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"Want," I corrected him. "I still want that. And I’m going to do it, too, just as soon as my father can accept that I’m going to be okay actually existing out in the world."
"You could do that while we were with you," he offered, but I shook my head.
"No, I couldn’t," I pointed out. "What kind of patrons are going to want to come into a store that has two bodyguards on the door? It’s going to scare everyone away. Or remind them what family I’m a part of, anyway."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"In the line of work, I want to get into?” I replied. "Yeah, it is. I just...I want a chance to do something on my own terms, you know? Not with my father’s legacy hanging over my head the whole time."
"I know how that feels," he muttered. My forehead creased.
"I’m sorry," I murmured. "I didn’t...I didn’t mean to bring all of that up for you..."
He shook his head.
"It’s not your fault," he replied. "And it’s not what we’re talking about, anyway. Where were you going to open your bookstore?"
"I hadn’t decided yet," I admitted. "I thought somewhere on the East side, you know, close to the universities? So I could stock books in there for students, I thought it would be a good way to keep the place afloat..."
"I like that idea," he remarked, offering me a smile. "Open a little coffee shop on the premises, you’d have something really nice."
"Yeah, I guess I would," I replied, biting my lip as I pondered it. I had been trying my best not to get too caught up in the thought of what it might be, what my dream bookstore might look like, but standing here with him, it was hard to deny the vivid image of it that filled my imagination already. I could almost smell the scent of the coffee hanging in the air, and hear the rustling of the pages as patrons leafed through their potential purchases...
"What about you?" I asked, turning my attention back to him. "What do you have planned? After this, I mean? My father must be paying you well..."
"He is," he agreed, nodding. "I...I haven’t thought a whole lot about what I’m going to do next, honestly. I guess take some time off. Maybe travel."
"You want to travel?”
He nodded.
"I always dreamed about it when I was a kid," he explained. "I had this beat-up old globe in my room, probably left there by someone who used to live in the building before us. And I would spin it and pick out places with my eyes closed, and try to imagine what they would be like if I finally made it there."
The thought of it made something pang in my chest – the thought of a little version of him, dreaming of a life outside the confines of his home, outside the addiction of his parents. I hated that he’d had to go through that, hated that he’d had to grow up so soon.
"Where do you think you’ll go first?" I wondered. He tapped his finger on his chin, pondering.
"I don’t know," he replied, flashing me a grin. "I think I’ve heard some good things about Budapest."
I laughed.
"Oh, yeah, you’d love it there," I told him.
"Would love to go with someone who knows it well," he hinted. My heart fluttered at the thought. Taking that kind of trip with him did sound nice. Maybe it was crazy to think like that, given that we had barely known each other a month and a half, but still...
"What about Alex?" I asked him. "You think he’d want to travel, too?"
"Oh, God, no," Solomon replied, shaking his head, as though it should have been obvious. "I think he did all the traveling he wanted when he was in the army."
"Oh, of course," I murmured, biting my lip. "He...he really went through something out there, didn’t he?"
Solomon’s face darkened.
"Yeah," he replied. "He hasn’t talked to me a whole lot about it, but from what I understand...he lost his whole unit. He was the only survivor of an attack on their base camp, and he barely made it out alive. And when he got back, the government, they all but abandoned him – didn't want to deal with him, because it would mean admitting all the ways that they fucked up."
My eyes widened.
"That’s horrible," I breathed.
