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I sought out our instructor, told him Peter’s request, and he nodded. “Yes. Yes, indeed. Go and wait. We’re going over a few items before he comes in, but I’m sure you’ve already read them, so you won’t miss a thing.”
Like my advisor, my instructors were quick to realize I was ahead in the class. I knew word got around among the professors about my photographic memory, and after the first week of watching, making sure I didn’t take that gift for granted and that I read ahead, and read ahead a lot, all of them eased up on me. Not that I’d been worried. But there was a stereotype of gifted people purposefully pissing away their talent.
I wasn’t going to do that. Ever.
I’d lived on the other side, with a single mom who worked double shifts four out of seven nights a week. She worked. She suffered. She sacrificed.
Setting my things down at my normal computer, I took my coffee and phone and went to the hallway to wait.
Hoda was coming in as I was leaving.
We both stopped.
“Oh.” Hoda’s surprise closed down, her eyelids shuttering. “Sorry.” Liam was coming in right after her.
He stopped, stared at me, a slow blink. “Sorry about being an ass Friday night.”
“You weren’t an ass to me.”
“It was your man’s place. Your brother I was mouthing off to.” He crossed his arms over his chest and gazed down to the floor. His jaw clenched. “I’d be massively stupid to piss off the Francis family. A guy like me, I don’t look like a computer person. I look like a jock. I was a jock. I was supposed to go pro, until I blew my knee out in a basketball injury. Thank fuck it happened early in my undergrad so I was able to process and get smart. Computers are the only other thing I’m good at, so I don’t want to fuck up my future a second time.” That tic again from his jawline. “I’m sorry. Can you relay that to your man and your brother?”
“Kash didn’t pay attention to you on Friday. He knows you exist. He knows everyone in the room behind us. But what you did Friday night didn’t even filter in with him. He’s got bigger opponents to demolish. I’m not saying that to be a dick. Just reality.”
Liam grinned at the word demolish.
“And as for Matt … He liked you.”
His grin vanished. “You serious?”
I nodded, sighing a little. “Matt’s got a warped idea of fun. You made that night fun for him.”
“He’s got his eye on Melissa.”
“He does.” It was what it was. “I tell him to back off and he’ll take it as a challenge. It’s gotta run its course. All I can say.”
He nodded, his eyes thoughtful. “I get that.” He squinted at me, his head cocked to the side. “That mean we’re going to see more of your brother?”
“Yeah.” I grinned.
He grinned, too. “Then I better figure out how to handle a future billionaire playboy.”
My stomach shrank a little at that phrase, but it was true.
It was something that’d been on my mind, but I hadn’t been really giving it much attention. Money. Matt, Seraphina, Cyclone, They all had trust funds set in place. I knew Matt was already getting money from one of his. Peter had money. He had a lot of money. But there’d been no mention of any of that money coming to me.
I didn’t know if I wanted to broker that conversation. I didn’t know if I even wanted any of his money.
But I grew up poor. Both Chrissy and I were staying in places where we weren’t paying the bills. We were getting access to transportation, food. We could pick up a phone and call for anything to be delivered to us. But it wasn’t our money.
That meant something to me, and I knew without even talking to my mom that it meant something to her. I didn’t know how she was handling it, but she had a job she could go back to. Thinking of that, I didn’t know what she was doing. I should know this, but the thought of talking to her about it made my head start swimming. Waves of pressure forced me back down and I gave up the thought.
As soon as I did, I was able to break the surface again. I didn’t feel like I was drowning.
That brought me back to me.
Anything could happen.
Kash could decide he suddenly didn’t want me. I could get cast out. Chrissy could get cast out. Peter could decide he didn’t want us in the family after all.
These were all probably not going to happen, but plan for the end of the world. That’s what Hayes women did, because we’d had a few brushes with the end of the world.
