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“Please, call me Scar.” I clink our glasses together, taking a large gulp from my glass. “How did you meet my brother?” I ask, hoping to lighten the mood.
“Ah, through Elliot and Charlie.” Her lips pull up in a smile, cheeks reddening as she asks her next question. “Hey, do you know why Elliot would call me Pixie?”
I snort, choking on my wine as I seem to inhale instead of exhaling at the wrong time. Wine starts to drip from my nose.
“Oh god, are you okay?” Nina grabs a napkin and hands it to me.
Did she say… “Sorry, did you sayPixie?”
“Yeah, since the first night I met Elliot, he’s called me Pixie.”
I hesitate, smiling beneath the napkin. God, those boys. You’d think they were five years old. “No, I’m afraid I don’t know, Nina.” I wipe the remnants from my chin as I shake my head.
“Wow,Scar. Are we really starting this friendship off on a lie?” Nina teases, reaching over to top up my glass with wine.
“Not my story.” I shrug with a smile before changing the subject to anything else. “You know, it’s nice to have a female around here. Some days I feel like saying screw it and finding myself a job.” I pause as guilt catches me off guard. Such a throwaway comment. And yet the truth in it… “I just can’t leave Dad right now.”
“Have you ever worked?” she asks, her face pinched as if she feels guilty for asking, but it doesn’t offend me.
“Nope, I feel like it’s too late now. I’m twenty-nine tomorrow, and I feel like my time to study has run out.”
Nina rears back. “Your birthday is tomorrow? And it’s not too late to study! This is the prime of your life.”
I chuckle at her enthusiasm and nod. “I wanted to be a doctor. Started studying medicine after college but dropped out when Dad got sick. I never really thought about going back,” I say, my chest aching with the lie.
“You should absolutely go back. Surely Mason could help you with your dad?” She pops her brows at me over the rim of her glass, but as if she thinks better of it, she drops the conversation. “What are your birthday plans?”
“Nothing really. Dad has an appointment at two, and I will need to drive him to that.”
“What about tomorrow evening? Will you be out with your girlfriends?”
“You mean the snooty girls who haven’t reached out since I left college?”
“Did you reach out?” she questions.
Crap. I shake my head sarcastically. “Just when I was starting to like you.”
Nina’s face lights up. “We are sooo going out!”
“Out? Out where?” My eyes bug out, but I wiggle on the chair, an excited ball of energy forming in my gut.
“Wherever you want. I have a morning class, but I could be here by twelve thirty. We could go anywhere.”
Dad’s appointment is at two, so I couldn’t leave until at least five once we’re home, and I’d have to get someone to be here for the night. Maybe Vinny. “What do you do?” I ask, feeling rude that I never asked.
“I have a dance studio in London.”
My eyes widen a fraction. “That’s amazing.” I smile in awe before my shoulders drop. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be so independent. To have something of my own. SomethingIworked hard for.
“Scarlet, I don’t want to impose.”
I catch her intuitive, assessing gaze. “But you’re about to anyway.” I nudge her with my elbow, my lips twisting in a knowing smile.
“If there was a way to go back to med school, would you go?”
I snigger, my heart somersaulting. “I couldn’t. My father doesn’t have his health anymore. Mase doesn’t get it.”
“And neither do I, so ignore me. But you shouldn’t put your life on hold for anybody else. Even if that person is your family.”
