“So maybe it’s for the best. Since you’re leaving at the end of the year and all.”
My hackles went up at the idea of giving up on Harper, leaving her out in the cold again, fighting alone. “Or perhaps I couldtryto have one proper date with her before I map out the rest of my life?”
I stopped. Easton was watching me with raised brows.
“You’re a wily one, aren’t you?” I laughed.
“I try. That came for you,” he said, jerking his chin at a package on our kitchen counter. “Birthday?”
“Not until next month,” I said with a sinking feeling. The package was covered in international postage.
I got up and took a knife to the thick tape and unwrapped a leather-bound encyclopedia with gold sprayed edges,Greatest Scientific Mindsembossed on the front. A note tucked in the pages, in Father’s neat script. Cursive was my brain’s least favorite thing to decipher, and I was too tired right now.
“Shit, fuck, bollocks.”
“So it’s good news,” Easton deadpanned.
“You tell me. Would you do the honors?” I handed the note to him. “Aloud, please, so I can brace for presumption of success before I’ve even actually done anything.”
He looked at me funny. “Um, sure.”
Orion,
You will take your place among the greats, we have no doubt.
Good luck on the Novus Prize for Scientific Innovation. We’recounting on you to do our family proud.
Love,
Father, Mum, Odin, & Octavian
“Damn.” I sank back into the chair. “I’ve been hoping to avoid entering a certain science contest. My parents, apparently, have other ideas.”
“Isn’t your familyinthe sciences? Or…chemicals?” Easton barely hid his smile. “Pesticides, wasn’t it?”
“Do I detect a hint of smart-ass?” I snatched back the note. “So youdohave a personality. You’ve been holding out on me, Locke, thank the gods. I thought I was doomed to spend the year with a stiff. And yes, we’rein chemicals, but this contest has prizes in cash and a leg up at a university. Two things I don’t need.”
“You don’t say.”
“I’m a paragon of honesty.” I tore the note into little pieces, making a neat pile on the coffee table. “They want me to win it for the prestige, but there are students who could actually use the rewards.”
Harper Bennett, for instance.
Not only might Harper need the reward, she’d be offended if I didn’t do my utmost to be a worthy competitor. But I already had a headache just thinking about the work I’d have to put in on such a project. And for what? Another trophy in a case to gather dust. Another meaningless notch on the old Mercer bedframe.
Nailed another one, didn’t we?
“But you’re not going to enter,” Easton said, eyeing the pile of scraps.
“I’m going totrynot to,” I said. “I’ll conveniently forget to sign up and pray the deadline passes before Mum and Dad contact me again.”
“You’re one of those, eh? Beholden to the family?”
“You’re not?” I leaned my arms on my knees. “Now that we’ve analyzed my love life and family pressures, would you care to have alittle bit of getting-to-know-you chitchat? Seeing as we’re stuck with each other.”
Staring at me from across his computer, Easton looked so young—a baby face with hard-as-glass eyes that had seen a lot in his sixteen or seventeen years.
“Am I beholden to my family?” he mused. “If there was something I could do or say that would cause my parents to forever turn their back on me, I would do it in a heartbeat.”
