, but it didn’t matter. As long as things were cool between us all, and as long as Dan wasn’t going to rat me out to my parents, that’s the only thing I cared about.

“Hey there,” Jason called to me a few minutes after I’d punched in and started standing around without any idea what to do.

“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“You know, another day, another dollar,” Jason said, shrugging. “Do you have a minute? I think we need to talk,” he continued, and my heart dropped. Was this it? Was this the moment where he told me Mike, and I couldn’t continue seeing each other, that it was going to interfere with our business relationship?

“Sure, it’s not like I have anywhere else to be, right?” I asked with a shrug, and he smiled at me before he led me back into the kitchen. I thought that was kind of strange since no one else was in the bar to see or hear us anyway, but I followed him regardless.

“Look, I don’t mean to raise any alarm bells or anything, but I got a phone call from Mike earlier today, and I thought I needed to clear the air a little bit,” he said after the swinging door had closed behind us.

“Oh?” I had no idea where he was going with this, but I was curious to see what he would say.

“Yeah, he told me was going on, you know, between you guys. I just want you to know I don’t have any problems with that, even though the things I was saying before might’ve led you to believe otherwise. So I guess what I’m saying is that I owe you an apology for that,” he said.

“Thank you, I appreciate it,” I said, and I meant it. It was difficult to believe all the stress and anxiety I’d been feeling about this very conversation disappeared almost as soon as the conversation occurred. It didn’t seem to be an issue at all with Jason, which I guess at some level I knew would be the case, but given all the people constantly looking over my shoulder and judging me for my actions, I couldn’t be too careful.

If there was one thing I’d learned growing up with my parents, it was that I could never be too careful.

“Yeah, he told me you were pretty stressed out about it. Look, how big of a hypocrite would it make me if I had any issue with you guys seeing each other, here or outside of these four walls?” he asked. “After all, it’s because of this place that Dan and I got back together in the first place. I don’t know what it is, but I swear there’s something magical about the bar, like it just sort of draws people together.”

“You think so?” I asked, looking around. It seemed a little antiseptic to me, no doubt thanks to its modern redesign—though I’d never seen what it looked like before the redesign, had only been told about it—so magic wasn’t exactly the word I would’ve used to describe its looks.

“Yeah. I’ve had customers tell me they just feel better after being here like it lifts their moods,” he said.

“I guess I’ll have to keep an eye out for that. Anyway, thank you for clearing this up, I appreciate it. Although now I feel more than a little silly for making a big stink out of something that was evidently nothing,” I said. He smiled at me and shook his head.

“You don’t have to apologize for your feelings, man. It’s not like you knew us or had any indication how we would feel about this kind of stuff. That’s the one downside to running a mom-and-pop style business, the HR side of things isn’t exactly cut and dry,” he said.

“Absolutely. Thanks again,” I said and stepped out of the kitchen to clear my head, more than anything else. There weren’t any other obstacles in my way now, nothing that would keep me from being with Mike if I really, truly wanted to—other than my parents and their stupid trust fund. Whether or not I wanted to admit to it, they still held a lot of power over me, in the form of money, and I was conflicted.

On the one hand, I enjoyed Mike’s company, and I loved the way he made me feel when we were together—physically and mentally—but on the other hand, I had a hard time envisioning a real future for the two of us together. Realistically, I knew I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life in this town, it just wasn’t possible thanks to my background and relation to two of Sweden’s biggest movie stars, but I didn’t see any way that Mike could come with me back to Sweden either, even if he were interested in doing so, which I highly doubted.

So what options did I have? I could go on living day by day and getting more and more attached to Mike in the process only to potentially lose him—almost certainly lose him when my parents found out and came calling, because they always had a way of finding out everything I ever said or did—or I could give it all up and start a new life here, maybe with Mike, maybe not.

For all my bravado, for all my overabundance of confidence, I felt like a coward as I turned the possibilities over my head because I couldn’t easily make the decision when it should’ve been the easiest thing in the world. When it boiled down to it, what was money worth? What had all this fame and recognition gotten me over the years other than a healthy serving of scorn and disapproval from my parents when I didn’t measure up to their standards?

In the short time, Mike and I had known each other; I’d realized a lot of things about myself and life. What mattered, when everything else was excluded, was being happy. To that end, I’d never once been happy with my parents, and I’d never been happy in Sweden either. There was nothing waiting for me there other than a massive pile of money, and what good would that money be if I didn’t have anyone to share it with?

