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CHAPTER 3

HOLDEN

Iwent to Tasha’s study group because she’d asked me three times, reminding me again during our ethics lecture this morning and then texting me just to make sure I hadn’t forgotten. The girl was like a dog with a bone.

On the other hand, the textbook for this class had cost around the same as a small kidney. It seemed ethics at master’s level required an intense financial commitment, which was probably why she was so determined to pass.

God only knew, if I had to buy a new textbook for the same class next year, Jane was going to sit me down and tear me a new one. I turned another page of the unreasonably expensive book, wondering if at some point, I was going to come across gold or diamonds in these pages.

So far, I hadn’t had any luck on that front, but neither had any of the other six graduate students sitting around the scarred table in a study room at the library with me. Tasha leaned over as I skimmed the chapter we were supposed to be working our way through, evidently more concerned about getting people here than caring about what happened after we’d actually arrived.

She set down her highlighter and focused completely on me. “Can I ask you something?”

“No.”

She sighed, glancing back down at her notes before going ahead and asking anyway. “Are you related to the Thayers, as in, the Thayer family?”

For a fraction of a heartbeat, I felt every muscle in my body lock up, but as soon as I realized it had happened, I forced myself to relax. “There are a lot of Thayers in Chicago.”

That was a lie. There weren’t a lot of Thayers anywhere, but I’d played this game before.

Unfortunately, Tasha didn’t have enough of a sense of propriety to let me get away with it, which was a pity. Most people did. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and slowly raked them across my face. “That’s not very convincing.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m not applying for a job with you.” I dropped my gaze back to my stupidly priced textbook and started reading again, but she still wasn’t giving up.

“My roommate got invited to dinner at a Thayer’s house.”

Before I could stop myself, my eyes shot over to hers. “She did?”

“Yeah.”

“Congratulations?” I said, wondering why any of my siblings would’ve invited this girl’s roommate over. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Alicia was super nervous about it,” she explained. “I figured it might make her feel better if I could text her that you were related to this other Thayer and that you’re okay. Grumpy as fuck, but not a bad person at least.”

I sighed. “Tasha?”

“Yeah?”

“Study,” I said firmly, not even interested enough to ask which Thayer we were talking about here.

My best guess was that Ryan and his wife, Maggie, were in town, and that she’d befriended a random college student. Age-wise—and Maggie-wise—it fit. Maggie was around the same age as me, and whenever they were here, she talked to everybody.

Thankfully, I stopped having to try to figure it out when Tasha dropped the subject and went to her textbook too, highlighting just about every sentence as she read. For the next couple hours, none of us talked about anything that wasn’t relevant to the course, and by the end of our session, I was surprised at how much I’d actually learned with these people.

They might not be able to disagree without eventually raising their voices and a couple of them would’ve been able to go on all night about moral philosophy, but all things considered, it had been worth coming.

As one of the guys closed his laptop, he looked around the table and grinned. “Anyone up for a beer? I think we’ve earned it.”

Several people agreed on autopilot, but I shook my head. “Sorry. I can’t.”

Tasha laughed. “Come on. It’s one beer.”

“If those aren’t famous last words,” I said. “Come tomorrow morning, at least one of you will be waking up somewhere you don’t recognize.”

She groaned. “Yeah, and that person will probably be me, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

“That’s right. I don’t have to worry about it. Because I’m not going.”