Almost as if my slightly offensive thoughts announced my arrival, Jamie lifted his head. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Instead of going to the desk near the window of his room, I came up beside his bed and sat down. “Whatcha doing?”
Jamie raised an eyebrow at me, as if to say,it’s obvious.
“I know.” I groaned as I folded my legs underneath me. “Spare me the sarcastic response. I’m just…”
“Bored?”
I plucked at the fabric of his dark brown duvet.More like I need a distraction.“A little.”
Jamie picked up his bookmark by his side, and I caught a flash of ink drawn on the paper—it kind of looked like an octopus—before he slid the cover of his book closed on it. “Tell me about your day. You were out with Daisy?”
“We went to play pickleball at the club. Lydia and Raelynn forced their way into our game.”
“Yikes.” Something tight filled his eyes. “Was Daisy… Did she say anything about last night?”
The tightness in Jamie’s gaze wasworry, winding around him and squeezing taut. “You should’ve told her in private, Jamie,” I said, trying not to sound too accusatory. “She shouldn’t have found out about Columbia that way.”
Jamie’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t know how to tell her.”
I understood it. How did you tell someone that you gave up on a dream you’d dreamt together? Life after high school. Mullhound had always been my future, and NYU had always been theirs. “I don’t think she’d be as upset if she’d been accepted to NYU,” I said.
“I know.” He let out a soft breath and then repeated, even quieter, “I know.”
Jamie looked so miserable, staring down at the cover of his book, that I circled the conversation back. “Carter was there today.” I picked at the stitching of his blanket with more fervor. “At the club. He asked me out on a date.”
Jamie’s hand came down over mine. “You put a hole in it, and you’re buying me another one,” he said, and then leaned back. “What did you say?”
“Of course I said yes.”
“Of course,” he echoed. He nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose I’ll allow it. Carter doesn’t look nearly fifty. Heck, he could pass for twelve.”
I snorted. “If he could pass for twelve, you could pass for ten.”
“Rude. And untrue. I’d be a very tall ten-year-old.”
I snorted again. “I kind of wished I’d known Mr. ASMR was a Pembleton, though.” Without the plucking to keep my fingers busy, I resumed chewingon the inside of my cheek. “It would’ve made my agonizing over meeting Dr. Pembleton simpler.”
“Simpler?”
“Now impressing him will be super easy.” And if I impressed him, and if he took me under his wing freshman year, that’d make Dad even more proud of me. Excited for my future. “People normally are impressed with me anyway.”
I’d been teasing with the last line, but Jamie frowned. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. It makes you sound stuck-up.”
A pang went through me, because I hadn’t even realized how snotty that’d sounded.You used to be more fun. “Sorry.”
Jamie moved his leg to nudge into my knee, his way of saying he hadn’t meant it as scoldingly as I’d taken it. That was one of the problems with the Alderton-Du Ponte world—it was easy to get sucked into it.
You only want him because you want to get an in with his father.
I drew in a sharp breath. “Would you defend my honor if someone was threatening it?”
Jamie immediately jumped into my hypothetical world. “Yourhonor? Defend it how?”
“I don’t know. Like… beat them up, I guess.” Except I couldn’t imagine Jamie throwing a punch at Beck.
And apparently, neither could Jamie. “Can’t I just talk to them?”
