Page 220 of Burn Bright
I want to live with my brothers.
I’ve always wanted to, really. I just never felt like I could until now.
“You’re setting your parachute on fire,” Harriet warns me. “They’re your fallback.”
She’s worried I’ll leave the city early if I don’t have alternate housing. “I won’t need one. I’ll be okay with my brothers,” I assure her. I don’t mention how I’m contemplating staying permanently. I might take her out to break the good news. “Before I forget.” I tug my phone out of my pocket, then send Harriet a contact.
Her cell lights up on the counter beside her. I smile as her big eyes grow into disco balls at the contact’s name. “What the fuck…no.”
“Yes.” I nod with a grin. “I’ve got the connections. One of which is a highly-respected concierge medical team. Physicians that you can shadow. You’ve already met Farrow after the escape room, now you have his number.”
After she told me the play-by-play of her meet up with her dad, I wanted to knock him out. I hope to never run into him because I might. I don’t trust myself. I wish it struck me sooner that Farrow was an option right there, all this time, but maybe it’s good Harriet closed the chapter with her dad. Her goals in medicine no longer have to be tangled with him.
She hasn’t blinked yet.
I heard all about Tom asking Harriet to join The Carraways. She wanted my input, but I’m not much help. I can easily picture Harriet being extraordinary as a rock star or as a doctor—both paths fulfilling her, both paths making her happy.
She’s been firmly fifty-fifty split down the middle. At a significant fork in the road. Music or medicine. Where she goes will determine her entire future, but it shouldn’t change our relationship much. I’ll be beside her no matter what she does.
Unless I leave.
WhatIdecide about my plan will be the course-corrector, the thing that truly impacts us. I don’t love wielding that much power in a relationship, but then again, I would be more panicked if I didn’t have control.
I have no clue what that says about me. That I’m a control freak?
I see her mind reeling. “I won’t be the one to call Farrow,” I tell her. “It’s your choice.”
She picks up her phone. “Is this your way of telling me to choose medicine?”
“No, I just want to make things easier if you decide to be a doctor. No pressure at all, but that window is cracked for you, bel oiseau. Fly through if you want to.”
“Thanks, Ben.” It’s so soft and sincere, my ribs relax around my lungs hearing it. “I’m collecting numbers in your fam like Pokémon.”
“You going to catch them all?” I tease.
“Maybe.” Her teeny-tiny smile peeks through, and I dip my head down, kissing her lightly, tenderly, my blood coursing through me in fervent, passionate waves. I still hold her delicate jaw when I break our lips apart.
“I am spending the night at my apartment,” she saysagain.
“You telling me or yourself?”
“Both.” She needs to finish writing her final essay for Classical Mythology in the morning, and her place does have less distractions.
I still haven’t started my paper. But I figure I’ll take the subway with her, make sure she gets home okay, then go to the frat house from there.
Harriet scoops the stuffed lion off the counter, his neck blinged out with a beadedCobalt Empirechoker. “You’re not giving Son of Ben back. We’re keeping him. Because trust me, you don’t want to be the father that ditches their kid.”
“Noted,” I nod, looking her over. “I’ll be in and out tonight. I’ll let you know how it goes?—”
“How what goes, brother?” Eliot saunters in the kitchen. Snatching a red apple from a fruit bowl, he leans over the island and takes a bite.
Fuck. I comb a hand through my hair, and Harriet slides off the counter while I spin toward him. “I’m dropping out of the frat tonight.”
“Say no more.” Eliot straightens up. “I’ll grab my coat?—”
“Alone.” Likeveryalone. I planned to not alert Novak. Eliot is already opening the coat closet. “Alone, Eliot!” For fuck’s sake.
I hear Charlie. “That word has lost meaning to him since Tom entered the world.” He appears from his side of the apartment and slings a travel duffel on his shoulder.
