Page 16 of You Owe Me

“So tell him. Tell him in your own way. But don’t wait too long, Ainsley. Not with someone like Carter Mills involved. That kid’s not just ambition in khakis; he’s a scalpel. And he’s already made the first cut.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Rumor has it, his secrets are worth millions.

Maverick

My watch won’t stop fucking vibrating.

138 BPM. 142. 136. It’s like my wrist is mocking me, each number flashing like a countdown to a breakdown I don’t have time for. I don’t look at it. Don’t touch it. Don’t acknowledge it. Because if I do, I might actually have to admit that something’s wrong. And admitting something’s wrong means stopping. Slowing down. Turning toward the fire instead of running through it.

And I don’t stop.

Across the room, Sebastian’s still planted on the couch like it’s his. Feet up, hoodie half-zipped, a protein bar in one hand and judgment in his eyes.

“You look like shit,” he says around a mouthful.

“Appreciate that.”

He tosses the wrapper toward the trash and misses. He doesn’t care. He never does. That’s the thing about Sebastian, he lives in chaos, but somehow, it never sticks to him. I build order out of chaos, and it’s killing me.

“You gonna sit there and ignore the fact that your watch sounds like a jackhammer? Your heart rate is out of control, man.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. You haven’t blinked in, like, five minutes.”

“I said I’m fine, Sebastian.”

He holds his hands up in mock surrender but doesn’t move. Whatever. I don’t have time for his shit today.

I turn back to the files spread across the table. Three stacks of IOUs. The usual academic cover-ups, exam swaps, admissions hacks. But now there’s a fourth pile forming. The ones I really don’t have time for. The impossible shit people bring me when I explicitly say I’m scaling back.

Chen, Melissa. Pre-med. DUI. Wants it gone. Like wiped-from-the-system gone. Which is laughable, but her father sits on the board at Havemeyer Memorial. The same hospital Pops is waiting for his insurance to approve an experimental therapy for.

So I work on the problem. Again.

Sebastian’s still watching me. “Whatever she’s offering, it’s not worth having your heart explode in the middle of a spreadsheet.”

I ignore him. I’ve gotten good at that. He knows better than to expect an answer when I’m like this.

“She’s not offering anything,” I mutter. “But her dad can get Pops moved up the list.”

That shuts him up for a second.

I flip through another folder. “People think just because I scaled back, now’s the time to challenge me.”

“To be fair, you did kind of vanish off the grid for a minute.”

“Yeah, and I still had three people ask me to fix their GPA averages last week. One guy wanted me to switch his major without seeing an advisor.”

Sebastian lets out a low whistle. “You’ve got the whole school hooked. Like academic cocaine.”

I huff a laugh. “I should start charging by the heartbeat.”

“That’s dark.”

“That’s business.”

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