More than anything, I wanted to make myself believe I could throw it all away, kiss the millions of dollars I stood to inherit goodbye if I continued playing by mom and dad’s rules, and be with Mike—but I didn’t believe it. There was something nagging at the back of my head, screaming at me not to make a decision like that, not to be stupid. Sure, living with my parents and their collective celebrity baggage wasn’t the most ideal situation in the world, but if I made them happy, did what they wanted me to do, then I’d be set for the rest of my life, I’d never have to worry again.

That wasn’t exactly something easy to walk away from, but neither was Mike. Still, I knew I couldn’t have them both. There was no way to make that happen, so I needed to make a choice, and I needed to do it soon before Mike got any more attached to me and me to him.

“You okay?” Jason asked from behind, startling me out of my thoughts.

“Yeah, it’s just a lot to think about, you know?” I asked, trying to cover up the fact that he’d caught me in a very vulnerable moment.

“Oh, you have no idea how much I understand that,” Jason said, laughing as he shook his head. “It wasn’t that long ago I was in a very similar situation to what you’re in now.”

“You know, that reminds me, Mike talks about you and Dan all the time, but he’s never really told me the story of what happened, other than the cheesy drink you came up with to dedicate to him,” I said, and Jason blushed.

“It’s probably not the best idea to call your boss cheesy, you know,” Jason said.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it, but you have to admit it’s kinda corny,” I said, and he laughed.

“Yeah, I’ll give you that. I’m surprised you don’t know the story, it seems like everyone in this town knows all my business thanks to Dan. Anyway, to keep a long story short, Dan came back to town after being gone for a few years, and he and I had had a little bit of history. At the time, this bar was not doing very well at all, and George and I were concerned we were going to lose it. Dan swooped in with all his country singer cash, dropped a ton of money into the bar, and the rest is history,” he said, shrugging.

“Interesting,” I said, and I didn’t fail to see the parallels between our situations. They weren’t entirely different, though the roles did seem to be reversed a little bit. “Out of curiosity, why didn’t you just leave here with Dan after you guys got back together? Forgive me if that’s prying.”

“No, I don’t mind one bit. It’s a good question. Trust me, for most of my life I wanted nothing more than to get out of this town. I was born and raised here, like Mike, and I’ve hated it every second of the way, but something about Dan coming back, something about the two of us getting together again, took a lot of that away from me. I don’t know, it’s hard to put into words, but there’s something appealing about living in a small town like this,” Jason said. I realized then that was the most he and I had talked since I started the job, and for a moment I felt a little guilty about that. He seemed like a really interesting guy, with a very interesting perspective both on the town and on life.

“Yeah, I can’t explain it either, but there is something appealing about it,” I said. “It has a certain charm, the kind of character I never found in Stockholm. I mean, don’t get me wrong, that character comes at a cost—everything here closes early, and it’s generally boring as hell—but in the end, I’m not sure it’s an unworthy trade-off,” I continued and Jason nodded at me as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Sounds to me like you’re on the cusp of making a pretty big decision, huh?” he asked.

“Something like that, yeah. I just don’t know what to do, I feel so conflicted,” I blurted. I had no intention of opening up to Jason about my personal life, much less about what was going on with Mike, but really, who else did I have to talk to? It wasn’t like I could call up my parents and ask for their advice because their advice would always be to cut and run, to think about my image and the sort of things I was projecting out to the public.

It was always about the public with them, always about how other people saw us. I just wanted somebody to see me for me for once, and Mike had done that from the very start, even before I wanted him to do it. Didn’t I owe him something for that, some loyalty? What kind of shitty person would it make me if I walked away from him now?

“I know the feeling. Look, I don’t want to pry any further, but if you ever want to talk about things, feel free to pull me aside anytime,” he said. “Despite the general vibe of the town, I promise I won’t go spilling your secrets to everybody else.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” I said and he smirked at me before he disappeared back into the kitchen to do whatever needed to be done. I stood in the bar feeling stunned like my whole world had been turned upside down several times over. My choices were floating around me like snowflakes in a snow globe, and I felt like I couldn’t find any solid ground no matter what I did or where I went.

So when Mike walked through the door and met eyes with me, I felt like the globe had been smashed. He melted me, cut through my crap in a way nobody else had ever been able to do and made me see myself in my life for what it was.

“Hey there, good lookin’,” Mike said with a warm smile. He was in a good mood, no doubt as a result of having talked things over with Jason. More than anything else, I wanted to open up to him, tell him I was still scared about what might happen, how I didn’t want to hurt him if, in fact, my parents pulled their crap. It wouldn’t be my fault, it wouldn’t be anything that I’d done, but the risk was still there, and I couldn’t bear it. Still, as he stood in front of me, I couldn’t summon the courage to say anything, I just smiled back at him.

So much for confidence.