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Our contract was designed to make us look rich while keeping us broke.

There is one thing I own outright, the one asset with my name clean on the deed, but there’s no way in hell I’m selling that.

Which leaves exactly one door.

My grandfather, Patrick Fox. The Trust he left for me that I swore to my parents I didn’t need and want.

It has a clause. It’s ironic how right now my whole life is currently governed by clauses—the leash my grandfather wrote in legal language and called a gift. A college education first. Then the money. Aka prove you’re not the disappointment we’ve been bracing for, jump through the hoop, and we’ll release the money.

I think about the campus two miles from the house I grew up in. No. Absolutely not.

There has to be another way.

I spend all night finding none.

“Fuck,” I say out loud to the nice empty room.

And then I take out my phone and call my little brother. Drew answers. I make my voice easy and light

“Hey,” I say. “Weird question. Does dear old Dad still golf with the admissions guy at University of Mountain Springs?”

Chapter Three

September /// Cal

“Oh my GOSH! Is that Callum FO⁠—”

Fuuuuuck.

Cap down. Corner. Go.

I don’t need the rest of that sentence. I’ve heard a thousand versions of it, and it never ends anywhere good.

The girls—two of them, I think—go quiet behind me. I know better than to trust that. Quiet doesn’t mean they’ve given up. Quiet means they’re planning.

I check over my shoulder.

Shit.

Speed-walking. Phones up. Already filming. You’d think people would clock how it looks, hunting a stranger across a campus with a camera.

I used to have security for this in LA. Big Pete would’ve handled this in four seconds.

The buildings ahead are red brick, red brick, red brick. Identical doors. Already one week on campus and I still can’t tell any of them apart—I once sat through ten minutes of the wrong lecture before I realized nothing being said had anything to do with theology.

I make a beeline for one that looks empty, then head to the end of the corridor before pausing.

The building’s quiet. Good.

Doors bang behind me. Not good.

I take the stairs two at a time, dive into the first room I find, and shut the door harder than I mean to.

I act before I can think, going under the nearest desk. Folded into a ball, knees to my chin, cap brim scraping the underside of the drawer.

The giggling reaches the corridor. Sneakers squeaking. Door handles rattling one by one down the hall, getting closer, and I’m holding my breath.

The handles pass my door. The giggling fades.